7 key takeaways from Meta’s Agency Summit

Today’s Social Media advertising rates are thinking the Halloween decorations went up too early:

↗️ META: $12.71 | ↗️ TIKTOK: $2.71 | ↘️ SNAPCHAT: $12.64

In this week’s edition: 

• 👻 Snapchat goes gaga for microdrama

• ChatGPT tests sponsored agents 🧠

• 📌 Pinterest wants to know what caught your eye

But first…

♾️ 7 things you need to know from Meta’s Agency Summit

Meta held its Agency Summit this week, giving us a rare glimpse behind the curtain. Here are seven themes and updates from the event:

1. The art of orchestration. Whither agencies in the age of increasing automation? Meta says it now sees agencies as marketing “orchestrators,” bringing AI, creative, execution, and measurement together. The age of agencies as mere “media executors” is over. 

2. Tell Meta what the client values. The algorithms work better when we’re able to define the KPIs, including incremental attribution, value rules, and custom attribution.

3. Measure beyond impressions and conversions when possible, especially incrementality.

4. Focus on catalog, AI connectors (MCP), and generative AI. For agencies looking to add value, Meta is leaning into the inputs and feedback loops.  

5. Watch the performance pipeline. Meta says it will soon be providing deeper visibility into performance drivers, benchmarking customer experience, and bidding forecast insights.

6. Watch creator tools, too. Meta made a strong push for its Creator Marketing Hub and teased its Content Discovery API.

7. Instagram Live video ads: Meta said they will become generally available September 29.

The Inside Scoop🍦: Now trending in performance media

♾️ Meta is beginning to show some ad headlines as bubbles/comments in Instagram feed and story placements. You’ll want to adapt your copywriting to fit this conversational visual format, but proceed with caution: the feature currently has a bug where headlines occasionally obscure the call to action (CTA) button.

👉 Ad limits per Page are being removed across ad accounts. This shift supports Meta’s push toward creative diversity and pressure to constantly feed in creative variation.

🧵 Meta is giving Threads more independence as an advertising platform, removing the requirement for advertisers to have a matching Instagram account or username. This opens the door to testing Threads as its own placement and audience opportunity, rather than simply treating it as an extension of Instagram.

• With Threads now reaching up to 500 million users, advertisers have an opportunity to tap into a large and distinct audience, particularly as user behavior and engagement can differ significantly from Instagram.

• The update is expected to roll out throughout the remainder of September.

📲 WhatsApp Status placement is now automatically included in new campaigns.

🎣 Meta announced new lead capture and conversion features:

• Email auto-correct is now on by default to automatically filter out 100% of email domains that cannot receive mail. It also suggests fixes to likely email domain typos, which users accept about 74% of the time.

• Leads can book an appointment directly from the thank-you page of an instant form without leaving the app, reducing drop-off between interest and first contact. Available with Calendly, HubSpot Meetings, and HighLevel.

• Lead gen ads can now automatically combine your brand story with the most relevant products or services from your catalog, personalized for each person. Advertisers are seeing 2.4% higher click-through rates.

🛍️ Starting September 21, Meta is introducing a single image variant for Advantage+ catalog ads using product video. This applies to advertisers who have checked the “Allow product video” toggle at the ad level. The variant will be ON by default for new and duplicate ads for most advertisers, who can edit and opt out at any time.

🎞️ When someone engages with an organic Reel featuring fashion, home, or beauty products, they may now see additional entry points that help them explore relevant products and make a purchase. These can appear through “Find similar” in the Options menu on an Instagram Reel or when pausing a Facebook Reel.

🖼️ Starting September 4, Meta rolled out collage to manual upload single media ads, following the recent rollout to carousel ads. Products and/or website highlights must be enabled in creative setup to qualify. Collage is ON by default for most advertisers, with an opt-out in format display options.

🤝 Meta introduced new ways to use partnership ads alongside Advantage+ catalog ads:

• Integrate partnership content directly into catalog, and run it as Advantage+ catalog single media and carousel ads to diversify creative and reach new audiences.

• Feature creator content as the hero of an ad while surfacing shoppable catalog products through collection, carousel intro card, and “Show Products” single media formats.

💅 Pro Tip: Meta moved “Show Details Over Time” to its own section under “Interactive Experiences.”

🔎 Google updated its bidding systems August 17 to make budget-limited campaigns using target-based bidding perform more consistently toward their stated targets. According to SearchEngineLand: “New post-update data suggests one consequence may be the end of bid suppression that previously helped those campaigns secure cheaper clicks and outperform their ROAS targets.”

🤖 Google is replacing publisher article slots in the Discover feed with AI-generated “Dive deeper” topic overviews, which it’s currently testing on videos.

• This introduces a zero-click experience into Discover. While the AI overview includes links to original reporting, satisfying user intent natively will drastically reduce outbound click-through rates.

• Google Discover is one of the last major organic traffic firehoses for publishers. This update threatens to choke that pipeline even more by keeping users inside the Google ecosystem.

🗣️ Google is rolling out an AI dubbing tool in Asset Studio that translates and dubs video ads into 33 languages for free. This allows media buyers to scale domestic video creative into international markets instantly, eliminating costly post-production and voiceover fees. Before scaling budgets into new locales, we recommend having a native speaker QA the AI dubbing to protect brand credibility.

💬 Google Ads expanded its Contact CTA capabilities to support WhatsApp and Messenger. This provides companies with a new way to connect with potential customers, particularly for lead gen focused campaigns.

💅 Pro Tip: Google updated its guidance for Smart Bidding learning periods, saying bid strategies can take up to around 50 conversion events or three conversion cycles to calibrate after a change, although campaigns with sufficient historical conversion data may learn faster. This changes previous guidance, which described the learning period primarily in terms of elapsed time and conversion cycles.

⏰ TikTok follower targeting for creator accounts is expected to become available by the end of this year, according to our sources. 

🎧 Spotify is testing delaying new music releases to its free user base, currently only in India. It will be worth watching whether this rolls out globally, as it will likely push free users off the platform and/or increase Premium subscriptions.

👻 Snapchat highlights growing interest in microdramas with a new report showing the quickly rising popularity of short-form, highly serialized videos that use soap-opera-style storytelling.

• 42% of Snapchatters watch microdramas daily.

• 61% of microdrama viewers report watching more content now than they did a year ago, among viewers who have been watching microdramas for at least one year.

• Microdramas are highly social, with viewers often sharing clips and discussing episodes with friends, helping drive continued engagement.

• For brands, the trend creates opportunities to sponsor existing microdramas or develop their own episodic content, incorporating brand messaging into entertaining, story-driven formats.

📌 Pinterest is launching Visual Search Ads, letting advertisers reach consumers based on what they’re looking at, not just what they type. The AI-powered ads will let advertisers bid for top placements that send users to their websites while they actively search for products.

• Pinterest says the vast majority of searches on the platform are visual, and more than half have commercial intent.

• Visual Search Ads will enter beta for eligible advertisers across all Pinterest advertising markets in the coming weeks.

Pinterest’s new predictive optimization tool offers a way to assess campaign setup and drive down campaign costs. Its AI-powered “campaign optimization score” in Ads Manager grades setup against platform best practices, giving you a predictive read on how well ads will perform before they run. The tool is designed to drive adoption for Pinterest Performance+ campaigns. To get a high score, you are required to give up manual control and use broad targeting, unconstrained budgets, and five or more distinct ads per group.

🧠 ChatGPT is expanding its ads for select advertisers in a very limited alpha to conversations with Sponsored Agents. Users click on an ad and are directed to a chat where they can ask questions about a business’s products or services. They are not currently accepting requests to join early access.

🐭 Disney+ has revised its subscriber agreement to allow promotional content, sponsorships, and certain advertisements across every subscription tier, including premium “ad-free” plans.

• While on-demand movies and shows may remain largely uninterrupted, subscribers could see pre-roll and post-roll ads, sponsored segments, and promotional content, particularly within live streams, special events, and channel programming.

• The changes are expected to take effect within 30 days of notification to users.

• Junior Mode profiles will remain completely exempt from commercial ads and sponsor placements.

Thanks for reading! We’ll be back next week to fill your inbox with more tips, tricks, and treats from the addressable universe.

In the meantime, stay up to date with the latest performance marketing intelligence by following us on Linkedin, Instagram, and X.

This week’s edition of the Thread was created by Jess Dashner, Anoushka Madan, Kayleigh McDonald, Kiara Quigley, Lara Spijkerman, Liana Giacobbe, Mariya Samardzhieva, and Carly Carioli.