Ads are rolling out on OpenAI—but not on this competitor

Today’s Social Media advertising rates are declaring a French Toast Alert:

↘️ META: $6.51 | ↗️ TIKTOK: $3.52 | ↘️ SNAPCHAT: $8.11

In this week’s edition: 

• 🧠 Ads are rolling out to OpenAI—but not this competitor

• Guess who X is losing to now? 🧵 

• 🎯 The new pixel that should make Meta nervous

But first…

⏰ What TikTok’s new deal means for advertisers

It’s the end of TikTok Death Watch as we know it. And we feel fine.

As you’ve no doubt seen by now, the long-delayed TikTok deal finally closed late last night, with a coalition of investors taking over an 80.1% share of a new American joint venture, in compliance with a 2024 law that sought to force an ownership change or else ban the app in the US. 

U.S. advertisers likely received the same email we did this morning, declaring it’s “business as usual” for brands. To keep campaigns running, the email says, “you do not need to take any action. The functionalities of our TikTok for Business products, including advertising…remain unchanged, and our users will continue to access and use TikTok through the existing app.” Officially, the new company is called TikTok USDS Joint Venture LLC, though our email also refers to BD TikTok USA LLC. 

For those of you who care about the deal: TikTok CEO Shou Chew said the “majority American owned joint venture will operate under defined safeguards that protect national security through comprehensive data protections, algorithm security, content moderation, and software assurances for US users.” Sounds groovy. On social media last night, US President Donald Trump thanked his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping for approving the deal. The company will be led by Chew’s deputy Adam Presser. And as previously reported, investors include Oracle (which gets a board seat), Silver Lake, and Abu Dhabi’s MGX. Those investors are paying the U.S. government a “multibillion-dollar” finders fee, according to the Wall Street Journal. 

Now the fun begins: Will anybody challenge the deal? 

One condition of the law is satisfied: yes, China now owns less than 20% of the company. But what about the other condition? According to press reports, the new company will license and “re-train” the TikTok algorithm, which remains under ByteDance’s control, an “arrangement [that] may fall short of the 2024 law,” according to the New York Times, since the law prohibits “any cooperation” with respect to the operation of the algorithm.

Separately, and to the north: the Canadian Federal Court has overturned a government order to shut down TikTok's operations in that country, allowing the company to keep its offices and staff in Toronto and Vancouver—and cancelling a TikTok Death Watch sequel, at least for now.

⚖️ Verdict: we’d say TikTok Death Watch is mostly dead. On death support. But not dead yet.

The Inside Scoop🍦: Now trending in performance media

🧠 OpenAI officially confirmed it will begin testing impression-based ads in ChatGPT as early as next month—confirming the rumors we told you about last year. The company says ads won't influence the assistant's answers and will only appear when relevant to the conversation, clearly labeled and separate from responses. The test is limited—advertisers are committing "under $1 million" each, and there are no self-serve buying tools available yet.

👉 Meanwhile, Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis said Google has "no plans" to introduce ads into Gemini, emphasizing a focus on building a better assistant first. Monetization, he suggested, will wait until the technology matures. This is the second time Google leadership has publicly ruled out Gemini ads since December.

♾️ Meta announced that starting next week, ads on Threads will begin rolling out globally. After testing in select markets like the U.S. and Japan, this phased expansion gives advertisers access to more than 400 million users. And that’s timely, because…

🧵 Threads is quickly catching up to X and could overtake it this year: outside estimates already show more daily users on Threads. X is pushing back on this narrative, but its usage remains hard to verify since it's no longer publicly reporting data. For marketers, the priority remains audience engagement, and the center of real-time conversation is increasingly tilting toward Threads:

🧪 Is social media use bad for teens? That’s been the emerging consensus of regulators including the ones in Australia who passed a landmark ban on underage social media use. Now, Meta is beginning to push back on that narrative, claiming that the science doesn’t support that conclusion. In a newly published article, Meta asserts that its platforms provide positive opportunities for younger users and that social media is being targeted as a scapegoat. Meta claims that "narrowing the challenges faced by teens to a single factor ignores the scientific research and the many stressors impacting young people today, like academic pressure, school safety, socio-economic challenges, and substance abuse."

🔎 Google Ads has expanded total campaign budgets to Search & Shopping. While this feature has long been available on Performance Max, its rollout to Search will make managing short-term campaigns easier and help simplify overall campaign budgeting.

🎲  Google is now allowing ads for prediction markets in the U.S., but only from federally regulated entities. Advertisers must be authorized by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission as a Designated Contract Market or registered with the National Futures Association, and must apply for Google certification to run ads.

☎️ Google is also officially retiring Call-Only Ads, with the ability to create new ads ending next month and full sunset by February 2027. Advertisers soliciting phone leads will need to transition to Responsive Search Ads with Call Assets.

💅 Pro Tip: Google has rolled out account-level placement exclusions, which apply across Performance Max, Demand Gen, YouTube, and Display campaigns. Previously, blocks had to be set at the ad group or campaign level. This is a meaningful workflow improvement if you're managing exclusions at scale.

⏰ TikTok is introducing a pixel that could change everything. It’s part of the launch of a new measurement tool called Off-Site Performance Analysis, designed to track indirect sales driven by both paid ads and organic content. Using a pixel, the tool connects activity across ads, organic posts, Lives, and TikTok Shop to purchases made on a brand's own website for up to 30 days after exposure. TikTok is also introducing the "Off-site Effect Ratio," which measures the correlation between TikTok engagement and external web revenue.

• 💡 Why it matters: This is TikTok's attempt to prove what many advertisers have long theorized: that TikTok generates significant demand that later converts on search engines or DTC sites. Proving this theory would allow the platform to compete more directly with Meta and YouTube on incrementality. 

🎯 TikTok also announced updates to its AI-powered Smart+ campaign type, including duplication, draft mode, automated rules, bulk editing, and the ability to preview every possible creative combination before it goes live. These are table-stakes workflow improvements that bring Smart+ closer to parity with other automated campaign types.

⛰️ Paramount announced it’s adding programmatic access to live, in-game ad units within select premium sporting events, starting with Paramount+’s UFC debut (Pimblett vs. Gaethje this Saturday). 

• What’s new isn’t the ads themselves—it’s the ability to buy guaranteed placement programmatically, rather than booking directly through a sales team with long lead times and high minimums. 

• Paramount is enabling this via private marketplaces, allowing advertisers to bid through Amazon DSP and other major DSPs. 

💡 Why it matters: live sports has traditionally been some of the most locked-down, premium CTV inventory. This move lowers the barrier to entry and gives performance teams a new way to test live sports without upfront commitments.

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, Mariya Samardzhieva, Lara Spijkerman, and Carly Carioli.