Are ChatGPT ads going to be delayed?

Today’s Social Media advertising rates are gonna be, gonna be golden:

↗️ META: $13.33 | ↘️ TIKTOK: $2.98 CPM | ↘️ SNAPCHAT: $10.35 CPM

In this week’s edition: 

• 🔎 What you need to know about the new PMax updates

• Can “Topic Chats” save Snapchat? 👻

• 🎥 Is Netflix about to swallow Warner Bros?

But first…

🧠 Those ChatGPT ads are probably going to be delayed

The big headline this week was OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman issuing a “code red” to make ChatGPT better than its rivals at Google and Anthropic — while shifting resources away from other priorities at the company, including its planned ad platform. Our takeaway: we’ve probably got a longer wait coming for ChatGPT’s ad platform.

And yet: this week we also learned that ChatGPT’s code base is already being prepped for arrival. An engineer discovered lines of code within the popular AI tool with strings for “search ads” and “search ad carousels.” As many observers have noted, the battle for AI dominance may come down to the question of which happens faster: Google becomes ChatGPT, or ChatGPT becomes Google. ChatGPT, the fastest growing software product of all time, currently has 800 million weekly users—but Google has reportedly been closing the gap, with monthly active users growing from 450 million over the summer to 650 million in October, and recent benchmarks suggesting that Google’s Gemini is surpassing ChatGPT in intelligence.

The Inside Scoop🍦: Now trending in performance media

🔎 Google rolled out a significant PMax update this week, giving advertisers much clearer visibility into where their dollars are actually working. The new reporting breaks out how Google Search performs relative to Search Partners, including total attributed spend and channel-level results—all previously not included in the PMax performance overview.

Additional PMax updates were unveiled around video. PMax now allows you to upload a video into a “Google-managed house channel,” rather than requiring you to link to a YouTube video. This gives advertisers without a YouTube channel a simpler way to use PMax. 

The catch: videos in the house channel don’t show up as regular YouTube uploads, so you lose analytics, can’t build remarketing audiences, and you have no ability to appeal ad rejections.

🎯 On the YouTube front, Google is preparing to launch Partner Match, a new targeting option that lets advertisers use third-party partner data to build custom audiences for YouTube campaigns. It will allow users to target these matched segments across Video Reach campaigns, Video Views campaigns, and Demand Gen campaigns (YouTube channel only). 

💅 Pro Tip: Google is rolling out automatic linking between YouTube channels and Google Ads accounts when its systems detect a strong data relationship between the two. Admins and channel owners receive an email 30 days before the link is created, giving them the option to opt out or link early.

👻 Snapchat is introducing a new “Topic Chats” section to the platform in an effort to combat waning user growth in the U.S. and EU. This addition will allow users to engage in trending conversations and chat publicly with other Snapchat users. The change could expand ad-targeting options on Snapchat, since the new Topic Chats should surface more data about users’ interests, giving advertisers more ways to target based on topic-based activity.

👽 Reddit is sharing additional details on its new Interactive Ads placement. There are two options to choose from, depending on campaign scope and lead time. Reminder: these are still in beta, and pricing will likely evolve as it rolls out more widely. 

• Custom: with this option, the sky’s the limit! Reddit requires a 10-week lead time to help build creative interactive assets (including games and puzzles). In beta, expect a higher minimum spend.

• Templated: this option requires less lead time—typically 4 weeks—and a lower minimum. Think of it as closer to a self-serve route, with formats limited to a quiz or a countdown timer for the time being.

🌍 Universal Ads now lets you exclude content genres ad the ad set level, giving us an added layer of brand safety. You can also opt in to serve on certain content genres as well (for NBCU/Peacock content only).

🍿 Netflix at press time appeared to be the winner of the bidding war for the Warner Brothers/Discovery catalogue, in a deal reportedly worth $83 billion. Comcast and Paramount were the other suitors. The deal still needs approval from government regulators. Paramount had argued that a Netflix/WB merger would “never close” due to regulatory concerns. And if the deal does in fact fail to close over those regulatory concerns, Netflix would owe Warner Bros a $5.8 billion “break fee.” 

According to AdWeek, the deal could boost Netflix’s ambitions by addressing one of the streamer’s biggest advertiser requests: “to get advertisers closer to the content.”  

AdWeek reports that Netflix “has implemented AI to put advertisers within the worlds of shows and has created more brand deals that put brands within the IP…With WBD’s assets, Netflix could bring the worlds of Harry Potter and Game of Thrones to its advertising. Notably, WBD also already has its Storyverse ad offering, which allows brands to tap into its more nostalgic IP, such as When Harry Met Sally or Friends.”

Both the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal noted that regulatory approval could be complicated by President Trump’s close relationship with Paramount chief executive David Ellison’s father, Oracle co-founder and executive chairman Larry Ellison, who has been in talks with the administration to help U.S. investors acquire TikTok from ByteDance. 

🧪 In the lab: Reels Trending Ads

We’ve been telling you about Meta’s Reels Trending Ads — same concept as TikTok Pulse, but for Reels — but we’ve finally had some hands-on time to play with them. Some logistical callouts:

• Unlike TikTok Pulse, your campaign can be reserved to start the same day. 

• They can only be optimized for reach at the moment. 

• You can boost existing posts, partnerships, or create dark ads.

• These can be terminated if needed. 

• You can drive to a link or none at all. 

• You must run for a minimum of 1 week. 

• You can update your reservation after you publish, allowing you to make changes to targeting, flight, and budget.

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.