Clipping: The creator economy's newest hit job?

Today’s Social Media advertising rates are buying back their masters:

↘️ META: $8.44 CPM | ↗️ TIKTOK: $5.44 CPM | ↘️ SNAPCHAT: $10.43 CPM

In this week’s edition: 

• 🚕 Uber’s backseat is open for business in NYC

• Discord sparks IPO rumors, opens new ad inventory 🎮

• 📍 Is Google Maps your next storefront?

But first…

✂️ Clipping: The creator economy's newest hit job?

“Clipping” is quietly becoming a key marketing strategy for some advertisers. The practice involves paying creators known as “clippers” to share short clips from longer content such as podcasts, livestreams, or YouTube videos on social media platforms, to boost the original content’s audience or promote a brand. 

• Compensation typically ranges from $1 to $5 per 1,000 views, with caps on total payouts. 

• While previously coordinated through private Discord servers, the launch of platforms like Whop has streamlined the process, making it more accessible to mainstream advertisers. 

• Despite its growing popularity, clipping remains largely unregulated. The FTC requires all paid ads on social channels to be explicitly disclosed, which puts clipping into a legal gray area.

The Inside Scoop🍦: Now trending in performance media

📍Google Maps just got a fresh infusion of Demand Gen. Promoted Pins—those tappable, image-rich markers designed to guide users straight to storefronts—are now surfacing in Maps through Demand Gen campaigns. Whether someone’s scouting a neighborhood, plotting a route, or exploring a local favorite, brands can now pop up in those micro-moments of intent. As Google insider Thomas Eccel put it: “With Display and now Maps inventory, Demand Gen is becoming closer to a PMax for mid funnel.”

⏰ TikTok has been officially banned in America for months, though the Executive branch continues to defy the U.S. Supreme Court and Congress in refusing to uphold the law. President Trump has twice set and then extended an artificial timeline for a TikTok sale. The next such marker arrives June 19, but Trump recently admitted that if it isn’t met, he will simply extend it again. As predicted in this newsletter, the sale of TikTok—the only lawful way for the app to continue operating in this country—has become a negotiating chip in global trade talks around American tariffs.

• Meanwhile, it’s business as usual: TikTok’s biggest product showcase of the year is being livestreamed this Tuesday, June 3, starting at 12:15 pm ET.

👽 Reddit has made its Dynamic Product Ads available to all advertisers. According to the company’s internal research, “advertisers who ran both Dynamic Product Ads and standard conversions campaigns saw 2x higher Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) with Dynamic Product Ads.”

• Dynamic Product Ads auto-populate in real-time, using images and pricing info from your product catalog alongside related subreddit conversations.

• The process also enables retargeting, so you can display products that users have previously engaged with, using both single image and carousel ads.

🎮 Discord is now testing In-Game Rewards: unskippable video ads that are tied to game-related perks and that pause when users tab away.

• Users can enable “In-Game Rewards” to receive promotions tailored to their gaming activity.

• Targeting is interest-based rather than identity-based, reducing privacy concerns and increasing contextual relevance.

Why we care: Chalk this up as a pivotal moment for brands hoping to reach Discord’s hard-to-access, ad-resistant Gen Z audience in a way that feels native to their first love: gaming.

⚪ Discord, perhaps in preparation for a potential IPO, also revealed this week that it is experimenting with a new virtual reward system that encourages users to engage with ads. These ad interactions unlock “Orbs,” which can be used to claim items in the Shop, such as Nitro credits (Discord’s paid subscription service) and profile enhancements.

But when? While we still don’t have a timeline on when Discord will open its platform to more advertisers, they did share: “Looking ahead, we will be expanding our Play Quest format—where users are rewarded for playing their favorite games—to support a wider range of brands and advertisers.” Stay tuned.

🚗 Uber is finally turning backseat time into prime ad time in New York City. Starting in June, its in-car ad network, JourneyTV, will begin rolling video ads on tablets installed in select NYC ride-share vehicles. What took them so long? The move follows an about-face by the New York City Council last year to lift a longstanding ban on in-car ads.

Spots will range from 15 seconds to full-length trailers, and Uber’s betting that personalization and control will help rewrite the “annoying ad” narrative. Riders and drivers can lower the volume or put the screen to sleep, while Uber says 98% of ads are viewed to completion, with average watch time approaching two minutes per ride.

Why it matters: This is a fresh screen—and a captive audience. A study from IPG’s Magna unit found that 74% of riders were interested in offers shown during the trip, and nearly 70% felt ads actually enhanced the experience.

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

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