Facebook: It’s not just for olds anymore?

Today’s Social Media advertising rates are spooky:

↗️ META: $8.73 CPM | ↗️ TIKTOK: $5.04 CPM | ↘️ SNAPCHAT: $8.66 CPM

In this week’s edition: 

• 🔗 LinkedIn’s puzzling engagement strategy

• The rise and fall of Google Branded Keywords 🔎

• 🚨 Ever wanted to turn off the comments on an Instagram ad? Meta is now testing it.

But first…

♾️ Facebook: It’s not just for olds anymore?

Facebook says there are now 40 million young adults using Facebook across the US and Canada every day, the highest level in more than three years. Meta says it is seeing users of all ages spend more time in the app due to AI-recommended content—Reels consumption alone is up 20 percent. To build on their youthful momentum, Facebook announced it is rolling out additional updates including:

• New “Local” and “Explore” tabs, which will incorporate content from Reels, Marketplace, Groups, and Events.

• A fresh push for Facebook Dating, via a new element called “Matchmaker” which enables you to invite up to five friends to swipe for potential matches on your behalf. (Please somebody make this a game show.) Meta says that Facebook Dating conversations have increased 24% year-over-year.

• An updated, full-screen “Video” tab—which is essentially TikTok within Facebook, which looks like this:

The Inside Scoop🍦: Now trending in performance media

⏰ TikTok took advantage of Advertising Week to reveal a slew of new announcements, starting with a big new flashy addition: Smart+, the platform’s predictive AI-powered answer to Google’s PMax and Meta’s Advantage+. Now vastly expanded, Smart+ replaces TikTok’s Smart Performance, which supported only Android App Promotion campaigns. The new expansions include automated Smart+ campaigns for web, catalog, app, and lead-gen objectives. 

And that’s not all. TikTok’s Advertising Week rollouts also included: 

• Automated Gross Merchandise Value (GMV) Max campaigns for TikTok Shop

• “Out of Phone,” an “in-store digital advertising solution” that “allows retailers and brands to showcase organic and branded TikTok content in retail locations”

• Conversion Lift studies opening up to all

• New data privacy technology to protect first-party data

🐞 Going in the opposite direction: TikTok’s rollout of Info Cards, a new Dynamic Add-On for Video Shopping Ads (VSA) campaigns, has been temporarily paused due to a bug.

Meta was at Advertising Week too. Three things we’re particularly excited about:  

• Meta is expanding its generative AI tools to include video. This includes “Video Expansion,” which will automatically switch a video’s aspect ratio a la Image Expansion; and “Image Animation,” which will generate video creative from a static image. 

• Meta is also trying to help more advertisers capitalize on the performance improvement seen with partnership ads by streamlining the partner permissions process and offering partnership collection ads.

• As part of a suite of new “brand suitability controls” announced at Advertising Week, Meta announced it is “testing a new control that allows businesses to turn off the comments on their Facebook and Instagram ads.” This has only rolled out to a “limited” number of advertisers—but stay tuned! 

👉 Oh also, ICYMI: When optimizing for reach or video views, Meta is automatically removing the headline and CTA on Facebook ads. For a user to go to the advertiser landing page, they’d first need to click into the asset and then click the CTA button.

• Keep in mind that this is likely to reduce LCTR and increase CPLC in these campaigns. Our recommendation: Make sure the post copy and asset showcase the main message/action clearly.

🔗 Q: Why is LinkedIn playing games with you? 

A: Because you love to play games on LinkedIn. After launching its initial slate of puzzles back in May, LinkedIn says that its puzzle games are doing well, with 80% of users who play a game returning to play the following day, and 76% coming back again a week later. This week, they added another game called “Tango.” 

• Also added: new achievements, and comparative scores to show users how they compare to other players of each game.

🎮 Discord is still limiting their ads business to gaming advertisers, but they are officially expanding to a second ad format called Video Quests. These ads will reward viewers with an in-game item for watching a video ad, and are being sold via managed service on a CPM basis.

🔎 Branded keywords on Google Search used to be a reliable, affordable way to attract high-value customers. But in the past year, they have become much more expensive, particularly in industries like legal services, where CPCs have more than doubled compared to 2023. SearchEngineLand digs into why Google’s push for PMax and AI-driven auctions are inflating costs and reducing efficiency.

🐭 Disney Campaign Manager rolled out a new-and-improved update on October 1st. You can now set custom frequency caps, add up to 20 line items per campaign for easier creative sequencing and budget distribution, and use third party measurement pixels.

🫰Snapchat announced it is testing Promoted Places to highlight destinations on the Snap Map. Early partners are McDonald’s and Taco Bell.

🐘The Elephant In the Room: Our weekly office poll!

The highlight of our early October — besides the apple cider doughnuts — is Pinterest’s annual Halloween Trend Report, the ultimate guide to What The Kids Are Up To These Days.

Among the many, many juicy nuggets inside, we learn that “users are leaning into pop culture with searches for ‘it girl halloween costumes’ up 170% since last year, celebrating rising new pop stars and icons with signature style.” That’s right: We have a new Halloween related proxy metric for celebrity! Inject it directly into our veins!

Which leaves just one question, drawn from Pinterest’s most-searched costumes:

📊 Last edition’s poll results: What’s your favorite Food That Wouldn’t Exist Except For Marketing? 

🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️ Cheezit Crunchwrap Supreme 

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Kelce Brothers Cereal 

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ Coke Oreos

🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️ Snapple-flavored Sour Patch Kids 

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Cheetos Mac N Cheese

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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