Search is cooked. Here’s what’s next.

Today’s Social Media advertising rates are throwing shrimp on the barbie:

↘️ META: $8.82 | ↘️ TIKTOK: $3.48 | ↘️ SNAPCHAT: $7.25

In this week’s edition: 

• 📊 Why the LiveRamp deal is making hold co’s nervous

• Warner Bros will let you pick the scene your ad appears in 🎥

• 🛍️ Shopify integration for your Reddit ads

But first…

🧠 Search is cooked. Here’s what’s next.

Let’s face it: the only news that matters this week is Google’s long-anticipated-but-finally-here pulling of the plug on traditional search, in favor of AI-driven tools that will transform the “search box”—and, in turn, the search industry—more than anything Google has done this century. (See “Inside Scoop” for the highlights.) Publishers are already bracing for a post-search world, with Conde Nast CEO Roger Lynch admitting his publications have been told to budget assuming zero search traffic.

What’s less clear is what all this means for the business of advertising and measurement. But some of the answers are coming into focus—thanks to three other Google announcements this week.

🔑 See you later, keyword reports. Google changed the fine print to say that Google Search Query Reports might stop showing the exact words people type into the search bar. Instead, Google is using AI to group searches by general meaning. Advertisers will see the idea of what people are looking for, but not the actual term.

🤖 Hello, LLM referrals. Futurists predict that soon, most web browsing will be agentic, not human. As the wise man once asked, How soon is now? This week, Google Analytics is already adding an AI Assistant channel that shows which LLMs are driving visits—and how ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini users convert and behave. 

💬 New ads for the AI age. Google has begun testing several new ad formats in both “standard” search results and AI mode—giving us an early preview of what’s likely to happen when the search bar goes agentic. According to the Wall Street Journal, new formats include: 

• “Direct Offers” ads that surface discounts, bundles, and travel deals tied to a user’s query

• “Conversational Discovery” ads that use Gemini to dynamically generate ad copy and visuals from a brand’s website and marketing materials

• AI-powered shopping ads that summarize and explain products directly within Search

• A new “business agent for leads” format that allows users to ask questions about a business or product within the ad experience itself.

The Inside Scoop🍦: Now trending in performance media

🔎 Google shocked the world, as you may have heard, by unveiling a transformational overhaul of its core Search products at its annual I/O conference this week. The update marks the biggest shift to the search box since it debuted over 25 years ago. Building on Google’s experiments with AI overviews and AI mode, Google unveiled a long-term plan to make AI technology broadly available—including Google’s personal AI agent, Spark. Among the new products coming soon: 

Redesigned Search Box: Instead of the traditional blue search links, users will increasingly see AI-powered interactive experiences, with a redesigned search box for longer, more conversational queries.

🕵️ Information Agents: This summer, Google is rolling out “information agents”, which work 24/7 to track changes on the web and alert users; an evolution of Google Alerts, spotting changes and making sense of them too.

✨ Generative UI Custom Search: Search results may also look like interactive web pages, utilizing generative UI to build custom widgets, visuals, and experiences based on individual questions.

🚀 Mini-Apps: Users can tap into Google’s Antigravity platform to build custom experiences, or “mini-apps” directly in Search using natural language commands.

⏰ TikTok is alpha-testing Attribution Analytics Overview, a comprehensive summary of conversion analytics, enabling advertisers to visualize the full-funnel and view-through impact of spend. Highlights include:

• Core performance metrics (CPA, Spend) across Tiktok attributed purchase conversions

• 1P/3P performance comparison

• Assisted Conversions to capture the influence of Tiktok beyond last click

• Average conversion time to help optimize attribution windows.

• Insights on non-linear path to purchase

💅 Pro Tip: TikTok’s new external-facing change log, Key TikTok Ad Policy Updates, will now host key updates that have gone live. This change log is available on the Business Help Center.

🤷 Snapchat’s latest report highlights how incorporating creator content boosts brand favorability and consumer engagement, finding that users are 66% more likely to feel excited about a brand when creators are involved.

• Snapchat attributes this lift to placement: creator content appears directly in the organic feed, driving active engagement rather than the passive viewing typical of traditional ads.

• To capitalize on this momentum, Snapchat advises marketers to leverage Sponsored Snaps (delivered straight to users' inboxes), AR Filters and Sponsored Lenses, and to scale their presence across Stories and Spotlight.

👽 Reddit is rolling out a few new twists. Here’s what we’re seeing this week: 

🪡 Tailored Creative Beta: Enabled by Reddit Community Intelligence, Max campaigns now identify key audience personas and then propose headlines and media for each persona. This is currently available to 50% of Max campaign users and will be available generally in H2.

🛍️ Shopify Integration: This will include Shopify + Reddit ads creation and linking, pixel setup, and catalog syncing; it’s currently in Beta and will move to general availability later this month, unlocking client activation, setup, and DPA adoption in minutes.

🎯 Age and Language Targeting Alpha: Language targeting, age band targeting, and minimum age targeting are currently in the alpha testing phase.

🐦 X is still trying to woo back advertisers, now with a couple new sales pitches: upgraded AI targeting, and a high-income, highly-engaged user base.

• According to X, its users have an average household income above $90K; key discussion topics continue to center around sports, entertainment, politics, gaming, and technology.

• While overall usage trends remain mixed in some regions, X is betting that stronger AI-driven targeting and niche audience relevance will help drive better campaign performance moving forward.

💾 Microsoft rolled out some AI-powered bidding and reporting/import updates aimed at simplifying multi-platform campaign management:

• AI-powered bidding capabilities are expanding with cross-account portfolio bidding for Search and Shopping campaigns, allowing advertisers to manage bid strategies across accounts.

• Two new AI-powered bidding updates are now rolling out broadly: Seasonality adjustments for portfolio bidding/shared budgets, and data-driven attribution for automated bid strategies.

• Expanded reporting capabilities allow advertisers to access all conversion metrics in custom columns, segment reports by goal name, and analyze added metrics like CPA, ROAS, and All Conversions.

• A new Import Center simplifies exporting campaigns from Google and Meta into Microsoft Advertising with troubleshooting guidance, reducing friction for teams running multi-platform campaigns.

🛡️ Warner Brothers Discovery announced a series of new products at their Upfronts presentation last week. In addition to the below, we’re also waiting on more information about their Agentic Ads, which are said to be AI-powered brand experiences that allow ads to become part of the conversation.

• Scene-level Moments Targeting: Kind of wild: this allows brands to contextually target scenes in WBD-owned properties to drive better alignment between the advertiser and the moment. AI will scan the scene, accounting for audio, visual, and emotional cues. You can select predefined categories or put together a custom category.

• Shoppable Pause Ads: Coming in late Q2 or early Q3 on HBO Max.

Dynamic Creative: This is a fully dynamic option that uses WBD’s data to contextually target your headlines and visuals to the scene prior to the ad break, allowing advertisers to be contextually relevant and activate quickly without a big lift. You can select at least 3 HBO Max content themes that are relevant to your brand, choose assets to align with the moment, and then these will dynamically serve.

🤝 Publicis Group is acquiring LiveRamp for $2.2 billion. Putting one of the industry’s key identity pipelines under the control of one of its biggest holding companies is making some of the bigger players nervous: according to The Drum, the general feeling in adland is that “the exposure is significant.” That means WPP, Omnicom, and other agencies will likely start to evaluate alternative identity solutions and clean rooms. The move is seen as part of a larger trend of industry roll-ups: WPP has a similar solution, having bought InfoSum to strengthen their data collaboration, and Omnicom has built its Omni platform around Acxiom, Flywheel Commerce Cloud, and its owned AI architecture.

🦊 Fox announced its new AI-Driven platform, Fox AdStudio, giving advertisers a converged audience graph, scene-level targeting, and full-funnel measurement across more than 20 data partners, and the ability to plug directly into advertisers’ own AI agents.

♾️ Meta has updated the engaged video view window to at least 5-seconds-watched for skippable app video ads (previously 10 seconds) for MMPs. Meta says this change will bring their reporting more in line with third party measurement tools and industry practices.

💅 Pro Tip: Meta is expanding third-party block list support to Threads, giving advertisers the same brand safety controls already available across Meta’s other platforms.

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, Sabina Saktaganova, Sims Wilson, Kiara Quigley, Lara Spijkerman, Kayleigh McDonald, Caitlin LaValle, and Carly Carioli.