Study: Happier ads perform better

Today’s Social Media advertising rates are singing:

↘️ META: $8.17 CPM | ↗️ TIKTOK: $4.06 CPM | ↗️ SNAPCHAT: $11.48 CPM

In this week’s edition: 

• 🔒 Instagram tests putting posts on lock

• Influencer marketing is requiring more paid-media support 💸

• 👑 Threads and X square up in battle for real-time sports crown

But first…

😁 Sad ads are bad, my lad

Do your ads spark enough joy? Snapchat just published a new study that looked at the relationship between attention, brand lift, and happiness levels when viewing ad creative.

Comparing results across Snapchat, TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube, the study found that ads generating higher levels of happiness were also more likely to deliver stronger long-term brand lift. This connection was most pronounced on Snapchat, where the correlation was 5.6 times stronger than on the other platforms. To create “happier” ads, Snap suggests testing messaging that taps into themes like safety, love and belonging, and self-esteem.

The Inside Scoop🍦: Now trending in performance media

📷 Instagram is testing a new way to drive engagement with lockable posts—hidden content that can only be unlocked with a numeric code. How does someone get the code? That’s up to you—meaning brands and creators could choose to distribute the unlock code either on- or off-platform. Some suggested use-cases include rewarding superfans or providing discounts:

🧵 Threads: According to new data from Meta, sports discussion is rising fast on the platform, with sports-related creators collectively growing their Threads follower communities by nearly a million people over the last two months. This puts them in a better position to take on X, where sports remains the main topic of discussion.

🏀 Twitter/X, meanwhile, is also doubling down on sports — including the launch of a new NBA portal that aggregates league news, scores, and headlines, just in time for the Celtics to win banner 19 postseason. The sportsball-obsessed may recall that X launched a similar portal for NFL content last fall.

🔎 Need a brush-up on Google sitelinks? SearchEngineLand has got you. For the uninitiated, sitelink assets in Google Ads are optional links that appear beneath your main ad, directing users to specific pages on your website. They enhance ad visibility and provide direct pathways to relevant content, improving user experience and engagement. Implementing sitelinks can make your ads more informative and potentially increase click-through rates. Few quick takeaways:

• While headlines are mandatory and lead to a single landing page, sitelinks are optional and can direct users to various pages, offering more navigation options.​

• You can add a minimum of two sitelinks; up to six may display on desktop searches and up to eight on mobile devices.

• Monitor sitelink effectiveness through the 'Assets' section in your Google Ads account, analyzing metrics like click-through rates and conversions to gauge their impact.​

📺 YouTube ads update: While Mastheads and YouTube Select are bookable via Instant Reserve with no minimums, the following Google products are still available only via direct booking:

• Cost-per-hour Masthead on YouTube

• Creator Takeover Sponsorships 

• Google TV Mastheads and Takeovers 

• First Position Blasts

• YouTube Kids

📌 Wondering if Pinterest offers high impact takeovers? Why yes, indeed they do.

Pinterest offers a Premiere total takeover and editorial sponsorship option that lets you own the home feed, search page, carousel cover image, and editorial article page. Or, you can book either of these two takeover products:

• Home Feed Spotlight guarantees the first ad impression on the home page (the landing page for all pinners who log on) with 100% SOV on the home page over a 24-hour period (3x frequency cap).

• Search Spotlight is fixed to the top of the search page, before a pinner begins their search, with 100% SOV on the search page over a 24-hour period with no frequency cap. You can also anchor an Editorial Sponsorship to it, which lets you sponsor an editorial article for one of the weekly themes, owning the 1st carousel swipe + 2 featured pins pinned to the top of the article page on your sponsored day.

Take a gander:

📽️ Ad-supported streaming services: how do they work? Thanks to Digiday for compiling this helpful grid to the ad options on your favorite streamers:

🤓 By the numbers: Influencer marketing is requiring more paid support, TikTok’s CPM slide, Big Pharma’s ad-ban worries

📈 According to Emarketer, brands are increasingly dedicating more of their influencer marketing budgets to paid media. 38% of U.S. enterprise marketers say the majority of their influencer marketing budget goes to paid amplification, up from 34% in 2023, per an October 2024 Linqia report. Emarketer also forecasts that social network ad spending will represent one quarter of all U.S. ad spending in 2027.

📉 You may have heard: the TikTok ban has been paused (again) — and, since any sale of TikTok needs the approval of the Chinese government, we’re unlikely to get a deal before the U.S. and China resolve their ongoing trade war over tariffs. 

This extended period of uncertainty has caused U.S. ad spend to decline among eight of the top 10 advertiser categories on TikTok. As advertisers flee—often to Meta—CPMs continue to increase on Facebook and Instagram Reels while decreasing on TikTok.

💊 Tariffs aren’t the only campaign promise that could impact the advertising industry this year. The next potential disruptor? New ad regulations. Big Pharma is bracing for the possibility that incoming HHS director Robert Kennedy Jr. might deliver on his campaign promise to abolish all pharmaceutical advertising, period. 

Why should the rest of us care? U.S. healthcare and pharma companies spent around $30 billion on advertising last year—$23 billion of it on digital ads—and pharma alone accounted for more than 10% of  all linear TV ad spend. The rhetorical question one ad exec put to Marketing Brew this week: “What does the marketplace look like when 10%–12% of the total TV advertising dollars…just evaporates?”

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.