Meta’s AI assistant wants the keys to your ad budget

Today’s Social Media advertising rates are handing out full-size candy bars:

↘️ META: $10.26 | ↘️ TIKTOK: $2.43 | ↘️ SNAPCHAT: $10.70

In this week’s edition: 

• 🍎 Apple’s block party has a guest list—and Trade Desk is on it

• TikTok takes a shortcut to checkout ⏰

• 🧠 ChatGPT pictures a new ad format

But first…

♾️ Five updates from Meta’s Advertising Week announcements

We’re just back from a wild ride through Advertising Week NYC (see below) at the Penn District, an abandoned shopping mall that felt a little like an ad industry cosplay of Dawn of the Dead — except instead of brains, everyone just wants your LinkedIn. All the major players used AWNY to roll out new updates, and Meta was no exception: They’re adding agentic assistant features, wider creative tools, and in-chat checkout. Here’s a quick guide to what Meta announced:

• Business assistant: More memory and context behind recommendations, including past quarters, seasonality, and stated goals. Meta is adding the ability to generate creative, update targeting, and change budgets through prompts. It's testing brand-guideline import and scheduled tasks like recurring reports and alerts. Note: budget changes by prompt are worth discussing guardrails for before anyone turns this on. 

• Creative tools: Ads Creative Studio is expanding initial testing. Video generation from static assets in Advantage+ creative is now generally available. 

• Meta Ads MCP server: Expanded so advertisers can use third-party AI tools to build and manage campaigns. 

• Customer Lifecycle Strategy: Now available to all advertisers. It lets you set the audience for each campaign so recommendations stay aligned. 

• In-chat shopping: Shopify checkout is coming to Meta Business Agent in Messenger. Meta is testing direct checkout in Meta AI with Adyen, PayPal, Shopify, and Stripe.

The Inside Scoop🍦: Now trending in performance media

♾️ Meta has brought live boosting directly into the Instagram app, letting creators launch real-time ads right from the livestream composer before going live. Promoting a livestream previously required setting up a full campaign in Meta Ads Manager. Now, creators can do it in just a few taps.

💌 Meta has been rolling out multi-advertiser forms. When you create an instant form in Ads Manager, this feature lets your instant form appear alongside instant forms created by other businesses. After someone submits an instant form, the post-submission page will surface ads featuring relevant products and services, enabling the user to submit multiple instant forms simultaneously.

• You can opt out, but note that ads created by boosting a post will be opted in by default.

🎞️ Meta is expanding its Reels-first Facebook test in India, where users land directly in the Reels feed after opening the app, with the traditional News Feed moved to a separate tab. 

• With a similar test underway on Instagram, the shift signals Meta’s growing focus on short-form video and the importance of prioritizing Reels-friendly creative.

🍎 Apple’s reported ad tech blocklist dominated the conversation at Ad Week NY. Digiday reports that iOS 27, released in mid-September, began cutting Safari off from vendors including The Trade Desk, LiveRamp, ID5, Permutive, and Audigent. Other iOS browsers are affected too, because they run on WebKit. 

• Digiday's test of 70+ ad tech domains found only that first group blocked, and LiveIntent, Lotame, and ConnectID got through. 

• Apple has written WebKit code that would let it add companies without a software update, but it hasn't shipped. 

• The Trade Desk's ad server has been removed from the list in a test iOS build, though current-version users won't see that fix until the end of the month at the earliest.

⏰ TikTok also unveiled a slate of new offerings at Ad Week. Among the highlights:

• AI shopping assistant: Conversational recommendations that use real-time seller data like sizing and availability. 

• Buy Direct: One-click checkout from the For You feed. 

• Agentic Leads: An AI tool that gathers leads through DMs and advertiser-website lead flows. 

• TikTok Ad Network: Expanding into the U.S., the network reaches almost 400,000 third-party and developer apps worldwide. 

• MCP support: Developers can connect third-party AI apps to TikTok's ads system. 

• Smart+ search automation: Automates search ads across keywords and creative. 

• Smart+ Creative Selection: Combines image, video, AI-generated, and creator assets in one workflow and recommends groupings. Power Digital, an early adopter, told Digiday it saved as much as 50% of the time on ad selection.

🧠 OpenAI is giving ChatGPT advertisers more visual formats and better measurement, another step toward establishing the chatbot as an established advertising channel.

• Image ads are next: OpenAI plans a U.S. test later this month, displaying ads while users generate images. The ads will carry clear labels and appear separately from ChatGPT’s generated images. Advertisers will be able to show how their products or services might look, rather than depend on text alone.

• Measurement is expanding through integrations with Kochava plus 10 additional partners. Tests of geo-based incrementality remain early, involving Haus, Measured, and WorkMagic.

• Brand suitability is also being tested with DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science. Neither partner will have access to actual user conversations during those pilots.

• Advertisers have flagged three problems: measurement, formats, and inventory. The first two are getting attention. Inventory remains the tougher problem: ChatGPT still offers just one ad placement.

👗 ChatGPT added virtual try-on and Favorites. Eligible clothing and accessory listings get a Try On button that works from a selfie or full-body photo. Users can also upload an item image, such as a screenshot, to try it on. Saved products live in the ChatGPT Library with folders. OpenAI says previews may not match the product or the person exactly and don't confirm fit.

🔎 Google is updating how it defines a "view" for view-through conversion (VTC) reporting on Display ads within Demand Gen campaigns, moving from the strict "Active View" standard to a broader "rendered ad impression" model. 

• Under this new rule rolling out in the coming weeks, a view will be counted for attribution purposes if just one pixel of an ad appears on-screen for any amount of time. 

• Advertisers should brace for a likely artificial spike in reported VTCs, as the threshold for what gets credit for a conversion is now significantly lower.

📊 Google is rolling out self-serve access to user-based Conversion Lift studies for Search and Performance Max campaigns, meaning eligible advertisers can now set up incrementality tests without needing a Google rep. 

• Minimum budget of $5,000 and at least 1,000 observed conversions.

💲Google Ads is testing a Target ROAS calculator. Advertisers enter their campaign's average profit margin (excluding ad spend), and Google suggests a Target ROAS, assuming reported conversion value equals revenue. 

• It shows weekly estimates for clicks, revenue, ad spend, and profit, and the target can be adjusted before applying. 

• Search Engine Land notes Google isn't optimizing bids for profit directly, and the calculator ignores shipping, returns, fees, and margin differences across products. It was spotted in beta by a paid search practitioner, not announced by Google.

📺 YouTube Shorts will reduce reach for re-uploaded and aggregated content. YouTube says its recommendation systems will prioritize original content, while channels that mainly re-upload others' videos without meaningful changes will likely see less distribution. No rollout date was given.

👽 Reddit is expanding its lead generation capabilities with AI-powered campaign automation, higher-intent audience targeting, and stronger CRM integrations, giving advertisers more ways to connect Reddit activity to measurable business outcomes.

• Reddit’s Max campaign automation can now help identify high-intent users and improve lead efficiency while integrating media performance, making the platform more relevant for lower-funnel and B2B campaigns. 

• Reddit is also testing audiences designed to reach users actively researching or considering purchases, with early tests showing nearly a 7% improvement in CPA compared with other first-party targeting options. 

• New integrations with platforms including HubSpot, Demandbase, Bombora, Clay, and G2 make it easier to connect Reddit leads and campaign activity to CRM and downstream pipeline outcomes.

📌 Pinterest published its first beauty trends report. It covers 11 makeup, hair, fragrance, and skincare trends, based on year-over-year growth in 2026 search activity. 

• Pinterest says 85% of weekly users reported discovering beauty trends there before seeing them elsewhere. 

• Beauty Guides walk Pinners through recreating trending looks. 

• Their new Sephora partnership around the Makeup Maximalism trend connects in-app interests to in-store products.

🐦 X announced X Lift, an AI-powered campaign builder. Advertisers enter a URL and get a set of generated images and copy. X Lift can also build the full campaign, including targeting, from just a budget.

• The main target audience for X Lift is new advertisers, with X hoping to bring more ad revenue back to the app.

🎤 Growth, meet fandom. Gupta Media’s founder Gogi Gupta took two stages during Advertising Week in New York. Follow us on LinkedIn for the full video.

• At ADWEEK House: In honor of Gupta’s debut on ADWEEK’s Fastest Growing Agencies list, Gogi joined Executive Editor Alison Weissbrot, Ammunition’s Jeremy Heilpern, and Zulu Alpha Kilo’s Emily Garvey for a conversation about agency growth and where the industry is headed.

• At Advertising Week NYC: Gogi moderated a standing-room-only discussion on building sports brands that keep fans coming back, alongside marketing chiefs from four Gupta clients: Gotham FC’s Laura Petro, the Washington Commanders’ Patrick Arthur, Women’s Tennis Association’s Sarah Swanson, and the Cleveland Cavaliers’ Christopher Kaiser.

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, Kayleigh McDonald, Kiara Quigley, Lara Spijkerman, Liana Giacobbe, Mariya Samardzhieva, and Carly Carioli.