Meta's pixel is about to count more of your conversions

Today’s social media advertising rates are asking Mariah if it's time yet.

↗️ META: $10.92 | ↗️ TIKTOK: $1.80 | ↗️ SNAPCHAT: $17.28

In this week’s edition:

• 🏷️ Meta ads are showing up with discounts you never approved

• ChatGPT ads are booming. Do they work? 🧠

• 📦 Amazon's shopping agent now texts back, with ads

But first…

♾️ Meta’s pixel is about to count more of your conversions

Starting today, Meta turns on "Measure conversions on customer devices" by default for pixels that are already sending events. It's another way of counting purchases that the pixel and CAPI miss today (a different browser, cleared cookies, blocked tracking), so Meta-reported conversions may go up without any change in topline results.

• It works by matching the ad view and the purchase on the shopper's own device, using details they already gave the advertiser (like an email address) plus temporary device data. Meta only receives that a purchase happened and which campaign gets credit. The pixel and CAPI keep running as usual.

• This only works on sites where shoppers log in with an email or phone number, with the pixel placed directly on the page (not in an iFrame or as an image pixel). Guest-checkout and third-party checkouts likely won't see much change. People in the EU and UK are excluded.

• More attributed purchases means lower CPA in Ads Manager, so comparisons from Nov. 12 on may look better than reality. Attribution windows and models don't change.

• Meta hasn't said whether recovered conversions feed bidding and optimization (which could shift delivery), whether purchase values come through, or how consent opt-outs are handled.

• You'll be able to check each pixel under Events Manager > Data sources > [pixel] > Settings.

The Inside Scoop🍦: Now trending in performance media

♾️ Meta is sharing performance insights from its internal analysis of 2025 Cyber 5 (Nov. 27–Dec. 1). Here’s what you need to know:

• Full-funnel advertisers saw conversion rate up 83% and CPA down 27% during Cyber 5, vs. +53% and -16% respectively for conversion-only advertisers.

• CPM rose in November, but conversion rate rose more: on Black Friday, median U.S. conversion rate was up 74%, while CPA was down 14% and return on ad spend (ROAS) was up 17%.

• Older audiences converted the best on Black Friday. 55-64 year-olds saw conversion rate up about 190% vs. about 30% for 18-24.

• Advantage+ catalog advertisers saw an 85% Cyber 5 conversion rate lift vs. 70% for non-catalog advertisers. Advertisers putting most of their spend behind Partnership Ads saw 84% vs. 68%.

🤝 Per Meta, 94% of shoppers using its apps look to creators for holiday guidance. Partnership ads running alongside business-as-usual ads see 19% lower cost per result and 13% higher click-through rate.

• Creators can now add affiliate links or tag your catalog products directly in Instagram Reels and Feed posts, as long as the link points to a single product page that matches a catalog product.

• Advantage+ catalog ads now work with partnership ads, so creator content can run as catalog single-image and carousel ads. According to Meta, partnership ads with "Show Products" saw 4% higher CTR and 3% more conversions.

• Live video ads are available on Facebook now, with Instagram coming soon.

🛠️ If you build Meta campaigns through the API or an AI connector, watch out for two new defaults in Marketing API v27: new sales ad sets that target specific mobile devices or operating systems now expand to other devices by default, and Meta may automatically turn on product showcase for API-created ads. Both can be switched back manually.

• The same release lets apps add or remove the AI-generated label on a post, and deprecates the total video consumption rate metric.

🚨 Buyer Beware: Meta's AI ad tools have been adding website discounts to ads that advertisers never approved, even when promotions were turned off on the ad it copied, so check your Commerce Manager settings. Meta can automatically detect offers on your website and use them in your Meta ads, so a discount meant for one campaign or audience can show up somewhere else.

• Review Commerce Manager's offer-detection setting and turn off using detected offers in other campaigns if you run more than one offer.

• Spot-check live ads for discounts you didn't set.

🔎 Google Ads is rolling out channel prioritization and budget allocation, two optional controls for Search, Shopping, Performance Max and Demand Gen. You can mark channels (or channel groups) as high or low priority, and high-priority channels get fully funded first before leftover budget flows to low-priority ones.

• You can set a maximum share of daily budget for low-priority channels. Google calls the cap best-effort. It matters most for tCPA/tROAS campaigns that aren't budget-limited, where prioritization alone usually won't change results.

• It applies at the account or campaign level, and on shared budgets. In PMax and Demand Gen, Search, YouTube, Maps, Gmail and Discover are grouped together as "Google channels."

🎞️ Google is replacing single-media Demand Gen ad types with one mixed-media ad that combines images, videos, carousels, product feeds and text in a single creation flow. The change applies to newly created Demand Gen ads only, and you can keep building single-media ads until January 2027.

• Video-level creative preferences are going away for new ads: videos now show automatically in their native aspect ratios (for example, vertical on YouTube Shorts). Without a vertical video, square or horizontal videos may show on Shorts with blurred borders, so upload every aspect ratio or turn on resized videos.

• To keep certain videos on certain surfaces (e.g., Shorts only), put them in a separate ad group and use channel controls.

💬 Google's multiturn ads are now live in AI Mode, a week after we shared the announcement. Since Nov. 6, sponsored ads have been showing below the answers to follow-up questions in an AI Mode conversation, not just the first query.

• Ads labeled "Sponsored" appear under the second response, and again under the third and fourth. Google confirmed they "show up on responses to follow-up user queries" and said it will keep testing new formats.

🧠 ChatGPT Ads is moving from bid caps to average cost targets. As of Nov. 9, Target CPA replaced Max Bid for new conversion campaigns, and Target CPC replaced Max CPC for new click campaigns, so the system can bid above or below your target in each auction. Existing campaigns keep their current bidding until Max Bid and Max CPC retire on Jan. 1, 2027, when they switch over automatically.

• Maximize results (autobid) is now called intelligent bidding.

📈 ChatGPT Ads is adding advertisers quickly, but early post-click performance data trails Google Search. Adthena tracked 6,333 brands advertising on ChatGPT in August, up from 1,082 in June. Per Digiday's roundup, paid ChatGPT visits from U.S. ecommerce generated $0.89 in revenue per session with a 0.37% conversion rate, vs. $2.45 and 1.17% for paid Google Search, though agencies say some of the gap is attribution.

🖼️ ChatGPT visual ads are rolling out to a test group of U.S. advertisers. The ads appear while ChatGPT is generating an image for a user, labeled "Here's an ad while we create your image," and disappear once the image is ready.

🏪 OpenAI launched a free Business Hub in ChatGPT, where brands can claim a profile, update product and company details, and track mentions, views and website clicks in a beta dashboard (conversation themes, not transcripts). U.S. ecommerce and online services businesses can also turn on a labeled agent that answers product questions.

• The same agent is sold as a sponsored ad format, in testing since September.

• OpenAI says claiming a profile doesn't change how often a business shows up in ChatGPT recommendations.

📦 Amazon shoppers can now text its AI shopping agent. A small, invite-only group of U.S. customers can text Alexa for Shopping to find products, build carts, buy and get delivery updates by SMS. Amazon plans to expand it to millions more in the coming weeks. Sponsored Products ads can appear in the agent's replies when it suggests options, and Amazon isn't charging advertisers for these placements yet. Purchases the agent completes on its own stay ad-free.

⏰ TikTok launched a standalone TikTok Shop app in select Asian markets, reportedly Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and the Philippines. The app prioritizes product listings, personalized recommendations and shopping support, with select livestreams and short videos alongside listings.

• TikTok's Chinese sister app Douyin drove nearly $500 billion in gross merchandise volume (GMV) in 2025.

🎨 TikTok upgraded the AI video generation in its Symphony ad tools. Symphony Agent can now take up to 50 image, video, and audio references (up from 9) and generate up to 30 seconds of video per prompt (up from 15), with sharper, more consistent visuals.

💅 Pro Tip: TikTok added 38 new attribution metrics to Ads Manager, so you can compare website conversion results across five attribution windows: 1-day click, 7-day click, 28-day click, 1-day view and 1-day engagement. It should make it easier to explain gaps between TikTok Ads Manager numbers and your own or third-party reporting.

• What's included: seven website metrics for each window (conversions, cost per conversion, conversion rate, website purchases, purchase value, website return on ad spend (ROAS) and website cost per purchase), plus three Buy Direct metrics for advertisers in that test.

• Where to find them: in the campaign list under Customize Columns > Attribution > Compare attribution settings, and in the dashboard, View report and custom reports. Some eligible advertisers will see the key metrics added to their default columns.

• Limits: website data only, for eligible advertisers; app conversions are planned for a later phase.

👽 Reddit is retiring Cost Cap bidding for Sales, Lead Gen, App Promotion and Catalog Sales campaigns on Feb. 10, 2027. Existing ad groups using Cost Cap will keep running, but new or edited campaigns won't be able to use it after that date.

• Reddit wants advertisers to use Target Cost instead, as long as they meet its conversion-volume and account-eligibility requirements.

• You can use this newly launched API endpoint to check advertiser eligibility for Target Cost.

• Advertisers who aren't eligible should switch to Lowest Cost bidding.

💸 Reddit is offering $1,500 in ad credits after $1,500 in spend for new U.S. advertisers whose campaigns go live before Nov. 20, per Digiday.

🐭 Disney is selling Super Bowl LXI as a cross-platform buy. The game airs on ABC and ESPN and streams on Disney+ and the ESPN App, with Spanish-language coverage on ESPN Deportes and Univision. Four alternate broadcasts round it out: the ManningCast, Pat McAfee's Field Pass, a Next Gen Stats Playbook cast, and an animated Star Wars version that will be commercial-free. National in-game spots sold out in August.

• After asking $10MM per :30, many deals landed around $8-$9MM, often with extra spend commitments in Disney's addressable, digital, and pregame inventory. Any replacement spot that opens up starts at $10MM plus portfolio spend.

• Disney added about 10 national :30s that replace regional breaks on ESPN Unlimited, Disney+, Hulu Live and Fubo, at roughly $2MM each plus a $2MM portfolio match. They're sold out of these packages.

• Disney hasn't given buyers a streaming audience estimate. Tatari projects 125.6-132MM total U.S. viewers, 25.1-32.8MM of them on streaming.

🦊 Fox closed its $22 billion acquisition of Roku, adding Roku's 100MM+ streaming households to its sports, news and local TV portfolio. Combined with Tubi, Fox was the fourth-largest media distributor in August with 8.5% of total TV viewing, behind YouTube, Skydance and Disney, per Nielsen. Roku joins Tubi in Fox's new Digital Platforms division.

🔒 Liquid Death's media chief is breaking away from LiveRamp over its sale to Publicis. He stopped using LiveRamp's identity graph in early August, after Publicis announced the deal, worried his buying data could indirectly help Publicis clients that compete with him, such as Evian and PepsiCo. His contract ends at the end of the year, and he's looking at independent providers, ruling out holding company–owned options like Havas, WPP and Omnicom's Acxiom.

• Others, including Ebiquity's Ruben Schreurs, call the concern overstated, and LiveRamp's non-Publicis clients are only about 5% of its revenue.

📊 By the numbers

📱 Most mobile shoppers choose to buy in the app when a brand offers one. 71% of U.S. mobile shopping app users typically purchase through the app when a brand has both an app and a mobile site, per a September RZR report cited by EMARKETER.

• The first stop is shifting too: roughly 1 in 4 online shoppers plan to start holiday shopping on an AI platform such as ChatGPT, Gemini or Claude, per Bain.

📉 The Trade Desk posted a rare revenue decline, with Q3 revenue of $736MM, down 0.5% year over year. This was its first year-over-year decline since the pandemic. Video is now more than half its revenue, and it expects at least $755MM in Q4.

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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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.