Meta’s pixel data is coming for your Feed

Today’s Social Media advertising rates are boiling the ocean:

↘️ META: $8.40 | ↘️ TIKTOK: $2.11 | ↗️ SNAPCHAT: $8.32

In this week’s edition: 

• 🚨 New York will fine you $1000 for using uncredited AI in ads

•  Even LinkedIn is launching a creator marketplace 💼

• 🧠  ChatGPT enters its multi-ad era

But first…

♾️ Meta’s pixel data is coming for your Feed

The personalization that Meta uses to customize the ads you see? It’s now using that data to help choose what organic content you’ll see next. 

In plain terms, Meta is expanding how it uses off-site activity data shared by advertising partners—including signals from the Meta Pixel—to personalize what people see across Feed and Meta AI. As a result, activity from outside Meta’s apps, such as website visits, purchases, and browsing behavior, will now help shape content recommendations and AI responses.

“Is that a good thing?” SocialMediaToday asks. “For Meta it is. Unclear for everybody else.”

Meta emphasizes that it isn’t collecting new data. But the change is still significant: data originally shared for advertising measurement and targeting is becoming a broader personalization layer across Meta’s consumer products. To that end, the company is streamlining the settings that let users manage what the company uses for personalization. A centralized “activity from other businesses” setting will now apply to both ads and other content, and will give users the ability to opt out.

The Inside Scoop🍦: Now trending in performance media

📸 Instagram is giving more advertisers access to its post view ads in Reels, which display a promotion after the conclusion of an organic Reel in-stream.

• These are only shown after eligible organic Reels that are longer than 60 seconds in length.

• Instagram said on Monday that the expanded Reels placement option will be available within the existing Reels ad tools in Campaign Manager and will be rolling out to all advertisers globally “over the next few days.”

🔎 Google is rolling out new asset experiments for Performance Max, which will let advertisers test the impact of different creative assets on campaign results. The feature lets marketers compare entirely new asset groups, evaluate the impact of adding individual assets, or measure the performance of seasonal creative against evergreen content.

⏰ TikTok and Meta playing nice? Cats and dogs lying together? What is this sorcery? In their latest newsletter, TikTok announced a new feature enabling advertisers to batch-import existing Meta creative assets directly into the platform. The tool will automatically resize Meta’s 1:1 and 4:5 formats to match TikTok’s 9:16 layout, so expect to do some manual QA to ensure the auto-cropping doesn't compromise the ad creative.

📊 Speaking of mashups, TikTok is testing a feature that connects Google Analytics accounts to the platform to drive automated optimizations. Early beta results reportedly showed a 20% increase in ROAS, though it’s unclear how much manual campaign control advertisers will retain during these tests. Stay tuned.  

💅Pro Tip: Multi-link ads are coming to TikTok this week. These ads are limited to campaigns using the Traffic objective. In initial testing, TikTok claims these new sitelinks drove a 10% lift in CTR and a 30% reduction in CPC, making them a great addition for clients who favor sitelink extensions on other platforms. Here’s what that looks like:

👻 Snapchat published results from a new study with Dentsu examining how Snapchat’s video ads drive response, brand recall, and sales. According to Snapchat, “a single exposure to a brand’s Commercial on Snapchat led consumers to spend 4.4% more over the following three months and 2.3% more over the following three years, compared with those who weren’t exposed.” 

• Snapchat commercials prompted a 24% increase in long-term sales lift over other non-skippable ad formats.

• The research revealed that average CPM of Commercials on Snapchat was 76% lower than non-skippable formats and 12% lower than skippable formats across all other platforms tested.

• According to Snapchat, “[Three] out of 4 Snapchatters find the time they spend on the platform to be meaningful. And of those who find meaning on social platforms, they are 79% more open to seeing ads, 70% more engaged with relevant ads, and 69% more likely to take action on relevant ads.”

💼 LinkedIn has launched its own Creator Marketplace that will enable brands to connect with vetted creators who can help them reach their target audience.

• Includes audience size info, insights into each creator’s audience make-up and reach notes, searchable by topic and content expertise.

• U.S. and Canada only for now.

• Available via LinkedIn’s Campaign Manager via a new section under “Content and Assets.”

📌 Pinterest’s Collage Pins can now be created from a desktop/laptop in ads manager as “dark” pins. However, the collage’s clickable sticker feature only clicks out to other pins, and the collage must be built from existing pins.

🧠 OpenAI is testing multi-advertiser ad placements in ChatGPT. Until now, sponsored placements have generally featured a single advertiser. With this new test, ChatGPT can display multiple relevant advertisers within the same ad unit, increasing opportunities to reach users. Eligible ads will be sold through a second-price auction model.

🌍 OpenAI is also expanding geographic targeting options to support the United Kingdom, Japan, South Korea, Brazil, and Mexico. This is in addition to existing targeting available in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

🍎 Apple’s Maps Ads will promote the place cards of Apple Business profiles that appear within locations on maps. Here’s what else we’re learning:

• The call to action (CTA) button can point to a website, driving directions, call, or order

• Ads are search keyword triggered

• Ads can be purchased on a CPC or CPM basis

• No minimum spend requirements apply, and you don’t need to have multiple locations

• This ad product is launching this summer

🚨 Buyer Beware: A new law has gone into effect in New York State that requires advertisers to clearly disclose the use of “synthetic performers” (i.e., AI generated avatars who appear real) in any ads running within the state.

• The legislation applies to everything from AI lead actors to background extras and even AI-generated body parts. It carries fines starting at $1,000 for non-compliance.

• Industry experts anticipate that New York will act as a bellwether, prompting brands to adopt nationwide transparency standards as other states inevitably follow suit.

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