10 massive updates on Meta, TikTok, Google from IAB NewFronts

Today’s Social Media advertising rates are in the basket 🐣:

↗️ META: $9.17 | ↗️ TIKTOK: $3.11 | ↘️ SNAPCHAT: $10.65

In this week’s edition: 

• 💳 In-app checkout is coming to Meta

• What to know about X’s ad-platform tear-down 🐦

• 🍎 Maps ads finally coming to Apple?

But first…

🏆 Amazon is winning the omnichannel platform battle

As digital advertising gets more complicated and dispersed across far-flung channels and disciplines, more brands are turning to all-in-one platforms. As the recent spat between Publicis and The Trade Desk shows, those platforms can (allegedly!) contain hidden fees and gimmicks. But that battle also highlighted how competitive the field has become as new players enter the field.

Now Forrester has arrived with a comprehensive look at the all-in ecosystem. According to their new report, it’s no longer enough for a platform to have a DSP — instead, DSPs need to be part of a broader “omnichannel ad platform,” or OAP, that goes both wider and deeper “to help advertisers clearly understand audiences, automate creative processes, optimize supply paths, glean uncommon insights about incrementality, and harness AI without losing control.” 

Forrester also declares a single clear leader in this space: Amazon Ads, which is pacing ahead of Google, Yahoo, The Trade Desk, Basis, and others. (FWIW: This tracks with what we’ve been advising clients for years.) Among the callouts in their evaluation: 

• Amazon Ads’s authenticated graph, which enables advertisers to reach approximately 90% of households across the US. 

• Best-in-class audience creation and targeting capabilities, boosted by Ads Agent and Creative Agent

• Unmatched supply and insights make Amazon a superior OAP for connected TV (CTV)

Here’s how the others break down across capabilities:

The Inside Scoop🍦: Now trending in performance media

♾️ Meta made several product announcements at last week’s IAB NewFronts, including:

• Expansions to Reels Trending Ads, including new premium, event-based content lineups (e.g., Fashion Week, F1, NFL) that let brands buy adjacency to high-velocity cultural moments

• Enhancements to Partnership Ads Hub and Instagram’s creator marketplace, with improved discovery, performance visibility, and workflow tools that make it easier to identify the right creators, formalize partnerships, and scale creator content through paid media.

• Advanced generative AI video and translation tools, including auto-generated voiceovers, multilingual dubbing, and avatar-led UGC-style creative, all built to help brands rapidly produce localized, creator-native video without relying on traditional production cycles.

🎨 Among the many takeaways from Meta’s new Creative Playbook—released to agencies recently—is updated guidance on asset mix. According to Meta, the right mix of assets, especially prioritizing 9:16 video with audio in the safe zone, drives campaign efficiency:

• Ensure at least 20% of each ad set is made up of 9:16 video with audio.

• Ensure 9:16 video with audio is prioritized, followed by images, and then other video.

🛒 Meta is expanding affiliate partnerships on Facebook and Instagram with marketplaces like Amazon, eBay, Mercado Libre, and Shopee. 

💳 Meta is testing in-app checkout, allowing users to complete purchases directly after clicking ads, creating a more seamless end-to-end shopping experience within its apps:

🎞️ Creators will soon be able to link products directly in Instagram Reels, using either a brand’s catalog or URL. It’ll be available in 22 countries starting this spring. 

💬 Reels that include a person talking or that feature a highly visible person in the first three seconds have better retention, according to new data from Emplifi.

💅 Pro Tip: Last month, we told you that Meta was rumored to be testing Product Set Optimization, which lets retail media networks optimize campaigns at the SKU level. This week, Meta confirmed the tool and AdWeek reported on a media firm that’s seeing “up to 40% improvement in ROAS versus business-as-usual” in early testing of the tool.

🔎 Google’s monthly “Demand Gen Drop” brings news of ad-tech updates across the platform’s “most viral surfaces.” 

• AI Video Creation: Google’s Veo lets advertisers turn static images into video content, helping to expand creative variety and improve ad strength.

• YouTube Creator Partnerships: Formerly known as BrandConnect, Creator Partnerships are integrated into Demand Gen to discover and connect with creators.

• YouTube Optimization and Tracking: New optimization goals allow advertisers to drive follow-on views and channel engagements, helping directly grow YouTube audiences

🎯 Google announced new improvements to Performance Max, including:

• You can now exclude customer lists to shift spend toward net-new customer acquisition instead of repeat conversions.

• You get detailed breakdowns by demographics, including age and gender.

• You can segment placement reports by network, now under When and where ads showed.

⚾  YouTube is launching a Top Sports Podcast line-up for advertisers, which will make it easier for advertisers to tap into sports discussion. The line-up is available to all U.S. advertisers.

🐦 TikTok announced a slew of exciting new ad products at last week’s IAB NewFronts:

• Logo Takeover (see below, looks cool) is a new premium ad format that gives brands an exclusive opportunity to co-brand with TikTok as soon as users open the app.

• Prime Time is a sequential ad format that allows brands the option to show a series of ads at specific times, delivering up to three sequential ads from one advertiser to the same user within a designated 15-minute time window.

• TopReach combines two existing units — TopView and TopFeed — into a single buy to maximize one-day reach. Reminder: TopView is the first ad spot users see when they open the app and TopFeed is a first in-feed ad spot that appears in the For You Feed.

• Pulse Mentions places brands alongside content where their brand or category is trending and being actively discussed.

• Pulse Tastemakers lets brands align their ads with their selection of eligible creators, helping to tap into creator communities and build strong brand association with reputable voices on the platform.

🎠 New for Smart+ Catalog: Collage Carousel, a format that features one main image at the top with three additional full-screen clickable images below. According to TikTok, this format has shown a 56% increase in CTR.

👽 Reddit is expanding access to the publisher tools it launched last September. Any publisher who wants to grow their reach on Reddit can sign up, verify their domain, and get free access to the Links tab in Reddit Pro as part of the platform’s public beta. Here’s what you get:

• URL engagement insights and community snapshots, which let publishers access statistics around their links and insights into which links are most discussed among users. 

• Lets publishers sync RSS feeds to the app. 

• According to Reddit, “across publishers who have tested the tools since September, median post views increased 46% and profile views nearly doubled compared to their pre-tool baseline. Additionally, median comments on publisher stories grew 48% in the period after publishers adopted the tool.”

💅 Pro Tip: You can update the time zone of a Reddit ad account yourself if it was created before customizing the time zone was an option. The default time zone for Reddit accounts is UTC/GMT.

📌 Pinterest just launched “Promote a Pin,” a new unit to help individual creators and small businesses easily boost content with minimal setup, making it a low-barrier entry point into paid media.

🐦 X is rolling out a completely re-imagined ad stack and a new Ads Manager interface—a ground-up tear-down and rebuild. Here’s what to expect:

• Faster, smarter ad delivery: The entire backend has been overhauled for improved speed, scale, relevance, and measurement. Legacy issues (like serving gaps or billing hiccups) are resolved, and prediction + delivery are now significantly stronger.

• 100% of campaigns are already running on the new stack with zero changes needed to your API integrations: everything continues uninterrupted. 

• Brand-new Ads Manager: Cleaner, modern design with customizable charts, easier campaign creation, full-screen metrics, and a streamlined workflow.

• Billing improvements: X moved to Stripe for cleaner invoices, greater stability, and enhanced security.

👎 Here’s a blast from the past: X is reinstating comment downvotes as a part of the platform’s effort to address the issue of AI-generated spam that has been negatively impacting user engagement

🔊 Spotify is introducing a branded takeover of select Spotify playlists—including flagship selections like Rap Caviar, Today’s Top Hits, and New Music Friday. Advertisers will be the only featured brand on a given playlist, appearing prominently on the playlist’s main page, while their ads run exclusively during play.

🎠 Also coming from Spotify: interactive carousel ads that spotlight up to six different products. Count this as another step in Spotify’s mission to become a more visually-interactive platform. 

• Each carousel card includes its own image, link, description, and optional pricing or promotional information. 

• The ads will appear in the app’s Now Playing view.

👻 Snapchat announced new, high-impact ad options to help brands increase their in-app presence: 

• Total Snap Takeovers: Allow advertisers to show up in the first ad spot in each tab for wide reach, high impressions, and increased brand lift. 

• Offers: Currently in Beta, Snap is letting advertisers integrate promotions directly into ads.

• New Dynamic Product Ad Formats: Snapchat is evolving its personalized product recommendations with new formats including Multi-Segment DPA, Vertical Carousel Ads, and Product-Level Video Ads. 

How Jennifer Aniston’s LolaVie brand grew sales 40% with CTV ads

The DTC beauty category is crowded. To break through, Jennifer Aniston’s brand LolaVie, worked with Roku Ads Manager to easily set up, test, and optimize CTV ad creatives. The campaign helped drive a big lift in sales and customer growth, helping LolaVie break through in the crowded beauty category.

Learn more

🏈 Disney Advertising is now (as of this week) managing sales for NFL Network, NFL Fantasy, and the RedZone linear business — the result of the blockbuster deal by which ESPN acquired the NFL’s media properties in exchange for a 10% ownership stake in ESPN. 

🍎 Apple is (finally?) introducing sponsored listings into Apple Maps. The units will work similarly to Google Maps, allowing retailers and brands to bid for ad slots against search queries. The question is: when? According to SearchEngineLand, the official announcement could come “as early as this month, with ads beginning to appear inside Maps as early as this summer across iPhone, other Apple devices, and the web version.”

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, Sabina Saktaganova, Mariya Samardzhieva, Kiara Quigley, Lara Spijkerman, Kayleigh McDonald, and Carly Carioli.