Spotify's ads platform gets a glow-up

Today’s Social Media advertising rates are brat:

↘️ YOUTUBE: $1.73 CPM | ↗️ META: $7.04 CPM | ↘️ TIKTOK: $4.99 CPM

In this week’s edition: 

• 💅 Get ready to re-do all your TikTok thumbnails

• Congress gets serious about online child safety 🛟

• ⭕ Reddit joins the lead-generation craze

But first…

🔊 4 reasons Spotify Ads Manager just got better

Spotify continues to mature the market for podcast and audio ads. This week, it announced the rollout of a suite of updates to its rebranded Spotify Ads Manager. Here’s what’s got us excited: 

• New audio ad creation tools for faster and more customized audio ads: There’s a big “coming soon” here—including a generative AI tool that will create audio ads “in seconds,” with the ability to create multiple variations and edit fine-tune voice overs with instant editing tools. 

• New targeting segments: Coming soon—deeper levels of first-party interest and contextual podcast targeting, plus matched/lookalike audiences.  

• Audience Manager for Custom Audiences: Your saved audiences are available today, with matched, custom, and lookalike audiences being added to the interface “soon.”

• Mobile app attribution: Spotify has announced Kochava and AppsFlyer third-party partners, plus IAS and DoubleVerify for viewability metrics.

The Inside Scoop🍦: Now trending in performance media

⭕ Reddit is jumping on the lead-generation ad bandwagon. The ads, which are now in public beta, are available globally and are integrated with Zapier, allowing you to zap the leads directly into your CRM of choice. According to Reddit, one advertiser in the private beta “saw a 30% decrease in cost per lead and a 25% increase in lead submission rates compared to their previous conversion campaigns on the platform.”

🕰️ TikTok: Not to be outdone, beginning this week, the TikTok Carousel format will support the Lead Generation objective. What’s the upside? Reduced production cost on ad creation—since carousels are generally cheaper/easier than video. And a little more flexibility in the storytelling: Think about how LinkedIn lets you read a few pages of a white paper before committing your contact info. Here’s how that’ll look:

Also new this week, TikTok now allows you to upload a custom cover/thumbnail for your videos. Previously, you could only use a still from your video. Why does this matter? Think back to how much the visual vocabulary of YouTube thumbnails evolved since YT made the same change. Given the rise in search on TikTok, we predict creators and brands will leverage this to help grab more attention in search results.

🔎 Google is starting to roll out conversion metrics to Performance Max asset reporting. 

In its blog post announcing the move, Google appears to be leaning into Meta’s “Creative Is the New Targeting” directive, advising advertisers that “Creative asset variety is key to maximizing your success with AI-powered campaigns. It allows your ads to appear in as many relevant places as possible and gives you more creative options to meet the needs of different customers.” The PMax reporting, combined with enhanced generative-AI image editing features, is designed to help diversify your ad set. 

Coming Soon: Google will be gradually deprecating Video Action Campaigns—its campaign designation for driving conversions across YouTube, Google video partners, and other video platforms—with full deprecation scheduled for March 2025. As an alternative, we recommend running a video-only Demand Generation campaign, which is essentially the same, and can include similar audiences as an added bonus!

📌 Remember a few weeks ago when we told you Pinterest was launching its Performance+ beta? As an Advantage+ / PMax-type machine-optimized solution combining “Pinterest’s top performing automation and AI features into a simplified campaign setup”? Right: it’s still happening, but the beta launch has been pushed back a few weeks to August 19.

🫰Similar to a change made by Meta earlier this year, Snapchat will be reducing the number of possible objectives from 12 to five. You’ll now be able to choose from Awareness & Engagement, Traffic, Leads, App Promotion, and Sales.

🛟 Kid safety takes center stage in Congress

The U.S. Senate passed two major online child safety reforms in a nearly unanimous, bipartisan vote this week. The legislation—described as “the most significant child online safety bills in decades”—faces an uncertain fate in the House of Representatives. The two bills are the Children and Teens' Online Privacy Protection Act and the Kids Online Safety Act, nicknamed COPPA 2.0 and KOSA. The bills would require platforms to set the highest privacy and safety settings by default for those under 17 and would ban targeted ads to kids and teens.

Tech companies are split on the bill: Microsoft and Snap are for it, while Meta has suggested “improvements.” Some civil liberties groups worry the laws could be used to isolate or censor LGBTQ youth online. Republicans, who control the House, have expressed a willingness to “move forward” with the bill, according to NBC, which quoted Speaker Mike Johnson as calling the bills “important” and saying, “I’d like to get it done.”

🐘The Elephant In the Room: Our weekly office poll!

Tom Brady, the greatest football player who ever lived, has retired. (Mostly.) 

His AI chatbot alter ego? Now also retired. 

Less than a year after announcing the launch of a suite of officially-licensed celebrity AI chatbots — including Kendall Jenner, Chris Paul, and Charli D’Amelio — Meta has scrapped the entire initiative, according to The Information. Some users reportedly found them “creepy.” 

Which begs the question:

📊 Last week’s poll results: 

Which social media platform are you using to keep up with the Olympics?

🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ X/Twitter 

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ Instagram 

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 TikTok

🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️ YouTube

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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