TikTok just rolled out Search Ads to everyone

Today’s Social Media advertising rates are fall, y’all:

↘️ META: $7.62 CPM | ↗️ TIKTOK: $4.23 CPM | ↘️ SNAPCHAT: $6.84 CPM

In this week’s edition: 

• ⏰ Are you using TikTok search ads yet?

• Twitter/X lost how many users? 🐦

• 🚨 Beware this new PMax auto opt-in

But first…

⏸️ YouTube’s Pause Ads are now live

YouTube has widely rolled out Pause Ads to all advertisers. The ads display as static images alongside the pause screen when viewers pause a video on YouTube. The ad appears 10 seconds after the pause and stays on-screen until the user goes to resume their video. Some additional details from our Google reps:

• Pause ads are bookable as an open pilot via YouTube Select, which has a $35K minimum. The base rate CPM is $20, with upcharges for affinity and demographic targeting. (These are U.S. prices; international rates will vary.)

• At press time, these ads are an impression-only format with no mechanism to “click out.” However, you can include a baked-in QR code with a tagged link.

• Pause ads are currently available only for YouTube CTV—i.e., watching YouTube on a Connected TV screen. It does not include YouTubeTV. 

They’ve already been spotted in the wild:

The Inside Scoop🍦: Now trending in performance media

⏰ TikTok opened up Search Ads to all advertisers this week. We’ll all be keeping a close eye on these campaigns as we head into the holiday season, especially considering that 9 out of 10 users take action after searching on TikTok, per company data.

Is this the beginning of a new era in the Search Wars? Many signs point to yes. As Digiday notes: “If TikTok strikes the right balance, search ads could help it carve out a bigger slice of the ad market — not just from big brands but also from smaller advertisers who’ve yet to make TikTok a key part of their strategies.”

Reminders: 

• A Search Ads campaign is different from the Search Ads Toggle, in that it’s a standalone campaign separate from For You feed campaigns. 

• You can select specific keywords to target and upload creative assets per search campaign. Our analysts tested these in Beta, and we’ve had some success with them—at times seeing higher conversion rates than FYP ads. 

• However, our CPAs were typically higher, due to Search campaigns bringing in higher CPLCs. 

• Keep in mind that Search Ads volume can be very low depending on your keywords. 

🎁 Good news for smaller campaigns: TikTok’s holiday targeting bundles no longer have minimum spend requirements:

🎵 ByteDance is shuttering its streaming music service, TikTok Music, on November 28. Instead, they say they will “continue partnering with music streaming services rather than competing with them.” TikTok Music was available in Indonesia, Brazil, Australia, Singapore and Mexico.

⭕ Reddit launched a new ads inspiration library, a filterable collection of top performing Reddit ad creative a la TikTok’s ads library:

🐦 Twitter/X is losing ground in both the US and the UK, according to new analysis from the Financial Times. Using data from Similarweb, FT reports that more than two million UK users have departed the platform in the past year, while US active users “have fallen by about a fifth.” Those findings refute Elon Musk’s repeated claims that X usage is better and stronger than ever.

🔎 What makes great Google ads copy? According to new data, the answer sometimes is: just okay Google ads copy. Optimyzr looked at a million ads — including responsive search ads (RSAs), expanded text ads (ETAs) and Demand Gen ads — across 22,000 accounts. Among the questions they asked: does Google’s “Ad Strength” metric actually drive performance? What about little things, like capitalization? How about length? The answers might surprise you.

• “Ad Strength” is a weak indicator. The study found that the best ROAS often came from ads that scored just “average” on Ad Strength. And while responsive search ads with an “Excellent” score had a higher click-through rate (CTR), they also had the highest CPA—and the lovest average conversion rate. The best ROAS for Demand Gen ads? “Good.” 

• Case matters. People Who Write In Title Case Will Be Unhappy To Learn This. Sentence case outperformed title case. Case closed. 

• Size matters. “Shorter headlines consistently outperformed longer ones,” despite widespread hypotheses “that longer ads, which take up more screen real estate, perform better.” Keep it tight, short king.

🚨 Buyer beware: Google’s PMax is auto-resizing videos now 

Sneaky auto-enhancement alert: Google is rolling out a video enhancement feature for Performance Max (PMax) that automatically generates additional vertical and square versions of your video, in addition to shorter versions. Some advertisers have reported that they’ve already been opted-in by default.

• Speaking of PMax, check out these scripts to help negate poor performers, track disapproved products, and exclude spammy placements.

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

🎁 According to TikTok’s holiday advertising fact sheet, the platform sees a 190% increase in videos tagged #holidayshopping during the two-week period straddling Halloween — yet more evidence that the holiday ad season starts in a few weeks. As we rev our engines, we’re gearing up with some inspiration for the Q4 rush. What about you?

📊 Last edition’s poll results: What should Texas's new state motto be?

🟨🟨🟨🟨🟨⬜️ Don't X with Texas

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 All my Xs live in Texas

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