What the Meta settlement means for ad inventory

Today’s Social Media advertising rates are back to school:

↗️ META: $9.76 | ↗️ TIKTOK: $1.96 | ↘️ SNAPCHAT: $10.83

In this week’s edition: 

• ♾️ Is Meta about to tighten the noose on ad exclusions?

• Will Google let you tweak your PMax?  🔎

• 🤖 Model Context Protocol is coming to X

But first…

🧠 What the Meta settlement means for ad inventory

Meta just agreed to a landmark $16.68 billion settlement to resolve a lawsuit by 48 states alleging that Facebook and Instagram knew its services harmed its users, including children, and improperly harvested their data. In addition to payments directly to states over the next 10 years, the company agreed to make sweeping changes to its products, including a two-hour daily use cap for users under 18; a “night mode” block on usage between midnight and 6 a.m.; and a “school mode” disabling of push notifications for teens during school hours. 

While Meta has already heavily restricted ad targeting options for 13-17 year olds, the settlement goes further by directly capping their available screen time. Those changes are likely to have macro effects: we’d expect to see a squeeze on daytime ad inventory and ultimately drive up cost metrics among this demographic.

The Inside Scoop🍦: Now trending in performance media

♾️ Meta is making a change that we’re keeping a close eye on: a limited set of users is being told that Meta plans to remove the option to exclude placements, platforms, devices and operating systems. That change tracks with Meta’s stated goal of giving its automated systems more control over where campaigns run, and marks another step toward the company’s goal of fully AI-automated campaign management. It’s also, in our opinion, a concern for advertisers who prioritize brand safety, optimization, and transparency.

• Our sources at Meta tell us the change is limited and part of a test, although they expect it to roll out to more users over time. “Right now, we're testing an updated way to configure placements in Ads Manager with a limited group of advertisers,” Meta told us, “and we're learning from that before making any broader decisions….If this experience becomes available in the future, we'll make sure you have the guidance you need ahead of time.”

👉 5 Takeaways from Meta’s recent webinar on Meta Reach Planner (formerly Campaign Planner)::

• It’s available in Business Manager.

• You can port your plan directly into Ads Manager.

• Then, select your ad account & handles.

• Percent Reach Planner lets you estimate budgets based on audience saturation goals.

• The options are:

  • Custom Plan (standard plan): Can plan to maximize Reach or ThruPlays. Actual ThruPlay results vary based on the creative.

  • Ads Burst (formerly known as Meta Moment Maker)

  • Ads Super Burst

🧵 Threads is testing podcast transcripts, a new format that syncs audio with transcripts directly in the feed, allowing users to follow along even when listening with sound off.

• The format would sync with Apple Podcasts, and potentially other podcast platforms, embedding both playback and a transcript within a Threads post.

• Meta is also testing expanded display formats to encourage episode discovery and in-app conversation as podcast consumption reaches 58% of Americans in 2026.

💅 Pro Tip: You’ve likely seen accounts that offer to DM you something—a discount code, a contest entry—in exchange for commenting on a post. Now Meta is helping brands to automate that workflow. Some advertisers are seeing a new “Reply to Keywords” box under Conversations when creating an ad. Meta says the feature can “save time by automatically sending a private message when people comment with a keyword.” You can define up to five keywords or phrases that, if used in a comment on your ad, will result in an automated DM. Here’s how that looks:

🔎 Google is testing an experimental “Channels” setting that appears to let advertisers make positive or negative adjustments for individual Performance Max channels.

• Currently in alpha testing, a positive adjustment relaxes the CPA the system is willing to accept for that channel, while a negative adjustment tightens the CPA, encouraging PMax to place less emphasis on that channel.

• Note that this isn’t the same as assigning a fixed percentage of budget to Search or YouTube. Instead, advertisers appear to be influencing the economics PMax uses when deciding where to pursue conversions.

📺 Google is expanding the industry content allowed in Google TV Masthead ads, opening the format up to more advertisers across regulated categories:

• Alcohol: Now permitted, provided it complies with Google's Alcohol policy.

• Consumer Electronics: Headphones, computers, wearables, cameras/imaging equipment, routers, and thermostats will be allowed. TVs, smartphones, tablets, and soundbars remain prohibited.

• Healthcare & Medicines: Now permitted, provided it meets Google's Healthcare and Medicines policy.

• Gambling: Sports betting and Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS limited to the U.S. and Canada) will be permitted, subject to Google's Gambling and Games policy. All other gambling content remains prohibited, including online/offline gambling, social casino games, and online non-casino games.

🧠 Google DeepMind's flagship model, Gemini Omni, is now enabling multimodal video creation directly within Asset Studio in Google Ads.

🚘 Waze inventory is now available via PMax. Advertisers would appear as a "Promoted Places in Navigation" pin directly on a user's Waze map along their driving route.

⏰ TikTok just unveiled its Q3 product roadmap, spanning reach, creative, commerce, and AI:

🎯 TopReach

• TopReach Max Reach is a new high-impact ad solution that combines TikTok's TopView and TopFeed placements into one high-reach buy for major launches. It supports age, gender, and interest targeting.

• TopView is now available as self-serve.

• TopView Geo Exclusion allows advertisers to run national campaigns while excluding up to 40% of sub-regions, such as states, cities, or designated geographic areas.

• TopView Traffic Optimization prioritizes people more likely to click through to their website or TikTok Shop, while maintaining guaranteed reach. Select “Optimized Click” during campaign setup.

🎨 Creative for Smart+ Catalog Ads

• Creative Upgrades, formerly Creator+, is a redesigned experience for discovering, managing and refreshing creative in Smart+ Catalog Ads.

• Catalog Image & Video Auto-Crawl expands an advertiser's creative pool by finding eligible product images and videos on their public landing pages.

• Sales Campaigns also now integrate with Google Analytics.

💓 TikTok Pulse

• Pulse Custom Lineups are available in Canada

• Pulse Custom Lineups self-serve will enter open beta in the U.S. and Canada this quarter.

• Pulse Mentions are available in the U.S. and Canada, giving all advertisers broader access to ad adjacency alongside verified organic TikTok content about their brand, products, category, or competitors

🔎 Search Ads Automation

• Smart+ is expanding to Search Ads

🔀 Lead Generation

• Auto-Selection is now available for Lead Gen campaigns, alongside Sales and Growth Max objectives. Auto-Selection helps with creative fatigue by automatically sourcing, testing, and scaling top-performing assets from brand uploads, creator content, and AI-generated content.

💼 LinkedIn is taking steps to curb the rise of AI-generated content on the platform with its new “Seems like AI Slop” feedback button. Users report that the button is already having an effect: their feeds are becoming less saturated with repetitive, AI-generated posts. 

✂️ At the same time, LinkedIn is expanding its own AI capabilities for advertisers. The platform recently introduced a “Recommended Clips and Chapters” tool that can turn longer LinkedIn broadcasts into shorter, event-focused content by identifying standout moments, clips, and announcements. The update gives advertisers another way to repurpose long-form content into more digestible, social-first creative.

📌 Pinterest released an updated Hobbies and Trend report for 2026, highlighting that users are increasingly turning to the platform to explore hands-on pastimes, such as tactile crafts, edited collections, analog practices and slow, sensory kitchen projects.

🐦 X has launched its own Model Context Protocol (MCP) server, which allows advertisers to integrate AI tools directly with X campaigns. MCP server connections allow users to bring X ads data into AI tools and use it to inform campaign creation and management. 

• The X server is compatible with any MCP-capable client, including Grok, Claude Code, or custom agents.

• This marks another step towards social platforms opening up third-party connections enabling AI-powered campaign management.

🖥️ Microsoft is phasing out Max CPC beginning October 1 — as of that date, it will no longer be available when creating new non-portfolio campaigns.

• Microsoft recommends switching to target CPA, target ROAS, and conversion value rules where appropriate.

• Existing campaigns created before 10/1 will continue to retain Max CPC as a bidding feature, and Max CPC will remain available for campaigns using portfolio bid strategies

🧠 OpenAI now allows you to select maximize results as a bid strategy to let ChatGPT automatically set and adjust bids on your behalf by optimizing towards your goal to get the most results with your budget.

📲 Use platform targeting to control which surface to run your campaign on, including IOS app, Android app, and Web.

🌏 ChatGPT ads in Brazil and Mexico are officially live, while the international expansion to 31 European countries continues this week.

📊 By the numbers: Digital OOH

Digital formats account for nearly half of worldwide OOH advertising revenue. According to a July report from the World Out of Home Organization, digital formats will account for 49% of OOH revenue ($28 billion in revenue), up from 31% in 2020

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, Kayleigh McDonald, Kiara Quigley, Lara Spijkerman, Liana Giacobbe, Mariya Samardzhieva, and Carly Carioli.