Why you can’t trust Meta’s AI—yet

Today’s Social Media advertising rates are confirmed:

↘️ META: $8.44 CPM | ↗️ TIKTOK: $5.03 CPM | ↗️ SNAPCHAT: $10.82 CPM

In this week’s edition: 

• 😯 Trending topics on Reels!

• Trending topics on Pinterest! 😮

• 😱 Trending creators on Google!

But first…

🧠 Meta Says Trust the AI — But Don’t Fire Your Media Buyer Just Yet

Meta wants you to believe its ad platform now runs itself. In a recent interview Mark Zuckerberg doubled down on his vision for building an ad platform where “you don’t need any creative, you don’t need demographic targeting, you don’t need measurement” — i.e., no experience necessary. Just upload a few assets, set a budget, and let Meta handle the rest.

Sounds great in theory. In practice? Not so fast. Advertisers who’ve tested Advantage+ campaigns know Meta's AI can drive efficient results when properly trained and tightly managed. But it's no substitute for strategy — and it certainly isn’t immune to junk inputs or brand damage. 

We liked Search Engine Land’s quick-and-dirty guide on how to work with Meta AI instead of blindly trusting it:

• Feed it high-quality inputs. Creative still matters — a lot.

• Set clear constraints. Guardrails protect brand safety and audience relevance.

• Watch the data. AI can drift; stay vigilant on performance.

• Experiment, then refine. Don’t set-and-forget: Set, then iterate.

The Inside Scoop🍦: Now trending in performance media

♾️ Meta: More from last week’s epic rollouts at NewFronts:

• 📸 Similar to TikTok’s Pulse Ads, Instagram is now testing out Reels trending ads, which will enable advertisers to display ads alongside trending Reels content. Marketers can choose to run next to overall top trending Reels or among themed content, such as beauty or sports. 

• 📈 Meta is updating Creator Marketplace to include trending topics on Reels. (See the screenshots below.) Meta will provide a basic overview of each topic, along with a quick link to relevant clips for added context. They’re also adding more info on creator profiles that show how their past brand collaborations have performed. 

👍Meta will be expanding their Partnership Ads Hub content recommendations to Facebook. Previously, this tool only highlighted potential Instagram creators to collaborate with. 

🔎 Google used NewFronts to announce new tools aimed at connecting advertisers with YouTube Creators—similar to Meta’s Partnership Ads Hub and TikTok’s Creator Marketplace.

• Creator Partnerships Hub houses improved sponsored video discovery, creator search, and paid and organic reporting for linked videos.

Search for relevant creators and learn about their fandoms in a new report in Insights Finder (registration required).

🤖 Responding to advertiser concerns about control and transparency, Google released a Q&A to clarify how its new AI Max Tool works. Read the explainer here. Note that Google recommends you use all three of these AI Max functionalities, although you can toggle them off individually:

• Match your ads with more relevant searches, even ones you aren’t bidding on.

• Customize ad copy dynamically based on user intent.

• Send users to your most relevant landing pages automatically.

🖼️ If you’ve opted into Dynamic Images in your PMax campaign, Google may pull visuals directly from your website to dynamically populate ad creatives. This is now turned on by default for all new campaigns, but you can still toggle the setting at the campaign level. 

• Speaking of which, if this edition of The Thread is making you think, “Gee, I could use a PMax refresher,” Search Engine Land has got you.

🚌 We gave ourselves a refresher in Google’s “Things To Do” ads this week—and were reminded that there are some big limitations to keep in mind: 

• They’re not recommended for individual attractions, tour operators, activity providers, or a reservation system that represents fewer than 100 operators. Excludes one-time events, virtual experiences, restaurant coupons, and multi-day cruises.

• Google recommends running through connectivity providers rather than integrating directly.

• Product feed is required.

• Integration timeline estimated at 4-16 weeks.

🎯 Remember last week when we shared a workaround to enable device targeting in PMax campaigns? Google just made things easier for us by rolling out device targeting options for PMax in campaign settings. Ask and ye shall receive…

📌 Pinterest is beta testing Ad Group Scheduler, which lets you set start/end dates at the ad group level. 

✂️ Also in beta testing: Collage Ads. Collages allow users to cut out and combine visual elements, driving +2x repins vs. traditional pins, according to Pinterest. Pinterest intends for upper-funnel advertisers to drive brand awareness with collage ads, which will be in a standard ad format with tappable cutouts upon closeup.

🔎 Searching for organic keyword trends: it’s not just for Google Trends anymore. You can now see organic search trends on Pinterest. Like so:

🐦 Twitter/X updated its website card display for in-stream ads: with a text bar and a custom CTA button along the bottom of the ad for campaigns using the “Sales” objective. This “new” format is very similar to how all Twitter/X link posts used to look in the app.

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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