YouTube Shorts views are about to spike. Here’s why.

Today’s Social Media advertising rates have entered the chat:

↗️ META: $8.38 CPM | ↗️ TIKTOK: $3.13 CPM | ↗️ SNAPCHAT: $8.64 CPM

In this week’s edition: 

• ♾️ Meta ramps up its brand-to-creator connections

• Are TikTok conversions underrated? ⏰

• 👽 Reddit users can now hide your ads for a year

But first…

⚠️  Buyer Beware: YouTube Shorts views are about to spike. Here’s why.

YouTube just gave its Shorts view metric a makeover—and advertisers should pay attention. Starting next week, view counts are likely to rise, but that doesn’t necessarily mean your content is hitting harder. 

That’s because, beginning March 31, YouTube Shorts views will now count the number of times a creator’s Short starts to play or replay. 

In the past, a view had been counted after a Short was viewed for a certain number of seconds. As a result of this change, view counts will be higher moving forward. With this update, YouTube Shorts will now align its metrics with those of TikTok and Instagram Reels, both of which track the number of times your video starts or replays.

The Inside Scoop🍦: Now trending in performance media

⏰ TikTok is aggressively pushing the narrative that conversions from TikTok are grossly underreported— particularly compared with data reported from last-click attribution models. According to a recent MMM analysis by Ovative Group (co-authored by the TikTok Marketing Sciences Team), TikTok’s actual ROI is—on average—23 times higher than what last-click attribution models report. And they came with receipts. Check out these case studies from the marketing measurement and attribution platform Fospha: 

• Google Analytics underreported Andie Swim TikTok conversions by 10X compared to Fospha’s data.

• CUUP used Fospha data to justify scaling up TikTok ad spend by 400%.

• Fospha’s full funnel measurement determined that TikTok was Groove Life’s most efficient channel.

☠️This week in TikTok Death Watch: The senior U.S. Senator from Massachusetts, Ed Markey, is leading a push by Congressional Democrats to ask President Donald Trump to (legally, this time) extend an exemption for the TikTok ban by actually going to Congress for approval. 

Meanwhile, another major leader on TikTok’s ad staff departed as the platform navigates increasing uncertainty in the U.S.—and an April 5 deadline to sell the company draws near. 

⏰ Meanwhile, in TikTok Ads Manager (TTAM) news: TikTok has rolled out a Timezone Converter to make it easier and more accurate to schedule campaigns across different time zones. Here’s why we care:

• Flexible Timezone Scheduling: Choose to schedule ads in either the local timezone or the target market’s timezone, with automatic conversions to your Business Center account timezone.

• Smart Dayparting & DST Adjustments: Set dayparting confidently—timezone shifts like Daylight Savings are handled automatically, with alerts if start and end times span different zones.

• Clear, Editable Scheduling: Timezones are clearly labeled in UTC and local formats, and you can edit scheduled times anytime before they go live.

🎯 Also updated in TTAM: a restructured ads-creation flow for Traffic, App Promotion, Lead Generation and Sales campaigns, by introducing the Manual Campaign Type. There are now three campaign types under those objectives:

• Manual campaign: Create campaigns using the standard workflow to have precise control over ads settings

• Smart+ campaign: Automated campaign management, including ad placements and ad audience targeting 

• Search campaign: Create campaigns with keywords and serve ads within TikTok's search result page

♾️ Meta has added a number of improvements to its creator marketplace tools to help brands and advertisers find creator partners to work with on branded content campaigns. Included in these improvements are keyword search and more performance metrics on creator profiles.

🎨 In Meta Ads Manager, Meta now allows you to set specific branding presets for logo, font and colors for more consistent visuals when enabling generative AI content.

📹 For video view and engagement ads, Meta has been auto-pulling in the description copy from your landing page if left blank. To prevent this, add a space in the description copy box:

👽 Reddit has given users the option to hide an ad from their feed—which will also block all paid content from the relevant Reddit advertiser account for “at least” one year. The feature, marketing as a way to give users more control over the sponsored content they encounter on the platform, is now rolling out across accounts. 

🟣 Roku has added dayparting in its Ad Manager. Why do you care? Because when it comes to digital marketing, timing can be as crucial as the message itself: 

• Targeted Ad Scheduling: Dayparting allows you to run ads during specific times of the day or days of the week, aligning ad delivery with your target audience's viewing habits.​

• Flexible and Adjustable: You can set ad delivery in one-hour increments or longer, and adjust these settings at any time during your campaign to optimize performance.​

• Time Zone Alignment: Ads are delivered based on the viewer's local time zone, ensuring your scheduled times resonate accurately across different regions.​

🔥 Pro tip: Looking for one pixel-helper browser plug-in to rule them all? Omnibug shows you what’s firing across multiple platforms.

📊 Research Roundup: Three big numbers on incrementality, CTV ads, and engagement

👍 According to a recent Digiday+ Research study of 150 marketers, when it comes to how they’re measuring success on the social platforms they use, engagement turned out to be the most important metric. And on their biggest challenge across platforms, responses were mixed, with cost of media impacting Meta, lack of budget affecting YouTube, and lack of content holding them back on TikTok. Also on TikTok: brand safety concerns. Facebook was the only platform where marketers cited lack of consumer interest.

📈 We love when the industry starts parroting our talking points. If you’ve heard our analysts preach about our favorite topic —  the “Slope of Incrementality” — then you’ll appreciate this new Digiday report, which says advertisers in retail media are beginning to get religion. “This year,” Digiday writes, “expect more emphasis on measurement with advertisers prioritizing incrementality metrics as opposed to return on ad spend (ROAS).” 

📺 Nearly 80% of consumers “expect to see no ads at all” if they’re paying for a streaming service, according to new research from free streaming service Tubi and The Harris Poll. According to the report, released this week, viewers are shelling out an average of $129 per month for streaming services and other paid TV subscriptions, a 7.5% YoY jump, and subscribe to nearly seven streamers in total—an average of 3.9 paid streamers and 2.6 free ones. 

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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