Paid Media News & Opinion #144

Meta introduces new ad formats and AI enhancements

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> What’s happening

Meta has announced a number of updates designed to help advertisers tap into cultural moments across Facebook, Instagram, Threads, and WhatsApp, while also leveraging AI to improve efficiency and targeting.

After a closed beta, Reels Trending Ads are opening up to more advertisers. These placements put brands alongside the most popular Reels, with early results showing a 20% lift in unaided awareness, which is comparable to YouTube Select and even stronger than TikTok Pulse.

With 400 million monthly active users, Threads is becoming a meaningful ad channel. New features include carousel formats, 4:5 single image and video rendering, and simplified campaign setup, giving brands more creative options for authentic engagement.

There are a number of AI-Powered targeting improvements. Firstly, value rules for awareness & engagement, which extends AI-driven audience prioritization beyond sales campaigns. Secondly, landing page view optimization, which helps brands without direct pixel access target users more likely to load destination pages, cutting cost per view by up to 31%.

Meta is also expanding WhatsApp status ad options, blending Status ads with click-to-message formats, allowing ads in the Updates tab that send users directly into a chat with businesses. This builds on June’s launch of Status ads and positions WhatsApp as a growing direct-response channel.

> Why we care

For advertisers, these updates unlock new ways to combine awareness-building with measurable engagement.

With 4.5B daily shares and more than half of Instagram time spent on Reels, trending ads put brands directly into the heart of social media. The ability to align with viral moments means higher awareness, recall, and relevance.

As Threads scales, its lightweight ad formats give brands an early mover advantage in a platform designed for authentic, conversational brand building.

By expanding Value Rules and adding Landing Page View Optimization, Meta is lowering wasted impressions and improving efficiency, particularly for brands that don’t have deep data. Advertisers can expect better conversions at lower costs with less manual tweaking.

WhatsApp ads that blend immersive Status placements with direct chat entry points could outperform traditional ads by creating immediate, personalized engagement. This is especially relevant for businesses focused on conversational commerce and customer service at scale.

Google is rolling out ‘Smart Bidding Exploration’ to loosen ROAS targets

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> What’s happening

Google is rolling out a new “Smart Bidding Exploration” toggle within Performance Max campaigns that temporarily relaxes ROAS targets when its system detects additional conversion opportunities.

This feature was teased at Google Marketing Live, initially tested in Search campaigns, and now the beta is rolling out more broadly. Advertisers can opt in within campaign settings, checking a box and then setting a “tolerance” on their ROAS target of between 10% - 30%.

> Why we care

The aim here is to prioritise volume over efficiency, for businesses that can afford to be a bit more relaxed around ROAS and initial profitability. For those where efficiency is important, this is unlikely to be a good feature, unless temporarily used tactically around events such as Black Friday.

Google have advised that in testing it has increase conversions by around 19%, although an increase in conversions feels the least you would expect from a lower ROAS goal. It’s always worth testing these new features, although equally if you can afford for your ROAS to be lower and volume is your main goal, then we’d suggest most advertisers would already have dropped their ROAS targets manually without the need for this feature.

TikTok reports Search Ads Campaigns are delivering a 2x uplift in conversions

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> What’s happening

TikTok has reported that campaigns using its Search Ads placement delivered roughly twice the purchase lift of non-search TikTok campaigns, in a recent US and Canada study. The format, launched last September, lets advertisers run keyword-based ads in TikTok search results with negative keywords, match types and search term reporting.

> Why we care

Searches on TikTok are increasing significantly, with search queries up 40% year on year. Search has always been a great placement for paid advertisers, as there’s real intent behind the user that can be tapped into. These results are encouraging that real value can be achieved from this campaign type, so we would certainly encourage advertisers to test this placement.

What else we've been talking about:

• Google Tag Manager adds event parameters to Ads and Floodlight tags

• Reddit debuts 6-second video ad views goal

• Amazon Ads launches AI tool to build ad campaigns

• Google doubles down on AI Max

• Google publishes new guide on Shopping ads pricing