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- Paid Media News & Opinion #150
Paid Media News & Opinion #150
🔎 Meta enhances lead-gen with AI optimisation and CRM integration 🔎 Google CTRs continue to drop amidst AIO impact 🔎 Google Merchant Centre adds promotion insights and video asset management
This week’s highlights:
🔎 Meta enhances lead-gen with AI optimisation and CRM integration
🔎 Google CTRs continue to drop amidst AIO impact
🔎 Google Merchant Centre adds promotion insights and video asset management
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Meta enhances lead-gen with AI optimisation and CRM integration
> What’s happening
Meta has rolled out several updates to its lead-generation tools including expanding Advantage+ Leads globally to apply AI-driven optimisation across targeting, placement, and budget. Early adopters report 14% lower cost per lead and 10% lower cost per qualified lead. The platform is also introducing new verification options, including phone number and work email validation, alongside expanded CRM integrations through Zapier and Salesforce to improve data flow and lead management.
> Why we care
Meta’s updates reinforce a broader shift toward AI-led efficiency and higher-quality leads. By combining improved verification with deeper CRM connectivity, advertisers can capture cleaner data by filtering out low-intent sign-ups and creating faster, more accurate feedback loops between lead capture and sales outcomes. This tighter integration gives clearer understanding of which audiences and creatives drive qualified conversions, allowing Meta’s optimisation systems to refine delivery in real time. As automation and signal quality become stronger performance drivers, these changes could help stabilise costs and improve qualification rates to set a new benchmark for what effective lead generation looks like heading into 2026.
Google CTRs continue to drop amidst AIO impact
> What’s happening
Seer Interactive’s latest study tracked 3,000+ queries and found that Google’s AI Overviews (AIOs) have been driving sharp drops in click-through rates.
Across the period of June 2024 to Sept 2025, organic CTRs dropped by around 61% when AIOs appeared, while paid CTRs fell 68% on the same queries. Even searches without AIOs saw a 41% decline in organic clicks year-on-year. This is pointing to a broader behavioural shift rather than an isolated AIO impact.
> Why we care
The findings suggest AI Overviews are reshaping how users engage with search results, reducing traditional click volume across both organic and paid listings. For advertisers and SEO teams, visibility within AI Overviews may become as critical as ranking or bidding strategy, signalling the need to adapt measurement and content approaches as CTR baselines shift and we learn to navigate this new norm.
Google Merchant Centre adds promotion insights and video asset management
> What’s happening
Google has rolled out a couple of updates inside Google Merchant Centre aimed at giving advertisers and retailers better visibility into campaign performance and richer creative control.
Merchants will now see new visual analytics under the Promotions tab, including:
“Your promotions at a glance” – a high-level overview of active and upcoming promotions
“Performance in the last 28 days” – a time-based chart showing promotional impact and trends
These new dashboards allow retailers to quickly check promotion status, engagement trends, and performance outcomes without having to dig into reports or rely solely on Google Ads. The update makes monitoring promotions easier, reducing the guesswork of whether specific discounts, sales, or offers are actually driving results.
Google has also introduced a Creative Content section that allows brands to upload and manage video assets directly inside Merchant Centre.
Key features include:
Upload videos from your site or social channels (including TikTok)
Import videos created in Google Product Studio
Map each video to specific product listings
Optional: use AI-powered video mapping from connected YouTube channels
Once uploaded, videos automatically sync with the Google Ads asset library for connected accounts, meaning a single upload can be used in multiple placements across Search, Shopping, Performance Max, and organic product listings.
> Why we care
These updates give advertisers more visibility, more control, and better creative leverage. All directly inside Google Merchant Centre, that has historically offered limited transparency.
Promotional insights help retailers:
Identify which promotions actually drive performance
Reduce wasted discounts that don’t move the needle
Make faster optimization decisions during key sales periods
Instead of waiting for downstream reporting, merchants can now react in real time, even pausing weak offers or scaling high-impact ones.
Video content is increasingly a differentiator in retail performance. With this update, advertisers can now:
Bring product storytelling closer to the point of sale
Use video across paid and organic Google surfaces
Scale video asset usage without messy asset syncing
Because videos auto-sync to the Google Ads asset library, this unlocks easier creative testing in Performance Max and Shopping formats, without manual uploads or cross-platform asset management.