Meta Expands Reels, Threads And AI Tools For Advertisers
Meta is rolling out new features across Reels, Threads and its suite of AI tools to strengthen brand building opportunities and improve advertising effectiveness. Announced at the Brand Building Summit, these updates focus on enhancing reach, awareness and engagement, while helping advertisers adapt to fast moving cultural trends. The changes reflect Meta’s broader strategy to equip businesses with tools that deliver both relevance and efficiency.
One of the most notable additions is the expansion of Reels trending ads, now available to more advertisers following a period in closed beta. These ads allow brands to appear alongside trending Reels content, aligning with what is culturally topical in real time. Early results suggest a 20% lift in unaided awareness, comparable with YouTube Select and outperforming TikTok Pulse in similar metrics.
Threads is also getting upgraded ad formats: carousel options, 4:5 single image and video formats, and a simplified campaign setup. With around 400 million monthly active users, Meta is positioning Threads as fertile ground for more authentic brand conversations. These enhancements aim to make it easier for advertisers to craft engaging content that fits organically into users’ feeds.
Beyond format updates, Meta has introduced new AI powered targeting features. Value rules for awareness and engagement have been extended beyond just sales campaigns, enabling advertisers to prioritise audiences more likely to deliver high value outcomes. In addition, landing page view optimisation helps brands that lack direct pixel access, such as many consumer packaged goods companies, by focussing on users most likely to load a brand’s site, which has been shown to reduce cost per view by 31% in early tests. [1]
TikTok Search Ads Drive Higher Conversions
TikTok has revealed that its Search Ads Campaign is achieving substantially greater purchase lift compared to non search efforts, marking an important development for advertisers seeking better return on ad spend. The data, drawn from meta analysis across the US and Canada, shows that campaigns which include Search Ads drive twice the purchase lift overall.
The report highlights that audiences on TikTok are shifting in behaviour: searches are rising fast, up 40% year on year, and 86% of Gen Z users search weekly on the platform. This rise in active search behaviour gives brands an opportunity to reach people at moments of intent, when they are already looking for products, ideas or solutions. TikTok is leveraging this shift by placing keyword based ads in search results, allowing advertisers to use tools familiar from search marketing such as match types, negative keywords, and search term reports.
For advertisers concerned with creative, TikTok ensures that Search Ads maintain the platform’s native style, visual, engaging and community driven. Ads appear in search results but in a way that feels consistent with how users interact on TikTok rather than being overly intrusive. The combination of search intent and TikTok’s cultural and social settings seems to be driving stronger performance.
Performance data shows that campaigns using Search Ads achieve a notable increase in purchase activity, with some categories seeing more than double the impact compared to campaigns that do not use search placements. These improvements extend to return on ad spend, making Search Ads an increasingly valuable option for brands aiming to reach users at moments of high intent. [2]
Google Introduces New AI Max Reporting Metrics
Google has recently added two new metrics to its AI Max reporting for Search campaigns, with the aim of improving transparency and advertiser control over automated reach. These features appear at the “all keywords” level in Google Ads accounts and allow marketers to see traffic generated through AI-expanded broad match keywords and traffic driven by landing pages or assets, even when those queries fall outside their manually configured keyword lists.
The first metric, “AI Max expanded matches”, shows how much of your campaign traffic comes from broad match keywords generated automatically by Google’s AI based on the keywords you provided. The second metric, “AI Max expanded landing pages”, reveals traffic from search queries that matched because of your landing pages or other assets, independent of your keyword settings. Together, they show how Google is using machine learning to leverage both your keywords and website content to capture additional search demand.
These additions are particularly important to advertisers who have expressed concern about the “black box” nature of fully automated campaign types. Previously, marketers could see some search terms generated by AI and which landing pages users clicked through, but the new metrics quantify how much incremental traffic is being driven by AI expansion. This enables clearer comparisons between the performance of advertiser-controlled keyword traffic and AI-augmented traffic, enhancing reporting and optimisation decisions.
From a performance perspective, these changes mean advertisers can now segment data more precisely and make better trade-offs between reach and efficiency. With visibility into how much traffic comes from AI-generated broad match keywords or landing page matches, marketers can adjust budgets, negative keywords or landing page content accordingly. Early feedback suggests that while the additional traffic is welcome, advertisers will need to monitor conversion rates closely to ensure that reach doesn’t come at the expense of cost inefficiencies. [3]
Demand Gen Adds Placement-Level Creative Insights
Google has updated the Network Segment reporting in Demand Gen campaigns so that advertisers can now view key performance indicators for YouTube In-Feed, In-Stream, and Shorts separately. This gives marketers finer insight into how their creatives perform across different video placements.
This change allows advertisers to see which placement types are delivering the strongest results, helping to optimise creative approach by format. For example, an ad performing well in YouTube Shorts might underperform in-Stream or In-Feed, or vice versa. Having separate data means better decisions about where to allocate budget, test creative styles, or adjust format proportions.
Prior to this update, Demand Gen reporting aggregated performance across all YouTube video placements, making it difficult to tell which specific placements drove the outcomes. The segmented view addresses concerns about creativity performance transparency, enabling greater clarity on which creatives resonate in which placements.
With visibility into performance by placement type, advertisers can experiment more confidently, refining ad copy, visuals or calls to action depending on whether the ad is shown in Shorts, In-Feed, or In-Stream. This should help improve return on ad spend and creative efficiency, as well as better matching creative format to user behaviour. [4]
Amazon DSP To Offer Netflix Ad Inventory
Netflix and Amazon Ads have announced that, starting in Q4 2025, advertisers using Amazon DSP will be able to purchase premium Netflix ad inventory programmatically. This new offering will roll out in eleven markets including the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Spain, Mexico, Canada, Japan, Brazil, Italy, and Germany. The integration is intended to simplify buying and planning of streaming TV ads for brands.
The partnership is Netflix’s latest expansion of its programmatic advertising capabilities. The company previously integrated with The Trade Desk, Google Display & Video 360, Microsoft, and Yahoo DSP. This move with Amazon DSP adds to that portfolio and promises greater flexibility in how advertisers can reach Netflix’s engaged audience.
From the advertiser’s perspective, this integration brings several benefits. Using Amazon’s first party data and clean room technology, marketers will be able to target more precisely and measure performance more reliably. Moreover, because the inventory will be accessible via Amazon DSP’s existing interface, no additional technical setup should be required for advertisers already using the platform.
This update is significant in a competitive programmatic landscape. As streaming and connected TV ad spend continues to grow, Netflix’s decision to broaden access through multiple DSP partners reflects increasing demand for premium streaming inventory. Advertisers may see opportunities to optimise cost, reach, and creative effectiveness by choosing among platforms and leveraging each’s strengths.[5]
[1] Search Engine Land
[2] Search Engine Land
[3] PPC Land
[4] PPC News Feed
[5] PPC Land
