Amazon’s new TV ad tool is a power move

Today’s Social Media advertising rates are re-hiring:?

↘? META: $7.63 CPM | ↗? TIKTOK: $3.97 CPM | ↘? SNAPCHAT: $6.43 CPM

In this week’s edition: ?

• ?? Serena’s husband reboots Digg , wants to buy TikTok
• Meta unveils AI chatbots for brands ??
• ?? Discord teases IPO—will ads follow??

But first…

?? 亚马逊 's new TV ad tool is a power move

In a move to compete with The Trade Desk and 谷歌 , Amazon has introduced Complete TV, a feature within its Demand-Side Platform (DSP), to help advertisers manage and optimize television advertising budgets across linear and streaming platforms. It’ll be available to advertisers who participate in the upfront season. Key aspects include:

• Upfront Commitments: Advertisers can monitor year-long TV budgets allocated across networks and platforms.
• Scatter Inventory Purchases: The tool provides AI-driven recommendations for buying scatter TV inventory—ad slots not sold during upfront agreements—enhancing ad spend efficiency.

Low Fees: To encourage adoption, Amazon offers low fees for using Complete TV: programmatic guaranteed deals on Amazon's properties incur no charges, while deals with third-party streaming publishers carry a 1% fee.

The Inside Scoop:?? Now Trending in Performance Media

?? Digg, which once rivaled Reddit for the role of “the internet’s homepage,” is back—after Digg founder Kevin Rose and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian bought it back for an undisclosed amount. Social media scholars will remind you that Digg first popularized the notion of an upvote button—years before Facebook debuted the “like.”?

• What, how? For now, their plan is to create micro-communities focused on various topics to help people better understand information across the web, with content moderation coming from a mix of AI tools and old-fashioned humans.?
• Can we buy ads on it? Reminder: right now Digg.com is still just a “coming soon” page. When asked about advertising, new CEO Justin Mezzell said they could explore the option in the future. For now it’s “well capitalized,” but they’re already thinking about what future ad formats could look like, such as native ad formats for the website and for specific Digg communities.

? Oh, by the way: Ohanian—husband of world champion crip-walker Serena Williams—just joined Boston native and former LA Dodgers owner Frank McCourt’s effort to buy TikTok. McCourt’s Project Liberty wants to give social media users more control over their own data, which is why it launched what it calls a “People’s Bid” to wrest TikTok away from ByteDance. According to the Associated Press, other bidders for TikTok include Microsoft, Perplexity AI, and a consortium including Mr. Beast, Employer.com founder Jesse Tinsley, and the CEO of Roblox.?

?? Google Ads is testing Creator Partnerships by letting advertisers find and promote high-quality YouTube Shorts featuring their brand. Right now it’s invite-only. But here’s how it works:

• Advertisers can discover Shorts videos from YouTube creators that mention their brand or products. This is powered by BrandConnect, Google’s creator marketing platform.
• Once enabled, Creator Partnerships can be accessed under the Tools section in the Google Ads interface.

?? Coming soon: More CTV. Google Ads also announced that we’ll see a new selection of third-party Connected TV (CTV) inventory across key categories, including TelevisaUnivision, MLB, and FOX News, over the next few weeks.?

?? Google will also add Google Display inventory to Demand Gen campaigns. Here’s how that works:?

• If you’ve previously opted into Google Video Partners and have image assets uploaded to your existing Demand Gen campaigns, your image ads will start serving on the Google Display Network.
• According to Google, on average, advertisers who added Google Display Network to their Demand Gen campaigns saw a 16% lift in conversions.

?? Finally, Google Ads has introduced a dedicated gallery where you can preview all your ad assets, including how they’ll show across a variety of formats and surfaces on desktop, video and mobile. According to Google, this will make it easy to review, approve and generate a sharing link to send to partners for their review.

?? Meta is testing a new feature called Business AI that uses “AI agents” to engage with Facebook and Instagram users’ questions, either through voice or text. The chatbot-style tool aims to help democratize access to AI agents for smaller businesses that can’t otherwise afford AI investments.

• Meta isn’t currently charging business customers for the tools, and pilot tests are already underway. Users will be told when they’re talking to AI, rather than a real person.
• Meta is planning to release a standalone, subscription-based AI app next quarter.

? TikTok 's hub for creative solutions is now called TikTok One. The platform officially sunsetted its legacy video editing tools—Video Editor and Video Template—last week.??

• For creating new TikToks, we recommend their AI-powered Symphony Creative Studio.
• For last minute edits, use the new TTAM Video Editor to add captions, music, stickers, and more.
• On April 1, TikTok’s Creator Marketplace will no longer be functional and will redirect to TikTok One. Current marketplace users can upgrade their account by logging into the app and tapping through on the in-stream notifications.

?? Pro Tip: Previously, Traffic was part of TikTok’s Smart+ Web Campaigns and you selected it through “Website Conversions.” Rolling out by 3/14, advertisers choose the Traffic objective and then toggle on Smart+ campaign.

?? Criteo has rolled out the ability to connect your GA4 property to your Criteo account, directly in the platform. This means that Criteo can optimize campaign performance to your preferred measurement source-of-truth, which should help improve performance in GA4 for Criteo retargeting campaigns.

?? Discord is considering an I.P.O. as early as this year. Will the platform look to build out its ad offerings, which are currently limited to endemic gaming advertisers, ahead of it, similar to what Reddit did ahead of its I.P.O. last year? Time will tell.

?? The Elephant In The Room: Our weekly poll!

?? Dairy Queen Canada fully embraced winter by turning snowbanks into giant DQ Blizzards in this fun OOH campaign. Which means its time to address the great debate of our time: What’s the best Blizzard flavor?

• Reese’s Pieces Cookie Dough
• Salted Caramel Truffle
• Mint Oreo
• Turtle Pecan Cluster
• Butterfinger
• Royal New York Cheesecake

?? Last edition’s poll results: Which fictional character would make the best CTV ad exec?

???????????? Don Draper (Mad Men)?

???????????? Miranda Priestly (The Devil Wears Prada)?

???????????? Saul Goodman (Breaking Bad)?

???????????? David Rose (Schitt’s Creek)

Thanks for reading! We’ll be back next week with more tips, tricks, and treats from the addressable universe.