In Today’s Issue:

📱 Meta introduces brand safety tools for Reels Ads (and other updates)

📲 Google will now deliver Local Services Ads leads via text message

🎨 Adobe Firefly AI creates vector graphics in Illustrator

🚫 X introduces unreportable, unblockable, spammy-looking ad format

📝 YouTube experiments with Community Notes feed on mobile

🎃 TikTok launches Halloween-themed AR effects and top hashtags

Meta Reels Ads: New Brand Safety Tools Rolling Out

No matter what you call them — TikToks, Reels, Shorts, Idea Pins, Spotlights — the vertical video format is on track to dominate social media. Hell, even Spotify’s got a TikTok-like feed, and it’s not even a social media app.

Meta’s Reels, in particular, have seen huge numbers, and today the format is getting a very big, very important update for marketers.

This morning, the company began rolling out brand safety tools for the format, expanding the controls it put in place for its Facebook and Instagram feeds back in March.

This works the way a lot of brand safety tools work — the system tries to look at the content and categorize them into topics, looking specifically for controversial topics like guns or hot-button political content. It doesn’t block that content, but rather lets advertisers then say they don’t want their ads placed alongside content in those categories.

Some categories, like illegal drugs, are already demonetized by Meta, so placing ads next to those aren’t even an issue.

There is a kind of global standard for these categories — a body called the Global Alliance for Responsible Media (GARM) has a set of suitability standards which many platforms align themselves with.

New Ads Features Too

As well, the company is also adding some new features to Reels ads, including:

Multi-destination CTAs for Reels carousel ads

A “Swipe left” option to let viewers swipe to a landing page

And optional media filters to adjust images and boost video resolution

They’re also adding Collections Ads for Facebook Reels, something which is already up and running on Instagram. These show thumbnails of three products pulled from your catalog at the bottom of your Reel.

This may take a few weeks to get out to all accounts.

Google May Deliver Your Leads Right to Your Cell Phone Soon

A small but important update to Google’s Local Service Ads appears to have been rolled out without any fanfare or, as far as we can tell, any announcement. But if you use Google’s local ads to generate leads, this might be a big deal.

They are building the option to have their system send you a text message whenever you get a lead.

This is great news for people who don’t check their email often — or, worse, don’t know which email is attached to their Google account.

And you’re not locked into the number you put into the account at first — you can edit it to redirect leads to any number you like.

Like many things in our marketing world, sadly, this is not showing up in everyone’s account — it’s not clear if it’s a slow rollout, or only a test.

But definitely a welcome addition.

Adobe Bringing GenAI to Logos and Other Vector Files

There’s been a lot of hype around generative AI for things like text and images. And for good reason — being able to type in “Canadian podcast host surrounded by clones of Meghan Trainor” is fun. (I mean, or so I hear.)

But one area which we haven’t seen a lot of generative AI in — and one which marketers do use a lot — is in vector graphics.

These are graphic files made up of math and numbers, not pixels. This lets them be scaled up as much as you like without losing any resolution. They’re usually much smaller files as well. Vector graphics are the norm for logos, web site design, and a bunch of other things.

Now, we’re getting some heavy lifting in that department too — Adobe’s Illustrator program (that’s like Photoshop, but for vector art) will be getting generative AI abilities.

More interestingly, I thought — especially for product marketers — is they’ll soon be adding a new tool to Illustrator called Mockup. This lets you take any 3D scene and any vector file and apply it to that 3D scene.

Also coming: something they call Retype, which will convert static text in images to editable text as well as find the fonts used in the image.

X’s Race to the Ad Bottom

It’s hard to know for sure how X — formerly Twitter — is doing with ad revenue. All independent studies show it’s way down. Some days even platform owner Elon Musk says it’s way down. Then other days, his CEO says everything’s fine.

But its latest ad product unveiled last week without any announcement shows just how dire things are there.

The ad format shows up in the feed, like other ads — but that’s where the similarities stop.

These ads, which appear to be coming from some unknown low-quality programmatic mill, have no profile name or advertiser name. There’s no ad disclosure at all. And you can’t click the profile image to learn more about the advertiser. You literally can not tell who the advertiser is because anywhere you click on the ad — including the profile image — just bounces you over to the ad’s landing page.

The ads have only two elements: A photo and a clickbaity headline like “This Seems Unbelievable, But Happens in Dubai Everyday.” (They also spelled “every day” wrong, but whatever.)

Clicking that ad takes you to a content mill web page, full of ads of its own. It’s just spam.

The ads might be new to X, but they’re familiar to anyone who’s ended up at the bottom of an entertainment site’s web page, or glanced at the bottom banner of a free dating app. Ad networks like Taboola and Outbrain specialize in these kinds of low quality formats.

Industry analysts say it’s entirely possible that X has just run out of regular advertisers willing to spend money on the platform. Usually, these kinds of spammy ads only show up when the inventory could otherwise not be sold.

Last week, X’s CEO told an audience that 90% of the top 100 advertisers have returned to the platform. Big names, she said, like Visa.

Media Matters later checked that claim out and discovered that the claim was mostly hot air. Visa, for instance, had spent more than $75,000 in the 12 weeks before Elon Musk bought the platform. In the most recent 12 weeks, it’s spent just $10 bucks.

YouTube Wants a Piece of Twitter Too Now

YouTube is now thinking about helping fill the void left by Twitter and is building a Twitter-like text update feed into its app.

This builds on its existing text-post system, called Community Posts. Channels can create these posts for quick text updates and polls, and they show up in the mobile app within the home or subscribed feeds.

But now, they’re thinking of breaking those out into their own feed, which sure sounds a lot like Twitter.

What’s interesting here is that they’re planning some kind of discovery in it, so that you’ll see text updates not just from your own subscriptions, but from others around the platform as well.

Earlier this year, they removed the qualification thresholds for posting these updates.

This new feed is currently in testing on Android and iOS.

TikTok Adds Hallowe’en Filters

For those brands who lean heavily into Hallowe’en, TikTok has released some new spooky AR effects and visual tools.

Most of it is around make-up effects — you know, scary clown faces or bloody mouths.

They’re also running a contest for AR creators — with a small cash prize for coming up with the best and most original spooky effect.

Incidentally, the top hashtags for the season other than the obvious #Halloween (179.1B views) and #TikTokHalloween (17.8B views) are:

#PumpkinSeason (9.3B views)

#SpookyTreats (4.4B views)

#HalloweenDecor (3.6B views)

#BooBasket (215.6M views)

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