ClickZ Meta Insider Newsletter | 📢 Ads Hit Threads

Plus: 7M downloads in a week? The new Instagram edits 🎬

Author

Rafe Houston
April 30, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 9 minutes

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Welcome to Meta Insider, your essential newsletter for insights into the latest trends and innovations shaping Meta’s advertising and social media strategies.

Editor’s Pick 🌟

Marketing thought leadership has a tendency towards binaries. The funnel is either completely dead or very much alive. Brand marketing is either pointless or the solution to all your problems, and ChatGPT is ending 30 years of search overnight.

At Fospha, we love the measurement challenge of any new channel that offers our clients ways to reach more customers. However, Google is still very much the biggest advertising platform. Performance Max (PMAX) and Search products alone represent around 30% of our clients’ digital share of wallet.

In uncertain times, it’s more important than ever for brands to nail these core channels, so we produced the definitive best practice guide on PMAX and Paid Search. Here were our top findings:

  • ⚖️ Best performing brands allocate 55% of Google budget to PMAX and 12% to Paid Search.

  • 🏆 Brands that pair Search and PMAX with ~50% of their budgets in YouTube, Demand Gen and Paid Social see optimal results.

  • 🎨 Especially for PMAX, high-volume creative is key for AI-powered optimization.

Sector Spotlight 🎥

SOCIAL MEDIA MONETIZATION

Meta’s decision to introduce ads on Threads across more than 30 countries marks a pivotal strategic shift for the platform, signalling its transition from a clean, ad-free environment to a full-fledged monetization engine within the broader Meta advertising ecosystem. Marketers now gain seamless access to Threads users by extending existing ad campaigns via Meta’s Ads Manager, eliminating the need for new creative assets and dramatically expanding campaign reach with minimal operational friction.

For marketing professionals, this move transforms Threads from a speculative channel to an actionable opportunity, amplifying audience segmentation and cross-platform synergy alongside Facebook and Instagram. As Threads continues to carve out its distinct identity post-TwitterX turbulence, its integration into Meta’s ad infrastructure presents a compelling, scalable new opportunity for brands seeking to leverage unified campaign management and maximize ROI across Meta’s platforms.

VIDEO CREATION INNOVATION

Instagram Edits reached 7 million downloads in its first week, dramatically outperforming CapCut’s initial numbers and quickly climbing to the top of U.S. App Store rankings. Its ad-free, watermark-free features and simple interface resonate with creators, but current gaps in advanced editing tools highlight opportunities for future enhancements. Marketers should closely monitor this trend, as rapid adoption signals significant impact on short-form video strategies.

SOCIAL MEDIA INNOVATION

Meta’s Threads has launched global ad placements after just three months of testing, offering marketers access via both algorithmic and manual controls through the Advantage platform. Early data and expert commentary suggest marketers plan cautious testing, viewing Threads as an upper-funnel tool with selective budget allocation. Monitoring ad performance and adapting creative for the unique Threads environment will be essential to determine long-term value for eCommerce and broader campaigns.

INFLUENCER RANKINGS

Cristiano Ronaldo, with 652 million followers, leads Instagram’s top accounts in 2025, followed by Lionel Messi and Selena Gomez, demonstrating the platform’s dominance for global celebrity engagement. For marketers, these profiles illustrate the power of personal branding and the reach that high-follower accounts provide for eCommerce partnerships.

RETAIL MEDIA INNOVATION

Meta is aggressively pursuing retail media budgets by expanding marketplace API access, providing granular data sharing—including product-level reports and impression logs—and introducing ad formats that drive both online and in-store sales. These moves directly target marketers seeking more actionable insights and performance measurement as retail media spending grows. For marketing professionals, Meta’s approach not only offers enhanced attribution but also opens broader partnership opportunities in a competitive landscape.

IN CASE YOU MISSED IT - SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING

Instagram's 2025 algorithm prioritizes engagement metrics like watch time and shares to enhance content visibility, urging marketers to optimize profiles, create engaging Reels, and use AI tools for audience insights. Understanding these factors helps target both existing and potential followers effectively, driving growth and adapting to future algorithm shifts. Key takeaways include:

  • Enhanced Collab Tools: Tag multiple collaborators on a post to cross-promote to wider audiences.

  • Add Yours Templates: This sticker trend boosts Stories engagement and encourages user interaction.

  • Comment Pinning: Use it strategically to highlight positive or relevant feedback and guide conversation tone.

  • Customisable Story Highlights: Treat Highlights like a mini-website—organised, branded, and clear.

  • Instagram Notes: Resurfacing in 2025 as a great way to drop quick updates or promos directly in DMs.

  • AI-Powered Captions & Filters: New AI integrations help streamline content creation and personalization.

Influencer Corner 📢

Meta Ads vs. Google Ads: Which One is Better for D2C Brands?

Meta ads excel at:
👉 Building brand awareness.
👉 Nurturing new customers with engaging content.
👉 Retargeting cold leads who didn’t convert initially.

Google ads are great for:
👉 Capturing demand when people are actively searching for solutions.
👉 Generating high-intent traffic with low CPC.
👉 Converting cold leads into paying customers quickly.

Which one should you focus on?
👉 Meta ads work best if you’re focusing on top-of-funnel and brand-building.
👉 Google ads work best when you’re ready to convert customers actively searching for your product.

Rumour has it that OpenAI might be quietly working on a native Shopify checkout inside ChatGPT.

Apparently ‘leaked’ code shows:

👉 'shopify_checkout_url'
👉 'buy_now'
👉 'product_offer_ratings'

No redirects. No search. Just chat, compare, and buy in one flow. Unconfirmed, but catching attention.

If this happens?

Google, TikTok, even product pages as we know them are all about to change.

Optimization Hub ⚙️

SEARCH INNOVATION

Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) integrates traditional SEO with AI-focused strategies, ensuring content is both visible in classic search results and cited by AI models like ChatGPT or Perplexity. Marketers must structure content to answer specific questions, prioritize authority, and track AI-driven citations. Adapting to GEO is essential for maintaining discoverability in an AI-driven search landscape.

DISCOVERY COMMERCE INNOVATION

TikTok Shop’s newly released playbook, developed with Accenture Song, provides marketers and brands actionable frameworks for driving growth through discovery commerce, leveraging real-time creator content and robust measurement. With TikTok Shop rapidly capturing eCommerce market share, ignoring these trends risks falling behind competitors capitalizing on content-driven online retail.

INNOVATIVE PERSONALIZATION STRATEGIES

Cookieless personalization is reshaping digital marketing by requiring brands to use first-party and zero-party data, contextual targeting, and server-side solutions instead of third-party cookies, ensuring compliance with privacy regulations like GDPR and CCPA. This shift enables marketers to maintain effective, consent-driven customer engagement while safeguarding user privacy. Marketers must adapt quickly to sustain relevance and trust.

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