🧴 3-in-1.
Meta consolidates reach and impressions into one views metric, ChatGPT serves ads on first prompt, Google Scenario Planner predicts campaign ROI, and more.
In this issue
Good morning.
The sun’s out. The weekend’s a few hours away. And we just brewed a fresh pot.
There’s a version of life where things feel complicated and heavy. And then there’s this. Sometimes the simple stuff really is the good stuff. Enjoy it.
Meta’s metric overhaul could change your dashboards, and ChatGPT ads are showing up almost instantly
Just like a teenage boy buying shampoo, Meta doesn’t see anything wrong with a 3-in-1.
Let’s put them all together: Meta is overhauling its Graph API to replace reach, impressions, and video plays with a single views metric across Facebook and Instagram.
Legacy engagement numbers started disappearing from Meta’s own Insights tools at the end of 2024, and now that cleanup is extending to every third-party API connected platform.
If you rely on third-party tools to manage or report on Meta campaigns, you may see familiar metrics disappear from your dashboards.
And mark May 2026: Advantage+ campaign creation via third-party Marketing APIs breaks entirely, and your tech stack needs to be ready before then.
Building or managing campaigns outside of Meta’s native interface? Talk to your platform provider now.
Turns out ChatGPT doesn’t need to get to know you first: Ads are live, and they’re not waiting for a conversation to serve a placement.
Sponsored results hit on the very first prompt for signed-in US desktop users, according to ad intelligence firm Adthena.
When someone asked about booking a weekend trip, ads showed up immediately, complete with brand favicons and a clear Sponsored label.
This means high-intent, single-query moments are now viable ad inventory on one of the most-visited sites on the internet.
OpenAI is treating ChatGPT like a search engine. So, the same intent-capture logic that drives paid search strategy now applies here, too.
For now, the audiences are limited, and the format is new. But the intent signals are real, and worth tracking early.
The Scenario Planner helps you predict your campaign ROI before you hit go; and your inputs could be messing with your bids
You wouldn’t start a road trip without checking traffic first.
Predict first, spend later: Google’s Meridian MMM tool now includes a Scenario Planner that maps your budget to real-time ROI estimates by channel before you spend a dollar.
Scenario Planner sits on top of Meridian, Google’s open-source MMM tool, and converts your budget inputs into real-time ROI estimates by channel.
Why we care: Around 40% of marketers say they struggle to connect measurement outputs to real business decisions. Scenario Planner closes that gap without needing a single line of code.
By the way, your ROAS target isn’t a spending cap… and that’s the problem: A deep dive into goal-based bidding overspend explains why.
Target ROAS and Target CPA are optimization signals. The platform will spend more if it thinks doing so helps hit your goal.
The culprits are usually:
- High CPCs relative to your daily budget.
- Inflated or inconsistent conversion values.
- Too many primary conversion actions causing double-counting.
To fix it, right-size your budgets, audit your conversion tracking, and consider ad scheduling to reduce volatility without killing automation.
Garbage in, garbage out. Fix the inputs, and your bids stop misfiring.
Get the “Agency Efficiency” Data Story
We analyzed the industry to show you exactly what’s causing marketing agencies to lose clients.
Inside, you’ll get the hard data on:
- Why 81% of clients actually stay (It’s not ROI).
- The massive gap between agency confidence and client reality.
- Why retainers are dropping to just 9.9% of pricing models.
Inside this Data Story you’ll get all the data to understand why clients stay, so you can stop feeling the breath on the neck of a client who’ll suddenly fire you.
This report is part of Stacked Marketer Pro, which you can join here.
Your About Us page is there for a reason, so make it useful
No, your About Us page doesn’t have to be where you toss random facts and hope nobody looks too closely.
As WordStream points out, this page can be a heavy lifter that builds trust and drives AI referral traffic. Here’s what you need to do:
1) Start with your why: Data shows that up to 65% of visitors head straight for your About page. They aren’t just looking for your address; they want the “why” behind the brand.
Don’t overthink it. Being honest and authentic makes a brand relatable. If you can’t explain why you started the business in two sentences, you need to work on your story.
2) Introduce the people behind the business: Small businesses thrive on personal connections and people always want to see the humans behind the curtain.
Sharing bios, photos, and expertise quickly builds credibility. Try to show a little personality here. If your team is quirky, let them shine.
3) Outline what you do and who your target audience is: Visitors should know exactly who your product is for and who it isn’t within seconds.
Vague industry jargon is the fastest way to lose a lead.
Being specific about your target audience will help the right people realize they are in the right place. It’s better to be a perfect fit for some than a meh fit for everyone.
4) Showcase your values: Most consumers prefer supporting businesses that share their values. But please skip the overused corporate fluff. “We’re one big family.” No, you’re not.
You need to talk about what you actually believe in. Real values are the honey that attracts loyal fans and the repellent that gets rid of the headache clients.
5) Give visitors a next step: An About page without a call to action is just a dead end.
Whether we want them to join a newsletter, follow us on social, or book a call, we have to tell them what to do next.
You’ve done the hard work of building a connection. It’s a waste to let them just click away without a clear next step.
30k+ social media managers read this newsletter. Do you?
If you do any work with social media, you know better than anyone: It’s hectic.
You’re too busy to sort through the noise—you just need the crucial updates, fast.
Geekout delivers exactly that: The week’s most important social media updates, emerging trends, and platform changes, all curated by industry expert Matt Navarra.
As Ben, a social media consultant, puts it: “It’s one of the most comprehensive social media wrap ups every week.”
AI is all the rage, but don’t count Google out just yet
The search behavior might be changing.
But for certain types of high-stakes or visual information, users still want to see the original source with their own two eyes:
There are areas of trust where traditional search is remaining dominant.
- 47% prefer traditional search for product reviews and prices, likely due to the need for visual proof and real-time accuracy. Though, that might change soon.
- Local info (45%) and news/recent events (44%) stay traditional, as AI often lags on “up-to-the-minute” updates.
- Images and videos (44%) are still best served by traditional grids rather than a chat interface.
What we think: Traditional search is there for confirmation. Users might start a search with AI to get ideas, but they go to Google to check the price tag and see the reviews.
What to do: For transactional and local keywords, stick to traditional SEO. For broad informational and awareness queries, start shifting toward AI-friendly, structured data.
While search gets turned upside down by AI, Pro subscribers are already adjusting their playbooks.
Weekly insights on what’s shifting + tactics to capitalize on it. $349/year for up to 10 people.
MARKETING PSYCHOLOGY: Think like Kahneman, sell like Ogilvy. We bridge the gap between Nobel Prize-winning psychology and effective marketing. Each week, you get a powerful scientific principle you can use to persuade and sell more. Get it for free.*
TIKTOK: In just two years, TikTok Shop has become the sixth-largest health and beauty e-commerce platform in the US, surpassing $2B in sales. Brands are leaning into creator networks, viral product demos, and performance-based spending over traditional strategies.
GOOGLE: Pomelli’s new Photoshoot feature turns a single product photo into polished studio and lifestyle shots using AI. It’s free in the US, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. For small businesses skipping $500–$3,000 photo shoots, this could be seriously useful.
CONTENT MARKETING: Your long-form content has a structural vulnerability. AI systems consistently underperform on middle sections due to position bias and aggressive context compression. The fix? Creating denser middle sections with self-contained answer blocks that survive both filters.
GOOGLE: The race is heating up. Gemini 3.1 Pro just claimed the top spot on 13 of 16 industry benchmarks, outpacing Claude Opus 4.6 and GPT-5.2 on tests ranging from expert scientific reasoning to agentic coding. It isn’t over yet, but right now, Google’s got the lead.
*This is a sponsored post.
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