Snapchat leans on AI for ads, while Instagram makes carousels finally make sense

Two platforms, two very different flexes: One hired a whole AI crew, the other just discovered captions can be plural.

Snapchat showed up to show-and-tell with a full toolkit: It’s got a bunch of new AI ad features led by a chatbot in Ads Manager that turns your goals into a tailored setup.

Describe what you want, and it builds the plan, then flags errors, suggests fixes, and recommends tweaks to squeeze more from your campaigns.

Standard ad-platform fare these days, but still useful.

New creative tools include Smart upscale, image-to-video, and background enhancement.

There’s also a Snap Creator Network, launching later this year, that matches advertisers to creators by audience, tone, and goals.

Meanwhile, Instagram finally let captions multiply: Every slide in a carousel can now carry its own, up to all 20.

That turns one post into a microblog with step-by-step tutorials, individual product breakdowns, and per-image context.

It’s also a real accessibility win, since screen-reader users finally get the same narrative flow as everyone else.

Turns out the most overdue feature was just letting every slide speak for itself.

Google hands you an AI co-pilot and free first-party audiences

Google’s doing your busywork while you nap this week.

Your campaigns just got a co-pilot: Ask Ad Manager now troubleshoots your campaigns and reads your performance data from inside the platform without any report-building.

If you want to know why a line item flopped, just ask it. It digs into your data and answers back.

You get guidance, custom metrics, and follow-ups in one chat thread.

It loads the right filters based on what you ask, builds detailed reports on demand, and drops a link straight to the spot in Ad Manager you need.

Free audiences, no assembly required: Google now builds customer lists from your conversion data automatically, with processing live Aug. 18.

One catch: This only kicks in if you’re already running both Enhanced Conversions and Customer Match, but never flipped these lists on.

If that’s you, sit back. Google builds the audience from data you’ve already collected, then you decide whether to plug them into campaigns.

If you’d rather give it a pass, you can disable the feature in your account settings before Aug. 18. Miss the date and the lists build themselves.

Less manual grunt work, more first-party data doing the heavy lifting. Peek before the deadline sneaks up on you.

Should you make your product packaging transparent?

You’re picking dried pasta. One brand hides behind solid packaging, the other shows the noodles through clear film.

The visible one wins.

That’s Science Says’ takeaway, after they’ve gone through multiple reports that show how packaging can change our buying behavior.

The gist: Put food in transparent packaging instead of covered, and shoppers were 4x more likely to choose it.

Interest in buying jumped around 41%, and perceived attractiveness climbed a wild 67%.

The psychology behind it: Packaging acts as a barrier between us and the product. Clear windows remove it, letting us see exactly what we’re getting before paying.

What we think: Seeing the actual item triggers a sense of ownership before purchase. We feel like it’s already ours, which makes handing over money easier.

Oh, but there’s more. Because we can see what’s inside, we feel more in control and pay closer attention to the product itself.

This effect has a hard limit. If your product looks unappealing, transparency backfires. People were 3.5% less interested in a visible vegetable stew. Hilarious.

The recommendation writes itself. Use clear packaging or a cut-out window when your product looks good. Hide the vegetables. Show the cookies.

One catch: The effect vanishes when people buy gifts for someone else. The ownership magic only works on stuff we want for ourselves.

It’s worth noting the limits. Researchers tested everyday foods like cinnamon, muesli, and candy, mostly on first-time buyers.

Whether the same holds for toiletries, gadgets, or loyal repeat customers remains unknown. Nobody measured how much transparency you actually need.

Bonus tip: When adding color, dark shades make products seem more effective. Skip them if buyers tend to fixate on side effects.

Still, for most food brands, the math is simple. Let people see the goods.

AI makes content faster, but does it make it better?

AI is like an energy drink for your marketing operations.

It’s definitely providing a buzz, but is it actually making the work better?

The impact of AI on operations has been overwhelmingly positive in terms of speed.

Productivity saw the biggest boost, with 87% reporting improvement (42% significant). Operational efficiency followed at 80%.

However, the impact on “quality” and “performance” is more tempered. While 58% see an improvement in content quality, 10% actually saw a decrease.

Most tellingly, only 39% see an improvement in content performance, with 34% seeing no change at all.

Our takeaway: AI is a force multiplier for output, but not necessarily for outcomes.

We are producing more content faster, but the market isn’t necessarily rewarding that volume with better results.

Use the time saved by AI-assisted drafting to invest in “Human-Only” tasks: original research, interviewing customers, and refining your unique brand voice.