🟢 WhatsApp ads.
WhatsApp launches Status Ads and Promoted Channels globally, Instagram opens creator tools to all public accounts, Meta sues deepfake scammers, and more.
In this issue
Good morning.
Turns out concrete blocks can save an ocean.
In Cambodia, communities are dropping interlocking concrete structures into devastated coastal waters to create new, artificial reefs. The result? The fish, seahorses, and dolphins are slowly coming back.
The reefs also snag illegal trawling nets, which is a pretty elegant form of karma. Sometimes the simplest fix is the one that actually works. It’s something we can apply in marketing, too.
Instagram opens up creator tools, WhatsApp launches ads, and Meta fights deepfake scammers
Instagram’s best creator tools had a guest list.
You’re on it now: Instagram is rolling out creator tools, including insights, scheduling, and trending audio, to all public accounts, not just Professional Mode users.
The goal is to allow creators to test the waters before they go all-in on the professional path. A few features still require hitting certain follower counts first, though.
What’s in it for marketers: A wider pool of data-literate creators means more informed creator partners. You’ll spend less time onboarding them on the basics and focus more on strategy.
On the visual side, Instagram’s new thumbnail controls let you edit the preview image of any posted content, giving you more say over the first impression your profile makes.
More control over thumbnails means more control over brand perception.
Meanwhile, WhatsApp just became an ad platform: Status Ads and Promoted Channels are now live globally after a phased rollout across selected countries.
- Status Ads appear between user status updates and you can skip it with a swipe.
- Promoted Channels show up front in the directory, so the right people find you first.
WhatsApp has over 2B users and has been almost impossible to advertise on until now. That’s a lot of relatively uncontested space. Worth paying attention to before the crowd.
And good news if fake celebrity ads have been driving you crazy: Meta is now actively suing the scam groups behind them.
The legal actions cover everything from deepfake healthcare ads to investment fraud schemes, and scam ads are down more than 50% over the past 15 months.
Scammy ads don’t just annoy users; they make everyone less likely to click on anything, including your ads. A cleaner platform is better for all.
TikTok keeps growing, Pinterest gives tips on how to encourage clicks, and more…
Has TikTok been eating Popeye’s spinach or something?
Because it’s getting huge: Its EU audience alone hit 178M monthly actives, a 31% jump since October 2023.
Add in over 200M US users, 30M in the UK, and 8.5M in Australia, and you’re looking at a platform comfortably competing with any major social network. Speaking of different platforms…
Does the best marketing come outside of your marketing team? Because user-generated content (UGC) now drives 35% of global influencer campaigns.
The multi-channel content type is outpacing TikTok-only by 21% share and trailing only Instagram at 40%.
TikTok-led campaigns dropped 48% year-over-year as brands quietly pivoted. UGC converts 29% better than other formats, because consumers trust real people over brand content.
Polished influencer content looks great, but the numbers don’t lie. Raw, creator-led posts you can reuse on multiple platforms are outperforming it.
And Pinterest is calling out lazy product photography: The platform’s new guidance says to stay on-brand from scroll to sale and build formats that flex with your inventory.
Pinterest’s visual search model is also 30% better at surfacing relevant products when given more context. So the more intentional you are, the harder Pinterest’s AI works for you.
Users are already in buying mode. The only question is whether your creative is good enough to meet them there.
Steal 5 minutes. Sound like you read for hours
Between planning campaigns, interpreting analytics, and sending rounds of feedback to your team, you probably struggle to keep up with business news.
… Even though you know you can’t afford to miss trends and updates.
Know what makes it easier to stay sharp without the mental load? The Hustle.
It’s the daily newsletter that over 2M professionals and marketers read to stay on top of business and tech without burning hours or brainpower.
In just five minutes a day, you’ll:
- Catch shifts before your peers and competitors do.
- Make decisions with cross-industry context.
- Show up to meetings and Slack chats sounding weirdly well-informed.
It’s like getting the inside scoop from your smart, witty friend who always knows what’s up before everyone else.
Want to stay more informed… and have fun doing it?
Subscribe to The Hustle now and get smarter while your coffee brews.
Why you should keep your ads away from toxic content
You can always judge someone by their friends.
According to research from Science Says, your brand’s reputation isn’t just about what you say, it’s about who you’re standing next to when you say it.
While we all love a good bargain on programmatic reach, appearing next to objectionable content can do more damage than any cheap CPM is worth.
Guilty by association: Humans naturally link brands to the content surrounding them.
When ads for brands like AT&T or Nissan appeared next to extremist or unsafe content, users reported an 19% drop in brand opinion and a 18% decrease in trust.
If your ad is hanging out with the wrong crowd, people assume you’re part of that crowd too.
You don’t even have to see it to hate it: The ick catches quick.
Even people who only heard about a brand’s ad appearing next to unsafe content, without ever actually seeing it, showed a 18% decline in brand opinion.
Bad news travels fast, and online, a single bad placement can become so bad that your PR team has to step in.
Apologize immediately: If you do end up in a sticky situation, speed is your friend. Issuing an immediate response can lead to an 18% increase in trust, reversing the damage.
However, if you wait a week to address the issue, that recovery drops to a lackluster 7%. In the face of a brand safety crisis, silence can be quite expensive.
Stop buying the cheap seats: You can’t always blame the algorithm for lack of oversight.
To keep your brand out of trouble, you should prioritize vetted and approved YouTube channels over general inventory buys.
Using tools like Google Preferred or targeting specific keywords related to your products ensures you’re showing up in places that actually make sense for your brand.
It’s OK to be edgy sometimes: Interestingly, the rules change if your brand personality already leans into the unsafe territory.
The negative impact on trust disappears when the content fits the brand’s tone. But, unless you’re selling something equally rebellious, it’s best to stick to the safe side of the street.
In short, you shouldn’t leave your brand’s reputation unsupervised.
While chasing the lowest CPM is tempting, it’s better to pay for a premium placement than spend your entire Q4 budget on an apology tour.
Overwhelmed by AI?
Most marketers have a folder full of “cool AI tools and prompts” they never touch.
That is clutter, not progress. But Tactics fixes this.
Every Saturday, we send you one crystal-clear AI strategy you can actually finish. It takes just 7 minutes to read and includes real-world examples.
Stop drowning in possibilities. Start winning with practical application.
Get the weekly edge that turns “maybe later” into “done by Monday.”
Social media is having a credibility crisis
Trust is like a mirror: once broken, you can fix it, but the cracks remain.
Right now, social platforms look pretty shattered:
41% of US consumers don’t trust the information they see on social media. Another 39% think it’s only “somewhat” trustworthy.
The least trustworthy platforms:
- TikTok: 21%
- Facebook: 20%
- Twitter/X: 17%
Why this matters: It’s the era of misinformation, deepfakes, and clickbait. The barrier to entry for posting “news” is zero. If it’s on a feed, it’s guilty until proven innocent.
Smart play: Don’t rely on platform reputation. Use heavy social proof (UGC, third-party reviews, trust badges) within your creatives to build your own micro-bubble of trust.
Trust on social platforms is fractured. But Pro subscribers stay ahead with insights on how consumer behavior is shifting and strategies to win credibility.
SCIENCE OF ATTENTION: When everyone zigs, the smart marketer uses psychology to zag. Learn the science of differentiation to create offers that demand attention. One actionable tip per week, backed by research, zero fluff.*
PODCASTS: It finally happened. Edison Research confirms podcasts now claim 40% of spoken-word audio listening time in the US, edging out AM/FM talk radio at 39%. With 115M weekly listeners and 85% also watching, your audio strategy might need a supporting visual…
SEO: The February 2026 Discover core update finished its 21-day rollout. This is the only confirmed Discover-only update ever, currently affecting US English users. Expect less clickbait, more local relevance, and topic-specific expertise signals determining your content’s visibility.
GOOGLE: DNS prefetch and preload hints? Gary Illyes says Google’s infrastructure already outpaces them. More importantly, canonical and hreflang tags in yourget completely ignored. Stop auditing your source code and start checking what the browser actually renders. That’s what Google sees.
YOUTUBE: The new Shorts AI remix test lets you use someone else’s content as an AI generation seed… and the opt-out is messy. Disabling AI remixes kills traditional remixing, too. Currently limited to English users outside the EU and UK, this all-or-nothing setting is already frustrating creators who want selective control over their work.
AI MARKETING: Amazon didn’t just write OpenAI a $50B check; they’re building infrastructure together. A shared Stateful Runtime Environment through Bedrock, a $100B compute expansion over eight years, and AWS locked in as OpenAI’s exclusive third-party enterprise cloud. Whoa.
SOCIAL MEDIA: X is testing a feed filter that lets you manually steer your For You algorithm toward chosen topics and trending news. Currently live for US, Canada, and iOS users. It’s worth watching as 80% of X users never post or engage, making this manual override potentially more useful than behavioral signals alone.
*This is a sponsored post.
Get the next issue in your inbox.
Delivered Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, our carefully curated digital marketing news, tech, and actionable advice can be consumed in 7 minutes or less.
