TikTok’s US Future Secured, Budgets Back On The Table

Plus: Pinterest’s Top of Search brings search-like intent to social

Author

Avinash Duggempudi
October 01, 2025 • Estimated Reading Time: 5 minutes

The Paid Social Marketer

Here's what's happening this week in the world of paid social and performance advertising:
- TikTok gets US go-ahead under Oracle oversight.
- Pinterest launches Top of Search and local inventory.
- GA4 now ingests Pinterest cost data natively.
- LinkedIn automates targeting, creative, optimization.
- Snap’s First Impression ads show stronger reach, sales.

⏱️THE MINUTE READ

Juvenon suspected upper-funnel spend were fueling growth, but pixel reporting undervalued them, pushing spend to the bottom funnel.

With Fospha’s Halo, they unified DTC and Amazon sales and uncovered the truth: TikTok was 9X stronger than reported, DTC performance was under-credited by 2.9X, and upper funnel became their growth engine.

  • 📈 +18% revenue growth QoQ

  • 📉 20% CAC improvement YoY

  • 🚀 10X upper-funnel SoW growth

📌WEEKLY MUST-KNOWS

The White House announced a deal to keep TikTok operating in the US with Oracle providing security oversight, a US-majority ownership structure, and a board with national security credentials. This reduces platform risk and restores budget confidence heading into Q4 planning. The decision impacts media allocation, data governance, and long-term creator partnerships on TikTok.

LinkedIn rolled out AI-driven auto-targeting, “Draft with AI” creative variants, and in-product recommendations with A/B testing. This reduces manual setup and pushes more budget into platform-optimized delivery, especially for B2B growth teams with limited resources. Marketers gain speed and scale, but face greater black-box dependency and must enforce exclusions, brand safety and measurement guardrails.

Pinterest introduced Top of Search ads (beta), expanded Local Inventory Ads, and launched Media Network Connect ahead of holiday. With Gen Z increasingly starting shopping on Pinterest and 96% of searches unbranded, this moves the platform deeper into high-intent discovery and retail media. Brands can now capture top-slot visibility, drive nearby store traffic, and activate retailer first‑party audiences directly in Ads Manager.

MARKETING & AI
OpenAI Launches ChatGPT’s First Big Brand Campaign
OpenAI is shifting gears with its first large-scale brand campaign for ChatGPT, moving from event-based promotions to emotionally grounded storytelling. The campaign highlights everyday use cases—like crafting a recipe to “play it cool” or planning a trip—across TV, streaming, outdoor, and social in both the U.S. and U.K.

Built by OpenAI’s in-house creative team (in collaboration with Isle of Any), the work emphasizes human craft over tech spectacle—even though AI tools were used behind the scenes as co-creators. The strategy signals a push to make ChatGPT feel less like software and more like a companion people want in their lives.

⚡QUICK READS

LinkedIn Adds AI Targeting And Creative Automation: LinkedIn rolled out auto‑targeting, Draft with AI, and recommendations/A‑B tests—speeding setup while shifting more optimization decisions to platform AI; set exclusions and guardrails before scaling.(More)

Snap Study Backs First Impression Placements: Publicis/Snap data shows First Story, First Commercial, and First Lens deliver higher reach and often lower CPMs—consider for launches and awareness bursts where share of attention matters.(More)

TikTok Launches Smart+ Travel Ads: New AI‑powered Travel Ads auto‑generate creatives and match hotel/flight inventory to high‑intent viewers—travel brands can feed catalogs to drive bookings directly from short‑form video.(More)

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