Your Next Ad Slot Is a Livestream
Howdy readers 🥰
In this newsletter, you’ll find:
đź”´ The creator livestream is now an ad slot. here's the run sheet
đź“Š Microsoft, Google and LinkedIn are giving marketers better signals to work with
🏆 Ad of the day
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Together with AirOps
Your Buyers Aren’t Waiting for Better AI Measurement
Your buyers are asking AI what to buy. But when leadership asks which sales it drove, your attribution report doesn’t give you a clear answer. Waiting for one could mean losing buyers before they ever reach your site.
On October 15, join Matt Hammel, COO of AirOps, and Zak Prauer, Expert Partner, Marketing at Bain & Company, for a live conversation to help you:
- Understand why waiting for perfect measurement could cost more than investing in AI search today.
- See how AI search shapes brand preference, and why a recommendation carries more weight than a citation.
- Decide how to invest now and what evidence to demand that your spending is creating additional growth.
You’ll leave knowing how to make the case for AI search when “we can’t measure it yet” is what’s holding your budget back.
Can't attend the session live? Register anyway, and you’ll get the recordings in 24 hours.
đź”´ The creator livestream is now an ad slot. here's the run sheet
Since September 29, brands can take a creator's Instagram Live and run it as a Partnership Ad, something Facebook already offered.
The catch is easy to miss: paid viewers rarely arrive at minute one. They drop in from Feed, Stories or Reels halfway through, with no idea who's talking or why. A stream built for loyal followers will lose them in seconds.
So treat the live like a campaign with a clock.
⏱ T-minus 7 days: lock the paperwork
Get the creator's partnership ad permission confirmed in writing for the live and for clips cut from the replay afterward.
Pick one hero product. Create a code that only exists on this stream, so every redemption traces straight back to the broadcast instead of blending into your other ads.
⏱ T-minus 2 days: build the ad
Use a Sales objective and point it at the hero product. Set the budget for the stream's length only, so spend can't spill into the replay.
Instagram tells creators to schedule boosted lives at least two hours ahead to avoid delivery delays. Give your partnership ad the same buffer.
⏱ Minute 0 onward: run the drop-in loop
Every eight to ten minutes, the creator resets for newcomers with a 60-second loop:
- Who this is for, in one sentence
- The product in hand, used on camera
- The price and the stream-only code
- A question for chat, so new arrivals have a reason to stay
On a protein powder stream, that loop is a scoop, a shake, a sip and the code. Then it repeats.
A teammate should sit in the comments, pinning the code and answering price and shipping questions, while the creator stays on camera.
Planning a live is also a good moment to rethink where creator-handle ads fit in your account overall. On October 7 at 11 AM ET, Meta Partner Manager Reyna Baker joins Billo CEO Donatas Smailys and Curtis Howland, who has managed over $100M in Meta spend, to walk through Partnership Ads data. Registrants who miss it get the recording within 24 hours. You can secure your free spot here.
⏱ T-plus 24 hours: judge it fairly
Divide stream ad spend by code redemptions, then compare that number with your usual Partnership Ads cost per purchase.
If the live wins, book a monthly slot with the same creator.
If it lands within 20% and comments surfaced fresh objections, keep testing, because that's creative research you'd normally pay for. The 20% band is my judgment.
If it loses on both counts, move that budget back to your standard Partnership Ads.
Book your first stream this week, before Q4 auctions get crowded.
đź“Š Microsoft, Google and LinkedIn are giving marketers better signals to work with
Three new updates are making it easier for marketers to connect ads to revenue, measure traffic coming from AI, and find B2B creators for campaigns.
The Breakdown:
Microsoft Ads Meets HubSpot - Microsoft Advertising now connects with HubSpot, linking campaigns to leads, deals, pipeline and revenue while automating actions like sales assignments and nurture emails.
B2B Targeting Gets Bigger - Microsoft is expanding LinkedIn company lists from 1,000 to 10,000 businesses and adding broader campaign experiments for testing bidding, targeting and creative changes.
Gemini Traffic Gets Trackable - Google Gemini has started adding UTM parameters to outgoing links, helping sites separate Gemini referrals from Direct traffic. Google has not yet documented exactly when UTMs appear.
LinkedIn Makes Creators Searchable - Creator Discovery will let marketers filter creators by industry, job function, content type, audience demographics and Top Voices, with general availability expected in early 2027.
Together, these updates give marketers better visibility into what happens before a conversion. Microsoft connects ads more directly to revenue, Gemini makes AI referrals easier to measure, and LinkedIn is making it easier to identify creators who reach the right B2B audience.
🏆 Ad of the day
What Works:
Hook Reframes Coffee - “The VIP pass for your brain” turns a functional coffee benefit into an aspirational shortcut, creating curiosity while making mushroom coffee feel more desirable than clinical.
Offer Feels Premium - The 25% off badge adds urgency without cheapening the brand, while the brown and blush palette keeps the creative warm, elevated and consistent with premium coffee positioning.
Usage Looks Familiar - Showing both hot and iced preparations reduces adoption friction, helping shoppers understand that mushroom coffee fits existing routines rather than requiring a completely new habit.
Translate a technical benefit into a more desirable cultural phrase, then pair it with familiar consumption moments. That makes wellness products easier to understand and more emotionally appealing.
🥳 Events
🔥 Why Creator-Handle Ads Are Outperforming Brand Creative on Meta
October 7 | 11 AM ET | 60-Minute Virtual Event
Meta Partner Manager Reyna Baker joins Billo CEO Donatas Smailys to unpack Meta’s own Partnership Ads data, while Curtis Howland brings lessons from $100M+ in managed Meta spend. See what to change in your testing and where creator-handle ads fit before your next budget goes live.
Can't attend the session live? Register anyway, and you’ll get the recordings in 24 hours.
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