Q1 2026 paid social update.
April - 2026
We’ve been tracking a few updates across Meta and TikTok that are worth keeping an eye on. As these platforms lean harder into automation, the challenge is finding the balance between letting the machine do its thing and maintaining enough control to actually hit your goals.
Here’s a breakdown of what’s changing and why it matters for your accounts.
Meta updates.
Push delivery.
Meta is rolling out a feature that lets you force spend toward specific ads within a consolidated ad set. Usually, Meta’s algorithm picks a winner early and puts all the budget there, which makes testing new creative difficult. This should help level the playing field. The real test will be seeing if forcing spend on ads Meta would otherwise ignore actually helps performance or just creates more expensive clicks.
The bottom line: You get better control over new ad tests and limited-time offers without having to break your account structure apart.
Customer life cycle strategy.
There’s a slower rollout happening for a feature focused on new customer acquisition. It essentially tells Meta to prioritize people who haven’t bought from you before. While this might make your initial cost per result look higher on paper, it’s a smart move if you’re focused on true incrementality and filling the top of the funnel.
The bottom line: It’s a solid alternative for brands where standard incremental attribution models don’t quite fit.
Whatsapp for business.
Meta is making a massive push for WhatsApp adoption (it hit 100 million monthly users in the US recently). While this isn’t a direct paid media play yet, the utility for brands is growing. If you’re on Shopify, the integration is simple and works well for order updates and customer notifications.
The bottom line: It’s a low-hanging fruit for improving customer experience and keeping people engaged with the brand.
TikTok updates.
Smart+ 2.0 automation.
TikTok is evolving its Smart+ campaigns into something much more flexible. It used to feel like a "black box," but the new updates allow you to toggle automation across targeting, bidding, and creative. You can now see more clearly which creative combinations are actually doing the heavy lifting.
The bottom line: You get the benefits of TikTok’s AI without giving up total control, making it easier to scale what’s working.
Creative optimization enhancements.
They’ve also improved how the platform identifies winning assets. The system is getting faster at testing multiple pieces of creative and rotating them based on real-time signals like watch time and engagement.
The bottom line: This cuts down the time it takes to find a winning ad. What used to take weeks of manual testing can now happen in near real-time.
TikTok market scope.
A new update to Market Scope lets you see TikTok Shop performance right next to your traditional funnel metrics. Having everything in one interface makes it much easier to see the path from discovery to purchase.
The bottom line: Better measurement means you can make budget decisions based on the full journey rather than guessing how the Shop side of things is impacting the rest of the business.
The paid social landscape changes fast, and it’s easy to get buried in the updates. We’re digging into these now to see which ones make the most sense for your specific strategy. Let us know if you want to dive deeper into any of these.