📰 LinkedIn Ads, Amazon Ads and other platforms news

Reddit shares fell sharply after its CEO warned that search referral traffic dropped significantly in the third quarter, weighing on the platform's advertising revenue outlook.

Amazon's ad revenue growth slowed to 11% in the third quarter due to the Prime Day timing shift, though it expects high-teens growth to return in Q4.

At the unBoxed 2026 event, Amazon Ads unveiled a major restructuring that merges its DSP and console into Amazon Ads Agent, alongside Full-Funnel Campaigns, DVA+ and conversational shopping ads.

Pinterest announced programmatic deals with Magnite allowing its video and display inventory to be bought through DSPs such as Amazon DVA+, Google DV360 and Yahoo DSP, expanding its earlier partnership with Amazon Ads.

Pinterest made its Programmatic Deals program generally available in North America, South America and Asia Pacific, letting buyers purchase display and video inventory through Amazon DVA+, Google DV360 and Yahoo DSP, though Europe remains excluded for now.

LinkedIn and Google announced that LinkedIn's CTV Ads are now available through Display & Video 360 for US-targeted campaigns, extending B2B professional targeting into connected TV.

Pinterest introduced Business Assistant, an AI collaborator built into Ads Manager that surfaces trends and performance alerts, along with Pinterest MCP, a connector letting AI agent tools pull campaign data.

LinkedIn introduced In-Stream Ads, a pre-roll video format running across eligible creator and publisher content without individual deals, alongside expanded Creator Marketplace search tools.

LinkedIn announced seven new features, including In-Stream Ads to pay creators for pre-roll ads, citing a 70% rise in profiles adding 'founder' and more members reporting multiple positions.

LinkedIn began testing In-Stream Ads with select US creators and advertisers, while also opening Advice Sessions to Business Premium subscribers and launching a new creator dashboard.

LinkedIn and Amazon Ads announced that advertisers can now buy LinkedIn's CTV ads through Amazon DSP for US targeting, activating LinkedIn professional audience data such as job title, industry and seniority for streaming TV campaigns.

LinkedIn announced new tools for professionals running side hustles and confirmed it is testing In-Stream Ads with select partners in the US, alongside a possible new Network feed and digital business cards for mobile.

At its unBoxed 2026 event, Amazon introduced Amazon Ads Agent, merging the ad console and DSP into a single agentic AI-powered platform, along with Full-Funnel Campaigns and DVA+ for display, video and audio.

Amazon's AI campaign intelligence dashboard, which recommends targeting, bid and budget actions, is reaching all US sponsored ads advertisers during October 2026.

X released a new update to its ranking repository raising the coordinated-spam threshold to 125,000 followers and adding a value-events module that counts purchase, content-view and add-to-cart conversions capped at $100,000 per event.

X introduced X Lift, a feature that automatically converts a business URL into a full AI-generated advertising campaign.

Amazon Ads announced Amazon Marketing Stream v2, replacing hourly JSON data delivery with Apache Parquet files updated every 15 minutes, alongside Ads Data Manager to unify first-party data within AMC.

Reddit announced enhancements to its Lead Gen Ads, including expanding its AI-powered Max campaigns to lead gen objectives, plus a test of in-market audiences and a new HubSpot integration.

At its annual unBoxed conference, Amazon Ads unified Sponsored Ads and Amazon DSP into a single system with three campaign types, including a new Display, Video & Audio (DVA) format that can be AI-optimized automatically.

LinkedIn's October 2026 update introduced a new logo that now covers roughly the top 15 percent of mobile videos, requiring advertisers to adjust caption and text placement in video creatives.

LinkedIn is testing a feature letting verified members confirm the work and education experience of their connections, awarding a verification badge after enough confirmations; LinkedIn says verified members get roughly 50% more post views.

LinkedIn announced on September 15 that private feedback on generic AI content will appear in post analytics once enough reports are received.

Snapchat reached the milestone of 2 trillion Snaps sent while unveiling new ad formats to attract advertisers despite its modest ad revenue share.

Amazon Ads added pre-built brand penetration indices to Geographic Insights and Activation (GIA), letting advertisers in nine countries visualize where their brand over- or under-indexes versus its category and activate geographic optimization without building an AMC model.

Google is testing making the sponsored products search results block or grid look more like the organic products/shopping grid.

X launched its Cashtag Partner Program, letting US users tap any stock or crypto cashtag, view a live price chart alongside related posts, and trade through partner brokerages like Interactive Brokers, Kraken and Coinbase.

Pinterest unveiled Visual Search Ads, a new format placing sponsored products in search results and Pin closeups, aimed at lower-funnel campaigns and compatible with Performance+.

Amazon renamed its unified ad platform Ads Agent, combining Sponsored Ads and Amazon DSP into one place manageable via natural language, while introducing new Full-Funnel Campaigns and DVA+ combining display, video and audio.

On August 31, the FTC and attorneys general from 22 states sued Amazon, alleging that for more than seven years it used an 'invented bidder' to inflate prices paid by over a million brands and sellers across Sponsored Products, Sponsored Brands, and Sponsored Display.

At unBoxed 2026, Amazon announced Amazon Ads Agent, a unified platform with agentic AI combining the former Ads Console and Amazon DSP, along with new Full-Funnel Campaigns and DVA+.

Amazon announced Sponsored Services to connect shoppers with local service providers (with Yelp as the anchor partner) and generative AI creative tools built directly into the Amazon Ads Agent conversational experience.

Reddit announced general availability of its Max campaigns, which automate targeting, creative selection and rotation, placements, and budget allocation, after testing them with a limited group of advertisers since January 2026.

Full-Funnel Campaigns combines sponsored ads, display, video and streaming TV into a single AI-managed campaign, and is now available to all US advertisers selling on Amazon.

The FTC and 22 state attorneys general are suing Amazon, alleging it secretly overcharged advertisers in its search ad auctions for more than seven years, rising from 30-40% of auctions in 2021 to about 80% by 2024.

Amazon and OpenAI launched a managed-service pilot placing Amazon DSP ads inside ChatGPT responses, with product feed ads auto-generated from Amazon catalogs, US-only at launch.

Amazon Ads introduced a new tier of tools on its Ads MCP Server allowing third-party AI agents to access specialized capabilities; the first, the AMC SQL Generator, translates natural-language requests into validated Amazon Marketing Cloud SQL queries and is now in closed beta in the US.

Amazon Ads unveiled its new "Amazon Ads Agent" platform at unBoxed 2026, replacing the former Ads Console and Amazon DSP with three campaign types: Sponsored Ads, Display, Video and Audio+ (DVA+), and Full-Funnel Campaigns, all powered by AI with a natural-language chat experience.

Starting August 10, Amazon Sponsored Products campaigns began serving inside Amazon Influencer Program creator content with no advertiser action required, sparking controversy over the lack of clear notice about the expansion.

Amazon Ads launched location-based interactive video ads and 'Next Up' ads that appear between episodes on Prime Video, expanding its streaming advertising offering in Australia.

Meta no longer requires matching Instagram and Threads usernames to run Threads ads, letting brands with no Instagram profile advertise directly on the platform.

At its 2026 Upfront, Amazon Ads highlighted its authenticated audience graph covering 90% of U.S. households and being named the only leader in omnichannel advertising by Forrester, alongside growth in Prime Video viewership.

Bing is testing a "Top Pick" label on its sponsored result product carousels, highlighting a potential new way for products to stand out in search results. The "Top Pick" label is prominently displayed in the product carousel, potentially drawing more eyes to specific listings. This update was shared.

LinkedIn added a 180-day attribution window option for conversion types like Purchase, Lead and Qualified Lead in its Conversions API, alongside richer company intelligence data and CREATIVE_NAME support in dynamic UTM tracking.

Snapchat announced it will focus on AI-driven performance improvements and expanding native ad formats like Reminder Ads and Sponsored Snaps, amid stalled user growth in the US and EU.

Amazon Ads announced that its Amazon Ads MCP Server is now available in open beta, aiming to reduce advertising workflow complexity through AI agent integration.

Snapchat, Pinterest and Reddit are leveraging AI tools to make ad buying easier for small and medium businesses, aiming to diversify revenue beyond major brand budgets.

Reddit introduced a Split Testing feature in Ads Manager offering five test types, including Max-vs-standard campaign comparisons, to optimize ad performance.

LinkedIn now allows advertisers to target audiences based on LinkedIn profile data within Search and Audience campaigns, improving B2B targeting precision.

Amazon Ads officially announced that its flagship unBoxed 2026 conference will take place from September 28–30 at the Moscone West Convention Center in San Francisco, expected to bring new ad formats, AI capabilities, and measurement tools. The event will gather advertisers, agencies, and developers to learn about upcoming platform innovations.

Snapchat introduced Total Snap Takeovers, a format placing brands in the first ad slot across all app tabs, and opened its ads platform to third-party AI agents via its own MCP server.

Amazon Ads confirmed its flagship unBoxed 2026 event will take place September 28-30 at the Moscone Center in San Francisco, where it will unveil new AI-powered advertising products.

Amazon Ads announced a partnership with OpenAI to enable conversational advertising within ChatGPT, with select U.S. advertisers currently testing the format as part of a pilot.

X is rolling out a new ad platform that consolidates campaign objectives and standardizes structure, including ad-group-level budgets and simplified optimization options.

Amazon Ads announced that Prime Video advertising will be introduced in Belgium, Denmark, Norway, and Turkey during 2026, expanding its streaming ad inventory in Europe.

LinkedIn announced new ad options including Reserved Ads to maximize impact, ad personalization, and AI-generated ad variants.

TikTok struck a first-of-its-kind IP licensing deal with Disney that turns fan content into a formal distribution channel, amid a month of major regulatory and platform shifts.

Reddit introduced a new 15-second Engaged Video Views optimization goal that lifted view-through rates by 51% and completion rates by 71% in alpha testing, suited for trailers and testimonials.

Starting August 1, a specific group of Amazon advertisers contacted directly lost the ability to use a credit card as their primary ad payment method, with costs now deducted from seller/vendor account balance or via Pay by Invoice. Amazon clarified the change is narrow and does not affect most advertisers, who were already paying via account balance deduction.

Pacvue, a commerce operating system for retail media, integrated Reddit Ads in 2026 so brands can buy and track campaigns alongside more than one hundred retail media networks like Amazon and Walmart.

The FTC and 22 state attorneys general filed suit against Amazon alleging it secretly inflated prices in its advertising auctions after 2019 rule changes, potentially costing advertisers more than $20 billion.

Reddit launched Max campaigns on a limited basis in January 2026 and, after encouraging initial results, opened them to all advertisers in September 2026; the tool automates nearly the entire ad creation process.

Amazon Ads invited advertisers to its annual flagship conference, where it will share how AI and new advertising solutions aim to make it easier for brands of every size to drive results.

LinkedIn confirmed that Marketing API version 202508 will be sunset on August 17, 2026, recommending developers migrate to newer versions to avoid service disruptions.

LinkedIn added AI ad copy generation, a reusable Brand Kit, and multi-variant ad creation to Campaign Manager to speed up testing of BrandLink creatives.