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In this newsletter, youâll find:
đ TikTokâs cost advantage is real. Itâs also shrinking, and most plans donât account for that
đ Instagram and LinkedIn just dropped some useful clues for marketers
đšâđ» Tweet of the day
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Bring Your Toughest Growth Question to Forward
Bring the acquisition question your team has been circling for months.
On October 29, Forward by Tatari gives you direct access to leaders making growth decisions at scale.
Inside The Glasshouse in NYC, you can:
Ask Reddit CEO Steve Huffman how discovery is changing across a platform reaching 127 million people daily.
Hear how Cody Plofker helped scale Jones Road Beauty to nine figures and what he would prioritize now.
Learn how Liquid I.V., MANSCAPED, Thorne, and Avocado Green Brands make TV accountable to revenue.
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đ TikTokâs cost advantage is real. Itâs also shrinking, and most plans donât account for that
TikTok CPM fell 28.48% year over year to $4.08, according to a benchmark report covering nearly 6,000 brands over the trailing twelve months.
Thatâs still meaningfully cheaper than Metaâs overall median CPM of $15.06. The reportâs own framing is the part worth sitting with: TikTokâs reputation as the cost-efficient alternative to Meta and Google is being tested, because even as the absolute number fell, the gap between platforms has moved further from parity in the comparison that actually matters for planning.
Most media plans still carry an assumption about TikTokâs cost advantage that was set whenever someone last checked, often a year or more ago, and treated as durable since.
A number that was true last year isnât automatically true this year, and a plan built on a stale gap either underinvests in TikTok because the advantage looks smaller than it is, or overcommits because the advantage looks bigger than it actually is right now.
Pull your own trailing twelve months before trusting an industry average
An industry-wide benchmark is a starting point, not a substitute for your accountâs actual numbers, since CPM varies significantly by vertical, audience, and creative format in ways a blended average smooths over.
Compare your own TikTok and Meta CPM trends over the same trailing period the benchmark report covers.
If your gap has moved in a different direction than the industry number, thatâs more informative than the industry number itself, since itâs telling you something specific about your account rather than the category average.
Rebuild the media-mix case on the current gap, not last yearâs
A budget split between TikTok and Meta that was justified by a wider cost gap a year ago may not be justified by todayâs narrower one, even though TikTok remains the cheaper platform in absolute terms.
Recalculate what the current gap actually implies for optimal spend allocation, rather than defending a ratio set when the numbers looked different. The direction of the trend, cost advantage narrowing, matters as much as the current snapshot for planning the next few quarters.
Treat CPM benchmarks as a quarterly check, not a one-time input
A number this dynamic, moving nearly 30% in a single year, isnât stable enough to set once and revisit occasionally.
Build a standing quarterly comparison into your reporting cadence rather than waiting for a vendorâs benchmark report to prompt the check.
And if your account doesnât have twelve months of TikTok data to compare against Meta, no benchmark report is going to settle the question for you. You need your own numbers, which means spending enough to generate them.
TikTok for Business is currently matching that: spend $500 and get $500 in free ad credits, which makes the first read on your own CPM cost half what it otherwise would You can claim the credit here.
The platform is still cheap. Whether itâs cheap enough to justify last yearâs budget split is a different question, and itâs worth answering with this yearâs numbers.
đ Instagram and LinkedIn just dropped some useful clues for marketers
Instagram is explaining what actually helps content travel, while LinkedInâs analysis of more than 50,000 closed B2B deals across 850 organizations shows why marketers may be entering the buying journey too late.
The Breakdown:
Instagram Rewards Fresh Originals - Originality and recency are major ranking signals. Instagram also tests posts from smaller public creators with non-followers, giving strong content a chance to break beyond an existing audience.
Engagement Beats Big Numbers - Mosseri says creators should watch engagement rates rather than obsessing over total views or likes. Trial Reels can also help test new ideas without relying on what worked last week.
B2B Buyers Start 124 Days Early - LinkedInâs data shows buying groups begin researching solutions around 124 days before speaking with a seller, making early visibility important long before a lead enters the CRM.
One Decision Has Many People - Reaching 6+ contacts before a deal enters the CRM lifted win rates by 17 percentage points, yet 76% of LinkedIn ad spend currently targets director-level roles. Paid ads paired with organic LinkedIn activity also produced 2.4x higher win rates than paid alone.
Both platforms are pointing marketers beyond the obvious numbers. On Instagram, fresh original content and meaningful engagement can matter more than raw reach. On LinkedIn, the opportunity starts months before the sales conversation and extends beyond the person with âDirectorâ in their title.
đïž Tweet of the Day
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đ„ What 3 Million Citations Reveal About Winning AI Shortlists
Today | 1 PM ET | Virtual Event
Foundation CEO Ross Simmonds and AirOpsâ Josh Spilker unpack nearly 380,000 AI answers to show which sources shape B2B recommendations across six AI engines. Learn which prompts to track, where your brand is losing citation share, and which external sites deserve your next content investment.
Canât attend the session live? Register anyway, and youâll get the recordings in 24 hours.
đ„ How Top Brands Measure, Fund, and Scale Creator Marketing
October 21 | Online | Free Festival
Return on Influence Festival â26 brings together teams from Adobe, Edelman, ĆURA, Ogilvy, and more to unpack how creator programs actually run. Learn how they measure ROI, justify budget, structure partnerships, and scale from 5 to 5,000 creators without adding chaos.
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