Happy Friday.
Today’s Squad
Jared Gutstadt (Founder & CEO, Rebel Audio) & Mike Majlak (Chief Creator in Residence & Partner, Rebel Audio) → 12:00PM CT
David Baker (CRO, Beekman 1802) → 12:40PM CT
Daniel James (Founder & CEO, Flight Performance) → 1:10PM CT
Koby Conrad (Founder & CEO, Sunflower) → 1:45PM CT
Top Stories
Meta is Down - Facebook, Instagram, and Meta Ads Manager all went down globally last night, locking out millions of users and leaving advertisers staring at campaigns they couldn't touch. The internet's running joke: ad accounts kept billing while nobody could see a single placement — and Meta's stock barely flinched.
Kickbacks: Claude Code Ad Spinner - A developer turned the idle loading spinner in Claude Code into an ad marketplace called Kickbacks. Advertisers bid for space, and the viewers gets half the money. Within a day it served 400K ads to over 1,000 users and rocketed to a $30M ARR run rate, with early advertisers reporting $1-per-visitor traffic that undercuts Google ads.
YouTube DMs are Back - YouTube is bringing private messaging back six years after killing it, rolling out in-app video sharing and chat to US users 18 and up. The new version comes with guardrails — age verification and invite links required — signaling YouTube wants you talking with people you actually know, not sliding into strangers' inboxes.
YouTube: 34 Million U.S. Customers You Can't Reach Anywhere Else
By Colin Dougherty
There are 34 million Americans you cannot reach on Meta. Not on TikTok, not on Snap, not on Instagram. They're on YouTube and nowhere else. Colin Slattery (Founder & CEO of Taikun Digital) dropped that number on us yesterday and we haven't stopped thinking about it.
Slattery has spent 16+ years in paid search. His agency will put somewhere between $50 and $75 million into YouTube this year alone. His words: it's the most mispriced inventory in digital, and it always has been.
Q: Why, then, has everyone been ignoring it?
A: Measurement.
Because YouTube is not a last-click platform, performance marketers have continued to pour money into the same Meta auctions as all of their rivals. That justification is no longer valid. Now that holdout testing is reasonably priced, brands are aggressively looking for a place to invest real money in Meta.
Three years ago, Collin predicted that by the end of this decade YouTube would account for the majority of Google's ad revenue. Pay attention before the CPMs catch up.
Every brand we talk to says the same thing: Meta performance is sliding. The window where YouTube stays cheap is closing. Brands that figure it out now get those eyeballs at a discount. Everyone else pays full price later.
Highlight Reel: Performance or Dynamite — Agencies Must Pick
Timeline: Town Square
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See you live,
Ecomm Cowboy Team