Facebook has announced video ads for Instant Articles, a new feature that will enable publishers to boost engagement for content they post on the social media platform and monetise their marketing strategies effectively. The new addition will launch alongside Instant Articles when it rolls out on 12th April.
Video ads are an important tool for promoting content on social media, and brands will now have the option of inserting user-initiated and Autoplay ads within the articles they create and post on Facebook. They will also be able to place an another ad unit at the foot of each Instant Article, which will encourage a greater than 20 per cent increase in ad impressions, according to industry experts.
Facebook has made a concerted effort in recent months to make it easier for both users and brands to access content. The Instant Articles program was created so that publishers could host content directly on the site rather than having to post outbound links to other web pages and corporate sites. Users also complained that these links were often slow to load on mobile.
“We care about user experience first and foremost, but we know this doesn’t work if publishers can’t monetise their content successfully,” Instant Articles product manager at Facebook, Josh Roberts, said. He added: “Publisher feedback has been positive after the changes, but feedback is ongoing.”
Video ads within Instant Articles will also have another perk for publishers. They will able to retain the entire amount of revenue generated if they sell ads against their own content rather than using Facebook to sell them, which results in the social network taking a 30 per cent fee. Brands will be able to post one ad for every 350 words of content they post.
Facebook will be hoping that the arrival of Instant Articles video ads next week will mirror the success of Canvas Ads, a tool that launched back in February as a means of increasing engagement on mobile through full-screen, immersive ads. Trials for the product found that viewers were willing to watch ads with a running time of up to 70 seconds, while the majority of users watched more than half of the ads in general.
