As Meta is struggling to revive its falling revenue in order to reverse its downward financial spiral, it is adding new ways for advertisers to clutter up your feeds. Specifically, the Explore feed and grids are about to start getting ads.
Spotted by Engadget, Meta has announced a set of changes to its advertising ecosystem that includes a bunch of adjustments to how brands can buy time in front of Instagram users including an update to Facebook Reels, adding ways to make campaigns more performant with artificial intelligence (AI), and introducing new ad placements and formats on Instagram.
Facebook Reels are getting new post-loop ads, which are four to 10-second skippable and standalone video ads that play after a reel has ended. Meta is also adding AI and automation to its Meta Advantage Suite which it says will help businesses learn and “unlock value” from their ad investments more quickly.
But Instagram is making the most of its new features. It is now adding Instagram ads to the Explore tab, profile feed and AI-powered multiadvertiser ads.
Businesses can place ads on Explore home. This grid is what users first see upon clicking the Explore tab. Meta also says it is testing ads in the profile feed.
” “We will test a monetization option that allows eligible creators to make extra income through ads shown in their profile feeds. We will start with selected U.S. creators,” says the company.
The AI-powered multi-advertiser ads is, in short, a way for Meta to put an advertisement onto an existing advertisement.
When someone engages with an advertisement, we will deliver any ads that we believe may be interesting, powered by machine-learning. It was surprising that Instagram’s existing Instagram ads campaigns that included multi-advertiser context ads outperformed those without them .”
Ads above ads. Although it may seem absurd, Meta believes that this will be a success.
Meta also says that it has launched an open beta test of augmented reality (AR) advertisements both Feed and Stories, where it will allow brands to encourage users to interact with their surroundings.
Meta has been struggling with not only dropping revenue but also dipping user engagement and a lackluster number of new users to its platforms. Meta has always been the exception to Meta’s larger user-based problems. However, stacking ads into an already-ad-filled app seems risky.
Image credits: Header photo licensed via Depositphotos.
