Meta puts new ads in Facebook Reels and will share revenue with creators

Meta is looking to help Facebook Reels creators monetize the newer video format, which has become a greater share of activity on the platform, with new ad products that award talent participating in the program. One of the formats called “post-loop ads,” appear directly after Reels video and can be between 4- to -10-second spots that autoplay. “It takes advantage of the looping function of Reels and also enables a creator to earn a living,” said Nada Stirratt, Meta’s VP of global marketing solutions in North America, in an interview this week. On Monday, Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, held a media event to showcase new ad products on Facebook and Instagram, and to discuss updates to the platform that included new ways to target and measure ads. Reels monetization is an important project at Facebook and Instagram because the platform is in a social media battle with ByteDance-owned TikTok. Meta, YouTube and Snapchat are all trying to reorient their apps to accommodate the obsession of consumers to devour entertainment on social media. If creators can make money from their participation on these platforms, they could start to win back some of the audience that has been active on TikTok. All of the platforms are experimenting with new revenue-sharing programs. In May, TikTok launched TikTok Pulse, a program that connects brands with top creators and puts ads below the videos from the creators, who get a split of the revenue. Last month, YouTube held an event to announce new revenue-sharing ads with creators of Shorts, its TikTok competitor. In total, Meta announced five new ad products, three of which share revenue with creators. On Instagram, the compan is launching sponsored posts within profile pages. So, if a user taps into a post on a creator’s page, and starts scrolling through the content, an ad could appear in that feed. Creators will get a split of revenue from those ads, but Meta did not say how much they would receive. So far, the Reels portion of the monetization only applies to Facebook, even though the format also is prevalent on Instagram. Meta typically tests ad formats on either platform before rolling them out across the two. Another Facebook Reels ad, dubbed “multi-advertiser ads,” are displays of products at the bottom of a video. A Meta spokesperson said that creators will receive 55% of the revenue from these ads and the post-loop ads. Related: Meta resets brand safety controls on Facebook and Instagram This week’s Meta announcements shows the company is reacting to the major changes in mobile advertising. Meta also discussed “privacy-enhancing technologies,” which are part of its long-term strategy to address data changes from Apple. Apple’s anti-tracking policies, such as App Tracking Transparency on iPhone software, which took effect last year, have locked apps out of robust data flows. Marketers can’t easily identify when a person saw an ad or took an action after viewing an ad. Meta is working on encrypted— or hidden—data signals to measure ads, but it’s a highly technical computational feat. Meta also is talking with marketers about more advanced artificial intelligence to power shopping campaigns that lead to e-commerce and retail outcomes. Artificial intelligence is also being used to create target audiences for ad campaigns, beyond the basic ability of a marketer to use email and contact lists to identify target audiences. The Reels monetization is an important subject, too, because Meta has been devoting more attention to that style of video on its platforms. The more consumers see Reels, the less time they spend in the legacy parts of the platform like the main feed. Meta has to make money from Reels the way it was able to do in feed. The company has noted the challenge of that in recent earnings reports. “We saw a more than 30% increase in the time that people spent engaging with Reels across Facebook and Instagram,” CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in the latest earnings call in July. “Reels doesn't yet monetize at the same rate as feed or stories, so in the near term, the faster that Reels grows, the more revenue that actually displaces from higher-monetizing surfaces.”

Meta puts new ads in Facebook Reels and will share revenue with creators

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