Meta announced on Thursday that Instagram Threads will begin testing video ads, making it more similar to its competitor X. The test is an expansion of Threads’ advertising initiatives, which started last month with the opening up of ads to global advertisers.
The announcement was made at Meta’s presentation at the IAB NewFronts, where several social media companies pitch themselves to advertisers. On Threads, a “small number” of advertisers will test 19:9 or 1:1 video ad creatives that will appear between pieces of organic content in the Threads feed.
Meta didn’t share details around pricing or frequency of those ads. The update follows the company’s recent announcement that Threads now reaches over 350 million monthly active users. The app has also seen a 35% increase in the time spent on Threads due to improvements to the app’s recommendation systems, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg told investors on Meta’s earnings call in April.
In addition to Threads, Meta is testing other ad products. It is testing a new short-form video solution, Reels trending ads, which will be shown next to the most trending Reels from creators. Meta will also begin testing Trends in Instagram’s Creator Marketplace to help advertisers find popular trends.
The company will also test the Creator Marketplace API to help businesses find and connect with quality creators at scale. Furthermore, Meta is rolling out Video Expansion on Facebook Reels, which adjusts video assets by generating unseen pixels in each video frame to expand the aspect ratio for a more native experience.
Rival TikTok recently introduced an expansion of its similar offering, called Pulse Suite, allowing advertisers to market themselves next to trending content by category, holiday, tentpole moments, cultural events, and evergreen content from sports, entertainment, and lifestyle publishers.
