With Reels, the short-form video offering on
Instagram and Facebook, Meta is looking to compete with TikTok's global success while providing advertisers with new ways to capture consumer attention.
On Tuesday, the tech giant announced new
video capabilities for advertisers, including a call-to-action button, direct WhatsApp integration, and interaction measurement tools.
Last July, Meta began letting businesses turn their Reels
on Instagram into ads, which the company hoped would help them reach new audiences and drive more engagement. Now, advertisers are able to turn organic image and video posts into ads in Ads Manager on
Facebook Reels, as well as add a call-to-action button to their ad.
In addition, Meta is launching Click-to-Messenger Ads and WhatsApp Conversion optimization available for ads on Facebook
Reels.
“Typically, we show Click to Messenger ads to people who are most likely to initiate a conversation with a business on WhatsApp, Messenger or Instagram,” the company
explains.
These new updates will invite advertisers who use the Sales, Engagement or Traffic objectives to add a ‘Send Message’ button to their Facebook Reels ads to give people an
option to start a conversation in WhatsApp or Messenger directly from the ad.
To help advertisers see more performance from Reels ads, Meta is also rolling out support for the post engagement
measurements for ads on Facebook Reels, allowing advertisers to measure the total number of actions (reactions, comments and likes) people are taking around a specific ad and compare them to
engagement from other ads or campaigns.
This goes for Overlay ads (banner or image carousels at the beginning of a Reel) and Post-Loop ads (standalone and skippable video ads at the end of a
Reel).
Finally, in lieu of these new video ads offerings, Meta has announced that it will wind down its In-Stream Reserve program –– an exclusive program that gives high-quality
Facebook video Pages access to premium advertising opportunities –– at the end of 2023, once all existing deals are complete.
“Our In-Stream Auction products will remain
unchanged,” the company states. “We believe this will help businesses more readily take advantage of our best practices.”