Instagram Reels to initiate testing for advertisements, says Facebook

As part of its efforts to help advertisers further connect with relevant customer base or audience, Facebook has announced that it will begin testing advertisements on Instagram Reels, in India and other markets.

The company is said to initiate testing in India, Brazil, Germany, and Australia, with advertisements on its TikTok replica Instagram Reels, as the social media company seeks to monetize its short-form video functionality.

In India, Instagram had debuted the new 'Reels' feature in July of last year, it allowed for users to make and upload short format videos, just like in the popular app of TikTok. The company beniffted largely due to the Chinese app ban imposed on various applications including TikTok, which is one of the main reasons for the massive user engagement with Instagram Reels.

On Thursday, Facebook announced of the development in blog post, "Today, we're announcing new topic targeting options within Facebook In-Stream video, testing of Instagram Reels Ads and other ad experiences in Facebook Stories to help increase opportunities for brands to better engage with relevant audiences."

Ads on Reels would be full-screen and seamless, close to advertisements in Stories, according to Facebook. People will be able to view, comment, like, save, share, and skip ads that more than 30 seconds long.

They also revealed that advertisers would be able to choose the types of video content they want to advertise on.

This is a step into the direction of monetizing the riding wave of popularity of the Reels feature on Instagram. It is different because now Facebook enables for marketers to advertise alongside its content topics.

Facebook informed on the incorporation of advertisements in Instagram Reels, "This is part of our efforts to develop new and innovative ads formats so that creators can monetise more types of content on Facebook, and brands can reach more audiences,” it further added, "We're committed to enhancing all of our products to make Facebook and Instagram a place that helps people and advertisers build meaningful connections across our apps."