Facebook users annoyed with sponsored stories and traditional, off-feed ads are likely in for something much more intrusive. According to sources familiar with the matter who spoke with Bloomberg, videos ads are most definitely on their way to Facebook’s news feed by the end of this year.
We first caught wind of the TV-style, video advertisements back in December of 2012. Reports indicated that Facebook was working on 15-second video ads that would begin in the news feed, and possibly expand outward into real estate on both the left-hand and right-hand columns of the homepage. The ads were also said to be autoplay and would appear on both desktop and mobile. A later report from AdAge indicated that the video ads were coming by summer, and that Facebook was currently looking for commitments from various agencies to fill the million-dollar slots.
According to Bloomberg’s sources, Facebook is set to charge between $1 million and $2.5 million for an ad to run for a single day. The ads will be TV-style, lasting 15 seconds. Apparently, there will be a limit on how many times per day a user will be shown these video ads – possibly three times.
The video ads have been in the works for months, but the reason they’ve been delayed is that Mark Zuckerberg has concerns about how they could affect the overal user experience, according to the sources.
Last week, Facebook released their Q2 earnings and beat Wall Street expectations – posting $1.81 billion in revenue. 88% of that total revenue was from advertising. In a single day, marketers looking to run these new video ads could have access to a chunk of Facebook’s 699 million daily active users.
