Meta never fails to inspire us. It keeps on updating and is aspiring to be the theory of everything in the social media space. There have been a series of updates for the last couple of months. This includes the release of the Threads platform, introducing AI stickers on WhatsApp, and more. And here comes another Meta reels update for ads.
The tech giant announced on Monday a string of new features on reels across Facebook and Instagram. A meta spokeswoman said “We are building ways to make Reels ads more engaging for people and more effective for advertisers”. It will soon be reflected on Facebook and Instagram as Meta Reels updates.
Alright! No more beating around the bush. Let us jump straight to these 5 exciting Meta Reels updates, which can revolutionise the entire meta ad ecosystem.
- Collection Ads
- Multi Destination Carousel Ads
- Swipe Left Functionality
- Advantage+ Creative
- Brand suitability on Reels
Let us examine what these new features are and how they will improve the overall reel and ad experience on meta-powered platforms.
Collection ads
- It is hard to explain what these ads look like. Have you ever seen a meta-shopping ad featuring a single long video or an image associated with other smaller images? Users can swipe through these images to learn more about the products they’re interested in. It looks somewhat like this.
- If you are an Instagram user, this ad type will not be new to you. This feature will be rolled out on Facebook in the coming days across iOS and Android.
Multi-destination Reels carousel ads
- Meta restricted businesses from providing different call-to-actions in a carousel ad. It was disgusting for marketers, as different media within a carousel have different landing pages and market goals. This made the customer experience terrible and obviously resulted in unconverted clicks and leads.
- However, luck chose you, marketers. From October 2023, you will be able to provide different call-to-actions for different media in a carousel ad. Businesses will now be able to direct people to multiple product pages. The move can enable customers to easily discover products and have a smooth shopping experience.
Swipe left functionality
- Meta is good at learning from others. If you are into dating apps like Tinder and Bumble, you already know what they are used for. A left swipe on the profile means that you want to know more about the person, and vice versa.
- It works the same way with Meta. But there is a slight contrast. Swiping left alerts the meta ad algorithm that you are interested in the ad, and it will take you to find more sections of the ad. It is believed to increase the user experience, make shopping easier, and thereby boost sales.
Advantage+ Creative
Do not confuse it with the advantage + shopping campaign on Facebook. Advantage+ Creative is something new and different. The feature is aimed at saving a lot of time, which would otherwise be invested in campaign creation. They are available within Advantage+ Creative in Ads Manager.
Here are some features that make it easy to optimize reels:
- Creative optimizations: Creatives are the backbone of an ad. It determines the click-through rate and lead generation. Advantage+ Creative automatically shows you an optimized version of your creative to produce the best results. Optimization can happen in 3D motion and depth, aspect ratio variance, color sharpening, and improving resolution. Besides, there are also templates that convert non-9:16 media to 9:16 media.
- Music: All meta ad managers can source, select, and add music to their image Reels ads. It is proven that ad sets including music had 4.8% lower cost per action, 5.1% higher CTR, and 2.9% higher conversion than other types of video.
Brand suitability on Meta Reels update
- For those who do not know what brand suitability is. It is all about displaying advertising in the right environments to the right audience. This involves targeting based on a deeper understanding of the content and your audience. Brand safety reassures us that our campaigns will not be placed next to offensive content or content that does not align with our brand values.
- The new meta reels update introduces inventory filter control and a third-party brand suitability verification solution for Facebook and Instagram reels. Inventory filtering allows advertisers to control the type of content that shows up next to their ads. Additionally, Third-party verification offered through Zefr provides advertisers with transparent reporting on content adjacent to ads.
Bottomline
The meta reels update is a blessing in disguise for customers. The new update is designed to improve the overall customer experience by delivering quality, engaging ads. At the same time, it did not put advertisers lives at stake and made many things easier for them.
Reels plays exceed 200 billion per day across Facebook and Instagram. But that does not stop there. As people spend more time watching reels on Facebook and Instagram, it is imminent for Meta to further update their capabilities, improve the user experience, and improve performance to keep up with the competitive spirit.
Further, Updates are coming from all the social media platforms. There will be a major overhaul regarding the overall user experience and ad privacy policy. So far, we do not know what’s next in line from these social media giants. Whenever it is released, we will deliver the news right in front of you. We will catch up with you then.