Meta Platforms Inc. today said it’s rolling out a full-screen video tab on Facebook and Instagram in recognition of the fact that its users spend more time watching videos than anything else on its platforms.

And with that, it’s also looking to help advertisers with the launch of a range of new ad formats specifically for video-based content. The announcements were made at the Advertising Week 2024 event in New York this week, where Meta revealed that the average user now spends more than 60% of their time on Facebook and Instagram watching videos, be they Reels, longer videos or livestreams.

That explains the company’s decision to roll out a new, full-screen video tab on both platforms, and so it follows that it’s also looking to help its advertising partners with new ad formats to take advantage of the new feature.

The company explained that it’s offering a “diversity of ad formats” via the new full-screen video experience, including standalone video ads and carousel ads, in-stream ads and overlay ads, giving advertisers plenty of options to reel in those all-important clicks.

Expanded generative AI video creation

In addition, Meta is helping advertisers simplify the way they create their new video ads, as well as more traditional ads, with various enhancements to its generative artificial intelligence-powered ad creative tools.

The company says its generative AI ad creative tools are already extremely effective, with ad campaigns designed exclusively with them achieving an average 11% higher click-through rate than those created using traditional methods. In addition, the company reckons they also achieve a 7.6% greater conversion rate compared to standard campaigns that don’t use its tools.

The new features include more tools for creating video-based ads with generative AI. Building on its existing video creation tool, Meta is offering a new Video Expansion tool for generating “unseen pixels in each video frame” so creatives can expand the aspect ratio of their videos to create a more immersive experience for their target audience. According to the company, the new feature was introduced due to strong demand from advertisers, following the success of a similar “image expansion” feature in its generative AI image-based ad creation tools.

Another new way to create videos is by animating existing images, the company said. The new Image Animation feature lets advertisers animate a single, static image to create video-based ads for Instagram Reels.

The main advantage is that it helps advertisers create more compelling ads with limited resources, the company said. In some cases, early adopters have had great success in repurposing previously successful, static ad images that had gone stale, by making them more dynamic and engaging.

The new generative AI ad creation tools are available in Meta’s Ads Manager Advantage+ package, which is a subscription-based service for advertisers. The features are rolling out in beta test mode, and will become generally available next year.

Enhanced creator partnership ads

Besides using AI to create high-impact ads, another proven way to succeed is to partner with some of the top influencers on platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. To aid in this, Meta is enhancing its partnership ads tool, so advertisers can easily integrate creator content with their ad collections on Reels and additional services.

The company says partnerships ads are extremely effective, citing a survey that found how 53% of Facebook and Instagram users are more likely to purchase a product or service if it has been promoted by a creator they follow.

With the new format, advertisers can upload a creator image or video as a kind of “hero” asset for their ad collections in the Ads Manager tool, and then run partnership ads to engage with audiences by leveraging the authenticity of influencer-created content, Meta said.

Moreover, Meta said, it’s testing the ability to add creator testimonials to partnership ads, providing yet another option for improving ad performance. It’s all about enhancing opportunities to foster trust in audiences, the company explained.

As a final update, Meta said it’s making things simple for advertisers by consolidating its partnership ads tools into a single page within the Ads Manager, now called the Partnership Ads Hub.

Featured image: SiliconANGLE/Microsoft Designer; Meta