Meta has announced a suite of new advertising tools designed to give brands greater visibility across Facebook and Instagram, including a product that lets advertisers reserve exclusive, high-reach advertising windows and another that puts one brand’s ad first in Facebook feeds each day.
The updates include Ads Super Burst, which allows brands to book concentrated advertising windows of three to 24 hours, and First Impression Ads, an early-stage US test that gives one advertiser per day the opportunity to secure the first ad placement people see when opening Facebook Feed.
Meta is also expanding its Reels Trending Ads offering, allowing advertisers to place ads alongside culturally relevant short-form video content, while testing a new measurement tool designed to track cumulative viewing time across multiple video exposures.
It comes as Reels now accounts for more than half of all time spent on Instagram, according to Meta.
The push comes as Reels now accounts for more than half of all time spent on Instagram, according to Meta. In a 2023 interview with B&T, Meta’s head of connection planning, Helen Black, argued that Reels has an advantage over rival TikTok because of its ability to help brands build closer relationships with customers, describing the format as “so much more social”. Black said Reels benefits from being part of the broader Instagram and Meta ecosystem, where connections between friends and family can translate into deeper engagement and stronger action for businesses.
The announcements were made at the Meta Brand Building Summit, as the company looks to give advertisers more ways to capture attention around major sporting events, cultural moments and product launches.
Ads Super Burst is moving towards general availability this month, with the rollout taking place in phases. The product allows advertisers to reserve inventory through Meta’s Reach Planner, with estimated reach and pricing and guaranteed delivery tied to those estimates. Category exclusivity is also available, preventing competing advertisers in the same category from booking the same window.
According to Meta, advertisers testing Ads Super Burst recorded a median 2.9 percentage-point lift in ad recall and a 0.6 percentage-point lift in intent. Each campaign flight reached a median of 34 million people.
First Impression Ads, meanwhile, is in early testing in the US. The format gives a single brand the first ad position when someone opens Facebook Feed, with only one advertiser able to secure the placement each day.
Meta said advertisers had been asking for access to the first ad position in Feed for years, adding that the current test was intended to gauge demand for the premium placement.
For Australian advertisers, the expanded Reels Trending Ads offering provides more opportunities to appear immediately after popular and culturally relevant Reels across Facebook and Instagram.
The product now includes 15 always-on content categories, with new options covering Home & Garden and Spanish-language content, alongside seasonal line-ups built around events such as the holidays and the start of football and basketball seasons.
Meta said campaigns incorporating Reels Trending Ads recorded increases of more than five percentage points in action intent compared with control groups that had not been exposed to the campaign. The format also delivered an incremental five percentage-point lift in unaided brand awareness, according to the company.
Further targeting capabilities, including custom audience exclusions, are expected later this year.
The company is also testing Aggregated View Time, a new measurement tool intended to give advertisers a broader picture of how people engage with short-form video advertising over time.
