According to an unnamed source who spoke with Ad Age, Facebook will be experimenting with 15 second video ads in users’ news feeds this summer. Ad Age reports that videos could expand beyond the news feed column to “cover the right- and left-hand rails of users’ screens” on the web version of Facebook. This will draw more attention to the video ad but may annoy users. Video ads will also be incorporated into the mobile Facebook apps, though there’s no information about how the company will tailor ads for mobile.
Facebook is currently taking bids for four daily summer slots for advertisers to display their ads. Ads will be targeted toward specific demographics including women over 30, women under 30, men over 30, and under 30. This large demographic is vague enough to cover all of Facebook’s 1 billion active users. The video ads will be capped at 15 seconds and can only be displayed 3 times per day per user. The asking price for one slot is rumored to be about $1 million, meaning Facebook could potentially generate over $4 million a day from just video advertising.
Many challenges lay ahead for Facebook as it tries to figure out how to make ads as effective and unobtrusive as possible. The company faces user backlash if the ads take away from the Facebook experience.
Facebook has declined to comment about the rumored video ads.
Source: Ad Age
