Facebook adds new ways to monetize Instant Articles, including video and carousel ads

Facebook has released new options around Instant Articles that lets publishers monetize their content. For those that utilize a direct sold advertising business, they can now utilize larger and more flexible ad units with an aspect ratio of up to 2:3, meaning that existing ad campaigns could be recycled into this medium. Additionally, for those publishers leveraging the Facebook Audience Network, the social networking company rolled out its video and carousel ad formats for iOS and Android.

It’s been six months since Facebook opened up Instant Articles to all publishers, with the company claiming that it’ll provide “a better reading experience for people and a significant boost for publishers looking to reach their audiences on Facebook.” Although the company hasn’t released any usage numbers, today’s release is aimed at incentivizing publishers and advertisers not to flock to other offerings, namely Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages project.

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There are several ways publishers can monetize their work: through direct-sold ads, Facebook’s Audience Network, or branded content. Today’s news addresses the first two options. For those leveraging direct-sold ad campaigns, now advertisers can reuse their content, which could not only help save money, but streamline the creative files so the same experience can be had across all properties. Harshit Agarwal, Facebook’s product manager for Instant Articles, said in a blog post: “We expect this will expand available ads inventory and improve overall yield for publishers, while maintaining a great reading experience for people.”

As for those utilizing Facebook’s Audience Network, they now have two new ad formats to choose from: video and carousel, both of which have been available on other Facebook properties for some time. “These high-value native ad formats provide a more engaging experience for people reading Instant Articles, driving performance for advertisers and revenue for publishers,” Agarwal explained.

The company said that the new formats are a result of what it promised last month when Facebook promised it would make it easier for publishers to make money from their work. “What we’ve heard from them over the last few years … is that they would really like a way to make money on Facebook directly,” Dan Rose, Facebook’s vice president of partnerships, told Poynter. “Not just from the actions that people take off of Facebook. That feedback has inspired us to think hard about how we can enable that type of monetization on Facebook directly.”