Facebook has finally started including ads in Stories, which some might say was only a matter of time.
After being relatively quiet on the success of Facebook Stories since launching the feature 14 months ago, the company has revealed Stories now receive a total of 150 million daily viewers.
With a sizeable audience of daily viewers, it appears that Facebook has decided the time is right to allow pages to run ads in Stories.
For comparison’s sake, it’s worth noting that it took Instagram only five months after launching Stories to reach 150 million daily viewers. This was also the time when Instagram began running ads in Stories.
Instagram Stories now reach at least 300 million daily users, since the number was last reported in November 2017.
Facebook began testing Story ads earlier this month in the US, Mexico, and Brazil. The ads are 5-to-15-second video clips, which users can simply skip by tapping through to the next story.
For now, the ads offer no benefit to brands other than exposure. There’s no click-through or call to action, though Facebook plans to add those features in the coming months.
Facebook also has plans to provide businesses with more detailed metrics on the performance of Stories, which can help determine whether running Stories ads are worth the investment.
Brands can run ads in Facebook Stories simply by extending their Instagram Stories ads to this new platform. Alternatively, brands can have their Facebook news feed ads reformatted into Stories ads, with color-matched borders and text at the bottom.
