Unlock the Power of Reels Ads: Boosting Brand Awareness and Engagement
Meta's Reels offers vast potential for developers seeking to integrate engaging, short-form video content into their own advertisers' marketing strategies. We are seeing 3.24 billion daily active users on Meta technologies 1, and notably 50% of time spent on Instagram is on Reels 2 which presents a unique opportunity for brand building and advertising. The impact of reels is evident with 61% of people surveyed saying that Reels ads have led them to further consider a brand, product, or service they were already aware of. People are actively engaging with reels with 3.5 billion reels shared every day across Facebook and Instagram 3 providing a vast reach for advertisers.
Why Reels?
Developers can harness the power of Reels to effectively target younger audiences at scale, particularly GenZ (ages 18-29) who actively engage with Meta technologies. 87% of GenZ (ages 16-24) surveyed say they’ve followed a business and 80% have purchased a product after watching Reels 4. By seamlessly integrating Reels into their marketing strategies, developers can tap into a vast and engaged user base, increase audience engagement, and drive incremental conversions for their business. With its rapidly growing user base and creative canvas, Reels offers a compelling platform for developers seeking to build a stronger brand, drive sales, and connect with their target audiences.
Key benefits of Reels Ads
- Vast User Base: Tap into 3.24B daily active users on Meta technologies and 50% of time spent on Instagram is on Reels.
- Increased Engagement: 61% of people surveyed say that Reels ads have led them to further consider a brand, product, or service they were already aware of 5, and 3.5B reels shared every day across Facebook and Instagram 3.
- Monetization Opportunities: Reels ads plug into the powerhouse performance marketing ecosystem of Meta—built on world-class AI—to amplify outcomes for businesses.
- Higher Conversion Rates: Campaigns using Reels ads resulted in a 14% higher average brand lift and 24% higher median brand lift than business-as-usual (BAU) campaigns 7.
Reels Ads offer a compelling solution for businesses seeking to enhance their online presence and drive engagement. By leveraging Meta's vast user base and Reels' engaging format, advertisers can unlock new opportunities for brand growth and customer connection.
Creative essentials
When you build Reels ads in the right way – vertical video (9:16) with audio, in the safe zone – they’re even more powerful. To maximize their impact, it’s essential to focus on these three creative elements that are proven to drive better performance on Reel Ads :
- Build for vertical: Reels is a full screen environment - take advantage of this expansive surface to tell your story.
- Build with audio: Over 75% of Reels views on Instagram are sound on. Include audio to connect with your audience - whether that’s voiceover, music, ASMR or sound effects to make your ad more engaging.
- Build in the safe zone: Put your key messages within the Reels safe zone to ensure they’re landing clearly - this is where you can invite your audience in with a ‘hook’ or land your CTA at the end of your ad.
Campaigns that incorporate Reel ads with the Reels creative essentials in mind experience a significant increase in delivery to the Reels placement, with a notable 2X higher delivery to the Reels placement 6.
Get started on Marketing API
If you are a developer, the Marketing API is a powerful tool that allows developers to create custom marketing solutions for their clients or themselves. It provides access to Meta's advertising platform, enabling users to manage, optimize and report on their campaigns programmatically.
Integration
To integrate Reels Ads Campaigns into your application, you'll need to meet the following technical requirements: a verified Meta business app, an active ad account, and an access token with the necessary permissions (ads_management, ads_read, and read_insights). Once these requirements are met, you can follow these simple API integration steps: create a campaign, define optimization, bid strategy, budget, targeting, provide creative and create ads.
You may pick a manual placement that includes Instagram and Facebook reels ads, or default to automatic placements and reels will be a possible location that the ad may be delivered to. The available positions for Reels Ads are reels and profile_reels for Instagram as the publishing platform and facebook_reels for Facebook as the publishing platform. Not all objectives and optimization goals are compatible with Reels Ads. Make sure to choose a compatible objective and optimization goal when creating your ad campaign.
Sandbox
For testing purposes, Meta provides a Sandbox testing environment, allowing developers to test Reels Ads Campaigns without incurring costs. Detailed documentation on the Marketing API can be found here.
To get started, please review:
- Implementation guide in our Developer Documentation
- A session about the value of Reels Ads + How to get started on Marketing API in our Developers Youtube channel.
Don't miss out on the potential of Reels Ads!
1 and 2 Source: Meta Q1 2024 earnings call. April 2024
3 Source: Meta Q4 2023 earnings call. Feb. 2024
4 and 5 Source: Meta-commissioned research with GWI, 2023. Base: 6,758 heavy short-form video consumers (1,178 in Brazil, 1,110 in Germany, 1,178 in India, 557 in Japan, 515 in South Korea, 1,113 in UK, 1,107 in US) aged 16-64 who are at least weekly Reels users
6 Source: Global trend across from March 2024 to May 2024, based on a sample of 4M campaigns opted-in to Reels.
7 Source: Meta-analysis of 63 brand lift studies across all regions, with a test design BAU (no Reels) vs BAU (no Reels) + Reels (at least 20% of cell investment) and run between 02 Jan 2023 and 29 Feb 2024 for Ad recall
