Facebook planning to introduce 15-second video ads in your News Feed

Imagine you’re scrolling through your Facebook feed and you’re accosted with a 15-second advertisement a la YouTube. This could soon be happening if reports are to be believed. Facebook is mulling over selling spots for TV-style commercials on its site.

The selling of ad-space is said to be coming by the end of the year, according to sources. Bloomberg has reported that the spots could sell for anywhere between a staggering $1 million to $2.5 million a day. Rumours about Facebook introducing video ads have been around for a while, but it looks like Facebook is pressing for the first spots to air by the end of summer.

Video ads coming soon

According to sources, Facebook could be looking at introducing no more than three spots in your feeds in a day. The commercials will initially be sold only by per day basis and it will be possible for advertisers to target them based on age and gender. This will be slightly different than the model Facebook currently offers – targeting based on location and areas of interest. It does look like Facebook may be trying to ape the Television standards of selling advertisements so executives are familiar with them.

Mark Zuckerberg, according to the sources, apparently pushed the launch of video advertisements back twice so the feature could be worked out in a way users will not find it intrusive. The Facebook CEO is looking at high-definition video and easy-to-use playback features.

The advertisements in themselves will be 15-seconds long – hardly a coincidence since Facebook acquisition Instagram has introduced video features that last exactly the same duration. Hopefully, this will seem like a familiar format to Facebook users and will ease off the annoyance of finding a video ad flat in the middle of their news feeds.