Will brands embrace ads on Threads?
On Friday, Meta began testing ads on its microblogging platform Threads.
In a post, Instagram chief Adam Mosseri referred to the initial test as “small”, specifying that Meta would be working with “a handful of brands in the US and Japan”.
Advertisers will be able to extend their existing Meta ad campaigns to Threads without additional resourcing, the tech giant explained in a blog post. They will be able to simply tick a box in Meta’s Ads Manager to be placed on the platform.
During the testing phase, ads will be displayed in Threads’ home feed as images that appear between content. A “small percentage of people” will be delivered ads.
“We know there will be plenty of feedback about how we should approach ads and we are making sure they feel like Threads posts you’d find relevant and interesting,” Mosseri said, suggesting a wariness of user backlash against the introduction of advertising. Facebook and Instagram have both been criticised for their high ad load.
Mosseri added that Meta will monitor the test before scaling it more broadly.
Analysis: The brand-safety question
As of last month, Threads had over 300m monthly active and 100m daily active users, according to Mosseri. Meta says that three-quarters of monthly active users follow at least one business on the platform.
Ria Maru, paid social manager at Bountiful Cow, told The Media Leader there is “no doubt” user engagement will continue to grow on Threads.
“With X facing increasing controversy, Threads is well-positioned to step in as its replacement,” Maru suggested.
However, Meta’s decision to make sweeping changes to content moderation earlier this month has caused some users to leave the platform in favour of alternatives like Bluesky, causing uncertainty over the stability of Threads’ still-fledgling user base.
Many of Threads’ most loyal users joined the platform as they were seeking an alternative from X (née Twitter) after it was purchased by Elon Musk and transformed through a reduction in content moderation.
For Meta’s part, it has said it will be integrating its existing brand-safety and suitability standards and controls within Threads for advertisers. One such control that will be tested is the inventory filter, which aims to give advertisers control over the sensitivity level of the organic content their ads appear next to.
Meta will also provide users some level of control over what ads they see on Threads and how their user data is used for advertising. Users will, for instance, be able to skip, hide or report ads they don’t like.
The Media Leader has spoken to several media agency executives in the weeks since CEO Mark Zuckerberg dramatically announced changes to Meta’s content moderation policy; none has indicated that any clients have expressed a desire to reduce or halt spend on Meta platforms.
Although concerns around brand safety are being actively considered, one agency CEO said “there’s still so much in our control”, as Meta’s current brand-safety controls allow brands to reliably guarantee their ads will show up in a controlled environment.
Maru added: “Running ads on Threads is likely to be a big hit for a lot of brands, especially as it aligns with best practices of leveraging all inventories, but also with the level of brand safety and oversight involved.”
More attractive ad offering?
Brand-safety anxieties aside, for brands Threads may well appear more attractive as an ad proposition than Twitter ever did.
As Croud paid social director Yazmin King previously wrote in The Media Leader, Twitter historically failed to attract large budgets because it lacked effectiveness relative to competitors.
CPMs were high, return on investment was low and ad creative often had to be adapted from elsewhere on the media plan. But with integrations with Meta’s other platforms, which are already popular with advertisers, those friction points are unlikely to surface for Threads.
Tim Jones, head of digital delivery at The Specialist Works, said Threads could provide an interesting opportunity for “entrepreneurial brands seeking to replace that Twitter/X-style experience that once was a safe place to play”.
“Twitter during its prime struggled to attract a significant market share from the social media landscape,” he told The Media Leader, warning that the “simplicity” of microblogging platforms can be a “challenge for brands to capitalise upon”.
“However, Threads is Twitter supercharged by the Meta ecosystem,” Jones continued. “Whom, despite recent negative press, have doubled down on their data collection aims, providing brands with new and innovative routes to reaching their most desired customers.”