Meta Platforms announced on Friday that it will commence trial advertising on its social media platform Threads with a select number of brands in the U. S. and Japan, as the app surpasses 300 million monthly active users. Starting this Friday, image ads will be shown in the Threads home feed, positioned between content posts for a limited number of users, according to a blog post by Meta.
The social media behemoth indicated that it will closely observe the test before expanding it widely, noting that companies will have the opportunity to incorporate their current Meta ad campaigns into Threads. Additionally, Meta will initiate testing of an inventory filter for ads in Threads, which, powered by AI, permits advertisers to adjust the sensitivity level of the surrounding organic content where their ads will be displayed.
“The introduction of Threads ads just weeks following Meta’s content moderation overhaul will catch the attention of advertisers. However, the instability at TikTok is prompting brands to look for alternatives, and Meta is seizing the chance to incorporate Threads into the mix,” commented Jasmine Enberg, a principal analyst at Emarketer.
Earlier this month, Meta discontinued its U. S. fact-checking initiative for Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, all of which are among the largest social media platforms globally, boasting over 3 billion users combined. Launched in July 2023, Threads aims to compete with X, formerly known as Twitter, seeking to attract users from the leading micro-blogging service amid its tumultuous takeover by billionaire Elon Musk.
CFO Susan Li stated in a post-earnings call in October that Meta does not foresee Threads becoming “a meaningful driver of 2025 revenue. ” CEO Mark Zuckerberg mentioned earlier on Friday that the company intends to invest as much as $65 billion this year to enhance its AI infrastructure, aiming to strengthen its competitive stance against rivals OpenAI and Google in the quest for technological supremacy.
