Meta’s rolling out a new way to advertise within Reels, its fastest growing content format, with Reels overlay ads now being made available to selected advertisers.

As you can see in these examples, Reels overlay ads will appear on screen with a large CTA prompt, and can be either single image or carousel promotions.

Meta first previewed the format at NewFronts back in May.

As per Meta:

“Facebook overlay and post-loop ads on Reels can be banners on Reels videos, or video ads in between Reels videos.”

So you can either have the ad expand on the second play through of the Reel, or have them shown between clips, as direct promotions.

It could be a good way to tap into the popularity of Reels, and get your brand in front of this captive audience, with engaging promotions that grab attention in stream.

And with Reels now driving a cumulative 200 billion views per day across Facebook and IG, it is worth considering where attention is shifting on Facebook, and how you might be able to better frame your offers to align with such.

Indeed, virtually all the usage growth on Facebook of late has come via Reels engagement, with Meta’s algorithmically recommended stream of Reels clips helping to keep more users in app for longer, and drive more engagement.

In this sense, Facebook is becoming more of an entertainment platform than a social network, grabbing attention through its ever-expanding range of video uploads, as opposed to user comments and social engagement.

Which, again, could re-frame your Facebook marketing approach.

The new Reels overlay ads are being rolled out to more advertisers over time, so you may not have them yet, but they are coming.

You can publish ads on Reels at the Ad set level in Meta Ads Manager, by selecting Reels placements (or Advantage+). More info here.