As of Tuesday, Facebook’s new autoplay video ads will be available to Canadian brands.
Canada is one of seven global markets to get access to the product after it launched it in the U.S. in March. The new ad unit, called a “Premium Video Ad”, is 15-seconds and will start playing automatically as users scroll past it.
While the videos aplay automatically, they play without sound until a consumer stops scrolling and pauses on the ad. If the consumer taps or clicks on the ad, it will expand to full screen.
Prior to the launch of the ad unit, marketers were able to post videos to Facebook via a promoted post, which is still available in addition to the new video format.
Dove and several other Unilever brands were among the first group of advertisers to use the product in the U.S. In Canada, the product is similarly being tested with a select group of advertisers. According to a Facebook Canada representative, the ad unit is only available to “managed clients” – i.e. Facebook’s biggest advertisers in Canada.
The representative said there is no current plan for a wide release of the ad unit.
On Tuesday, Facebook also rolled out enhancements to its video metrics for both the new premium video ads and to paid and organic videos uploaded as posts by brands.
While marketers could previously see only how many consumers started watching their video, they will now have access to new metrics such as unique video videos, audience retention and average duration of a video view.
