July 10, 2018 Anna Hubbel
Augmented reality ads are going to appear in News Feed. According to Tech Crunch, Facebook is testing AR ads that allow shoppers to virtually try products. If the testing goes well, this new advertising capability will revolutionize the Facebook shopping experience.
Facebook’s vice president of product marketing for global marketing solutions, Ty Ahmad-Taylor announced the test of AR ads in News Feed at a New York City event on Tuesday.
Back in May, Facebook announced at its F8 conference its plans to use AR to market products in Messenger. With AR ads in News Feed, advertisers will be able to offer virtual experiences to shoppers as they scroll and browse. It will be like shopping at the mall, where customers can socialize with friends while also checking out a store or two and trying things on.
The AR ads will appear as regular News Feed ads, but they will have a “Tap to try it on” capability, says Tech Crunch. When the shopper taps this option, they can “try on” the product and decide if they like what they see. If so, they can make the purchase. If not, they may choose to move on to the next AR experience.
A few brands are trying News Feed AR ads, including Michael Kors, Sephora, and NYX Professional Makeup.
Other announcements made at the event include the following:
- A new Video Creation Kit-Advertisers will be able to use existing images in mobile video templates to easily create ads.
- More support for shopping in Instagram Stories-Shopping tags will be available to all brands that use this feature in time for the holidays.
- Instagram’s Collection Ad format-This feature will now be available to all advertisers.
