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Earlier this year, Facebook announced it would allow publishers to include more ads in their \u201cInstant Articles\u201d<\/a> \u2013 the mobile web format that makes news articles load more quickly on Facebook, but have been called out by publishers whose ad-dependent businesses suffered as a result. In March, Facebook began testing<\/a> ad units at the bottom of Instant Article pages \u2013 in the related articles section. Today, that test is opening to all publishers on the network, says Facebook.<\/p>\n The test involves placing a native ad unit in Instant Articles that shows readers relevant ads from Facebook\u2019s own advertisers. According to Facebook, the initial test saw an \u201cincremental increase\u201d in revenue for participating publishers, but it didn\u2019t get into specific numbers.<\/p>\n The company now says it\u2019s looking to get feedback from a wider set of publishers about this unit in order to iterate on the experience.<\/p>\n The company\u2019s Instant Articles \u2013 Facebook\u2019s counterpoint to other technologies like Google\u2019s AMP or Apple\u2019s News format \u2013 are designed to make it easier to read publishers\u2019 content while on the mobile web. All these technologies, at their core, are about strippping down articles to just what a reader is interested in \u2013 the text and accompanying media, like photos \u2013 without all the cruft publishers have piled on over the years, like ad units, autoplaying videos, tracking scripts, and more.<\/p>\n However, publishers haven\u2019t liked this shift to a cleaned-up mobile web, because all that extra \u201cstuff\u201d layered on their websites is what helps them pay their bills. They need advertisers, paying subscribers, event attendees, and the like, in order to grow their businesses.<\/p>\n That\u2019s led Facebook to have to make several concessions to keep their Instant Articles snappy to load, while also catering to publishers\u2019 need to actually make money.\u00a0The company has steadily been tweaking the rules for Instant Articles in recent months \u2013 allowing them to show\u00a0more ads;<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0rolling out new features<\/a>, like call-to-action units in the articles that can promote email sign-ups or request Page Likes; or letting publishers\u00a0push free trials\u00a0and app downloads,\u00a0<\/a>among other things.<\/p>\n It also last month rolled out an SDK extension<\/a> that would allow publishers to create articles for Google AMP and Apple News at the same time as they create Facebook Instant Articles.<\/p>\n But a number of high-profile publishers had enough, and have abandoned Facebook\u2019s format.\u00a0In April,<\/a>\u00a0Forbes, Hearst, The New York Times and others, including The Guardian<\/a>, backed out of Instant Articles. Meanwhile, other major media organizations like Bloomberg, The WSJ, ESPN, CBS News, NPR, Financial Times, and VICE News have been holdouts<\/a>, running little to no content in Facebook\u2019s format, it\u2019s been reported.<\/p>\n Despite these setbacks, Facebook says today that adoption of Instant Articles is growing.<\/p>\n There are now over 10,000 publishers worldwide using the format \u2013 a figure that\u2019s up 25 percent over the last six months. A third of all clicks to articles on Facebook are now to Instant Articles, Facebook also notes. And, in aggregate, Instant Articles deliver 20 percent to 50 percent more traffic, as compared with the mobile web.<\/p>\n In addition, Facebook says its investments in things like those\u00a0call-to-action units<\/a>, new types of ads<\/a> and changes to where ads can be placed<\/a> have begun to pay off. Instant Articles now pays out more than $1 million per day to publishers via Facebook Audience Network. And, in the last 6 months, RPM (revenue per 1,000 page views), that publishers see from Facebook Audience Network in Instant Articles has increased by over 50 percent, the company says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"![\"\"](\"https:\/\/tctechcrunch2011.files.wordpress.com\/2016\/02\/instant-articles-e28094-poster-frame.jpg?w=680\")
Earlier this year, Facebook announced it would allow publishers to include more ads in their “Instant Articles” – the mobile web format that makes news articles load more quickly on Facebook, but have been called out by publishers whose ad-dependent businesses suffered as a result. In March, Facebook began testing ad units at the bottom of Instant Article pages – in… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n\n<\/img><\/a>
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