Facebook is updating its policies for Instant Articles where up to 40 percent more ads for publishers is available on the platform.
Starting Dec 9, publishers utilising Instant Articles were able to place an ad every 350 words instead of every 500 words. They will also soon be able to sell Facebook-only campaigns for the first time, which means publishers can offer Instant Articles ads to brands at premium prices.
Publishers should welcome the updates. Some have complained that Facebook’s original policies made it difficult to get as much revenue as they could from simply publishing articles on their proprietary websites. Publishers will earn 100 percent of revenue from ads they sell or a smaller percentage if they choose to tap into the Facebook Audience Network platform.
In addition to more ad-focused updates, Facebook will now let publishers manually control the links to editorial content on their own websites which will open on the mobile Web rather than in Facebook’s iPhone or Android apps. While all iPhone users have been able to access Instant Articles since October, the feature is still being rolled out exclusively to Android users.
The changes come as Facebook, which began testing Instant Articles in May, works to better accommodate the more than 100 publishers running stories on a daily basis.
The feature seems to be enjoying its peak position, as Facebook says around 300 media companies are now enrolled and waiting for onboarding with more being added each day.