Having opened the door to autoplay video ads, Facebook may now lift its ban on animated GIF ads.
The company is allowing some brands to post animated GIFs as ads and page posts. Brands involved in the test include fast food chain Wendy’s and Coca-Cola’s Brazilian brand Kuat (which makes guarana berry soft drinks).
GIFs can only be used in Page Posts and boosted Newsfeed Ads.
Rollout is gradual, and dependent on user feedback.
Wendy’s Brandon Rhoten says the company is using GIFs as a supplement to longer-form video, but is being careful not to annoy people (“which this sort of thing has the potential to do”).
Why should you care?
While often popular, animated GIFs aren’t for everyone. If they are right for your audience, they’re easier and less expensive to produce than video ads, and should increase engagement rates (and your Facebook Relevance Score).
However, you may have a wait before they become available. A Facebook spokesperson says the company will “evaluate whether it drives a great experience for people before rolling it out to more Pages.”
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Jeremy is a Partner and Senior Consultant at SureFire. Jeremy has been working in search since 1996, when he joined the Australian search engine, LookSmart. After relocating to San Francisco, he was instrumental in the development of the company’s paid search ad platform. At analytics company Coremetrics (now owned by IBM) he established an in-house search agency managing campaigns for Coremetrics clients such as Macy’s, Bass Pro and Lands End. At Acxiom he managed members of the pioneering SEO firm Marketleap and worked with clients such as Capital One, American General Finance and Kaiser Health. Joining SureFire in 2009, he is the head of Paid Search Advertising and oversees the delivery of AdWords and other PPC campaigns. He also helps clients make sense of their website data.
