Facebook is postponing the roll out of video ads on its News Feed until an undetermined time later this year it has emerged.
The social media giant had originally trialled rollover video advertising on some users' feeds in December, but has now decided to put the official roll out on hold.
Originally trialled during that time for the Lionsgate film, Divergent, Facebook has found it now needs to deal with a number of factors before convincing advertisers the platform is right for them.
First and foremost, the firm wants to ensure its video ads can offer advertisers high quality analytics - something users on the platform have become accustomed to with its current offerings.
However, advertisers are also reportedly concerned about the lack of targeting currently offered by the Facebook video ads. At present, there are only four options: men over 35, men under 35, women over 35 and women over 35.
Then of course, there is the price. To aim for all four targets, advertisers would be expected to shell out around $2.4 million at present - although to offset this, Facebook does guarantees that the ad will be in the first position on all targeted demographics News Feeds.
Mashable quotes three people close to Facebook as saying the new release date could be as early as March and as late as mid to late summer time. The sources also hinted at a price range for each advertisement of anything between a staggering $1mil and $2.5mil, per day. This price has now dropped to $600,000 a day if the sources are to be believed.
Although even the renewed price guides may seem excessive, when compared to other social media marketing opportunities on similar platforms it is not actually as high as it would seem. For instance, a YouTube page takeover is $400,000 and a Yahoo! page takeover $450,000 according to Digiday.
This is not the first time Facebook has toyed with video advertising, and then promptly turned an about-face. Even before the most recent trial in December 2013, it had introduced some video ad options to advertisers in January 2013. Similarly, in September 2013, it also tested video ads in the News Feed with the foodchain Subway.
News brought to you by ClickThrough – experts in SEO, PPC Management, Multilingual Search Marketing and Website Conversion Enhancement services.
Talk To Us About Accelerating your Digital Performance
Related Articles
More articles you might be interested in:


Podcast: Threads and The Changing Social Media Landscape
Join Olivia and Stef as they speak to social media specialist Ed about Threads, Twitter's evolution and the future of being social digitally.
Read more
Why brands need to create different ads for each social media platform
Why is it important to create different ad assets for different social media platforms? In her first blog post, Amy Cox shares why what works for...
Read more
How to Grow Your Business Using Pinterest Ads
Pinterest is a great source of visual inspiration, but did you know it's also a shoppable platform? From product pins to video and shopping ads, read...
Read more
Stop Interrupting, Start Inspiring: Why You Should be Driving Action Through Your Brand on Pinterest
Are you using Pinterest as part of your marketing strategy? Our Director of DPM, Macy Edwards, explains why the ‘home of inspiration’ is not a...
Read more
How Can Pinterest’s Visual Search Algorithm Supercharge Your Ads?
Pinterest is a powerful tool that allows users to browse a vast range of content, but what are the best ways for advertisers to utilise visual...
Read more
Opportunities For Social Media Marketing
How can we use the latest trends in Social Media to expand on our Social Media marketing strategies? Discover more.
Read more
Social Media News Roundup: Twitter Adds Ranked Conversations to Mobile
Sarah McCay Tams runs through the latest in social media marketing news, including conversation ranking on Twitter, Snapchat drops Story Explorer on...
Read more