Meta Platforms has unveiled new advertising options at its annual Brand Building Summit, touting in-stream opportunities for Reels and carousel ads for Threads, which now has 400 million monthly active users. To make it easier for brands to leverage that user base, Meta has enabled the creation of a Threads profile using an Instagram account. Additionally, existing Facebook or Instagram posts can now be used to create a Threads ad in Ads Manager. Meta also says that as of November, qualified advertisers will be able to use Ads Manager to tap into Reels trending content on a self-serve basis.

“In April, Meta started alpha-testing a new ad format called Reels trending ads that places ads beside the top 5 percent of popular creator-made Reels on Facebook and Instagram,” reports AdExchanger. The company is now expanding access to that inventory.

“Top-trending content is determined daily by weighing factors like viewership, engagement, virality, brand safety and content quality,” AdExchanger explains.

Meta calls the trending Reels “culturally relevant content,” and the fact that the August Instagram Reels engagement announcement by Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce got 30 million likes, 9.7 million reshares and 2.3 million reposts seems to support the assertion. “Brands hopped on the announcement like it was the last train leaving engagement station,” quips AdExchanger.

Meta claims in a Brand Building Summit wrap post that “early tests show Reels trending ads can boost unaided awareness by +20.”

At Meta’s New York Brand Building event, which also invited advertisers to attend virtually, the company unveiled new “use value rules for awareness and engagement objectives.” Guided by artificial intelligence, the rules are engineered to direct ads to the “audiences that matter most” to a brand. “Early results show that campaigns using value rules drive 2x more high-value conversions compared to business-as-usual campaigns,” Meta claims.

In addition to carousel ads, Threads is now offering expanded image formats, reports Social Media Today, providing examples of aspect ratios “including 4:5 rendering for single image and video ads.”

Meanwhile, Threads catalog ads “will work as an expansion of Meta’s Advantage+ catalog promotions, providing another means to expand campaigns,” per Social Media Today. Meta catalog ads look like other single image, carousel or collection ads but are dynamically displayed.

Related:
Meta Introduces Threads Video Ads, Reels Trending Positions and Other New Options for Advertisers, Deadline, 5/8/25
How AI Ad Automation Is Forcing Agencies to Redefine Their Role with Meta, AdAge, 9/10/25