Facebook Adding Video Option For Desktop App Install Ads

Facebook announced today that it’s giving advertisers the option to include video in desktop app install ads.

Previously, video was only available in mobile app install ads. Now Facebook is closing the loop for gaming, an activity that the company says has 445 million participants monthly across mobile and desktop. Facebook didn’t provide the mobile-desktop split for users or for the 130,000 new games it said were launched on Facebook last year, but now companies will be able to target desktop gamers with video.

The video ad unit has similar functionality to mobile app ads, including the all-important eligibility to play automatically in users’ News Feeds. For ads in the right-rail, there is a persistent call-to-action over the video pop-up and all video ads have an end card with options to replay the video or install the game.

The new feature has been made available — via the Power Editor and Ads Create tools — to a limited number of partners; Facebook said it will be made more widely available soon. Developers can sign up here to get on a waiting list. For more information about the new ad option, see Facebook’s blog post.

Facebook created a video to demonstrate how the unit appears in the News Feed: