INSPIRATION
How 8 Emerging Creators and Publishers Utilize In-Stream Ads to Grow Their Audience and Earnings
In-stream ads make it easy to get paid for the video content you produce.
We spoke with eight emerging content producers on how in-stream ads have expanded their audience along with their bottom lines.
Opportunity:
In-stream ads are a way for you to earn money from your Facebook videos. Ads are placed at natural breaks in your content — whenever an in-stream ad plays, you earn a share of the resulting revenue. Currently, Facebook offers the following four in-stream ad formats:
Pre-roll ads play before a video starts. These are shown to people who actively seek out the content. The more viewers that seek out your content, the more payouts you receive
Image ads are static image ads that display under the content. Image ads help you earn money from videos that don't have a good place for mid-roll ads
Post-roll ads appear at the end of your videos. They can be shown to viewers who do not receive a pre-roll ad or an image ad
The earliest an in-stream ads placement can appear within your video content is 30 seconds when inserting image ads and 45 seconds when inserting video ads. Consumer research indicates this is the optimal time to show an ad because users are engaged with the content at this point and more likely to stick around after the ad to view the content to completion.
In-stream ads work best when you post longer, authentic content that brings people back and fosters a loyal community. Below, we examine how eight emerging creators and local news organizations utilize in-stream ads to boost their engagement, community, and revenue.
Strategy:
Program Long-Form Content
To qualify for in-stream ads, you first must:
Pass and remain compliant with our Partner Monetization Policies
Publish from a Page (not a profile) with at least 10,000 followers
Generate at least 600,000 total eligible minutes viewed in the last 60 days
Maintain five active videos on your Page
Be at least 18 years old
Live in an in-stream ads eligible country
If you’re not sure of your Page’s eligibility, you can check here. Once eligible, onboarding to in-stream ads is quick and easy. You can decide whether to monetize all of your eligible videos (including videos posted before onboarding) or select specific pieces of content that best fit your Page’s tone and style. At onboarding, you have the option to automatically monetize all eligible videos uploaded in the last 30 days.
Cook & Record is the Facebook Page of Laurène Lefèvre, a business woman who always had a passion for pastry. As a self-taught chef, she began broadcasting live recipes and baking on Facebook while training to pass her pastry exam, and soon took off on platform. From July 2020 — June 2021, Cook & Record doubled its audience from nearly 270K followers to more than 560K.
One of my keys is interacting with my followers, to show them I’m a real person behind my account, sharing my passion with other people. I’ll tell them ‘Because of you, I can earn this money from Facebook — it’s the best way to get paid for my work.’ I respond to comments and DM’s whenever I can — it’s important to remember Facebook is social media, we’re here to socialize.
— Laurène Lefèvre, founder of Cook & Record
Laurène credits her focus on 3+ minute videos as the source of her rapid follower growth. “I tried to make more in-stream-ads oriented videos,” she said. “Facebook says creators should post videos at least three minutes in length, so that’s what I did, I focused on videos at least this long.”
To further entice fans, Laurène emphasizes the textures, colors, and centers of each pastry, to help viewers glean the best idea of what each will taste like. “I really focus on the first 3-5 seconds of my videos, because I know people have so much to view on Facebook, so I have to catch their attention really quickly,” she added. “My strategy is to show them the end product in the beginning, and if it looks yummy enough, I hope my fans will stay to watch the full process of making the pastry.”
Lovely Family TV is a Thai entertainment creator that adopted similar engagement best practices to rapidly grow in-stream revenue within a few months. Along with a regular posting cadence of videos, photos, and fan questions, Lovely Family TV dove into Facebook’s content monetization policies to better understand the principles that lead to strong video distribution. By posting one long-form video daily coupled with these other best practices, the Page’s in-stream ad revenue grew 11x comparing June 2021 to June 2020.
“What makes our Page successful is the continuity and consistency in the production of our work — we wouldn’t hit over 20 million views on some videos without all of our content working together,” Lovely Family TV said. “Even posting more photos — it helps increase audience engagement, which in turn further helps our video distribution and monetizable views. In-stream ads contribute to a huge part of our success story on Facebook.”
주둥이방송 is video creator from Korea who posts videos depicting fun, humorous life stories. He initially started his Facebook Page to promote his other social media channels, but his Facebook video views increased so drastically that he started focusing specifically on the platform. This meant a revamped posting cadence, with an emphasis on long-form, 3+ minute content. Not only did this allow for in-stream ads video revenue, but also helped 주둥이방송 more than double his followers from May 9, 2020 through May 10, 2021. He has also increased his in-stream ads revenue by 8x+ comparing this window vs. the previous year.
Facebook videos seem to be exposed to a large audience for a relatively long time compared to other platforms. I’ve had instances where videos that I uploaded a month ago generated high revenue even in the following month. Being able to expect long-term revenue through one piece of content seems to be an advantage of Facebook in-stream ads.
— 주둥이방송
“Compared to other monetization methods, in-stream ads seem to be more accessible,” he said. “With the Watch algorithm, the higher the quality of content, the more viewers it reaches, and the ads are automatically exposed along with video playback without any click-through, so creators can focus more on content creation.”
Study the Data
Publishers can find more actionable tips on how to improve their content performance within Creator Studio insights, by studying topics like earnings by video and audience trends. Longer videos that drive longer views (at least 1+ minute) gain advantages on Facebook including better distribution and monetization. The following key Creator Studio metrics can help you better track performance:
Distribution status — understand how well your content is distributed on Facebook based on 1+ minute views, average view time and reactions, and comments & shares. You can also compare videos against each other to learn from those performing well and poorly
In Creator Studio, you can quickly filter your videos by their monetization status to see which are monetizing and which are eligible but not. With Estimated Earnings, you can see if the changes you make result in increased revenue generation
Check out the "How Long People Are Watching" funnel in the Loyalty tab to see how well you are converting 3-second views into monetizable views
ForeignGerms is a Filipino Page specializing in lighthearted prank videos and content that shows good Samaritans helping the community. Creator Studio insight tools have been “most important” to ForeignGerms’ continued growth, especially understanding metrics that help uncover video distribution. By tinkering with its content strategy to increase the engagement time metrics unique to each video, ForeignGerms also increased both interactions and followers — growing from less than 200K followers in October 2020 to more than 1.4 million by June 2021.
“In-stream ads have definitely brought more love to the Philippines!,” they said. “Our goal was to simply hit one million followers, so it’s incredible to see how quickly we’ve both reached and passed that figure! Focusing on the performance data was so crucial not just to expand our revenue but to give my team and I confidence in the content we’re creating — meaningful, purposeful content that brings people together.”
Matchroom Pool is the pool arm of sporting event promotions company Matchroom Sport, founded by English businessman Barry Hearn. Their largest annual event, the Mosconi Cup, is often referred to as “The Ryder Cup of Pool,” pitting a team of European players against a team from the U.S.
In 2020, when many events were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Matchroom Pool took the opportunity to delve into the history books, surfacing archive footage from the Mosconi Cup in years’ past. They programmed consistent videos that tapped into fan rivalries and allowed followers to relive glory moments on Facebook Watch. Since much of this archive content was 3+ minutes in length, Matchroom Pool could monetize it through in-stream ads — driving a 8x+ increase in in-stream revenue comparing November 2020 through April 2021 against the previous six-month period.
“We have been delighted with the performance of our Matchroom Pool Facebook Page and in particular the in-stream ads revenue generated since making this a key target in the early stages of the COVID-19 lockdown,” Matchroom Pool shared. “Without any live action, we used Facebook Analytics and Creator Studio to identify best-performing content for our audience and to deliver a regular flow of both new and archive video content which has proved to be a huge success. In turn, our Page following and reach has enjoyed a huge period of growth while simultaneously maintaining the high levels of engagement we have always generated on our Page.”
Provide a Service to Your Community
ZOOM Rayong, managed by Jaran Janmanee, is a Page that started out of goodwill to help the greater Rayong area with Thailand’s notoriously hectic traffic. At first, Janmanee reported accidents and shared where help was needed in the community via Facebook Live using his phone. The Page grew and grew, to more than 725K followers — now the minister of Rayong Province contacts Janmanee for his opinions on which roads should be fixed.
“I started with Facebook because it’s easy and I believe that Thai people use it more than any other social media platform,” Janmanee said. “Using Facebook together with my passion makes our community a better place. Now in our community, accidents have decreased tremendously and our followers love what we are doing!”
I feel that I’ve earned a lot from Facebook and I really appreciate in-stream ads, it’s a great tool. We use this revenue to get better equipment for our team to go Live on Facebook more efficiently and in better quality. I also use part of the revenue to help the community through buying medical supplies and essential goods for local volunteers and businesses.
— Jaran Janmanee, founder of ZOOM Rayong
CosenzApp is an independent, two-man news publisher that focuses on stories pertaining to Cosenza (in Calabria, Italy). The duo created CosenzApp to make a hub for all news and events around the city, with information aggregated from various pages across the internet.
While the publisher launched in 2009, it wasn’t until 2018 that CosenzApp started creating its own original content, focusing on VOD formats. By 2020, original content made up 100% of CosenzApp’s Facebook output. As such, the pair focused on maximizing the value they derive from their Facebook content, specifically through in-stream ads revenue.
“We were born out of the Facebook ecosystem about 10 years ago, and it's our main source of traffic. Without Facebook we would never have existed, we wouldn't be able to provide this service to our region,” said CosenzApp. “Since focusing on in-stream revenue this past year, we've seen great growth — a 55% increase in revenue earned via in-stream ads comparing June through October 2020 vs. the previous five months.”
Boost Revenue
In-stream ads address publisher needs for low-lift ways to earn money on video content without losing creative control. The tool is tailored to provide a seamless opportunity for ads to be displayed throughout content without compromising the viewer experience.
Giorgio Barone runs a Brazilian Page that highlights fun, easy science experiments often filmed in slow motion. In-stream ads have allowed Barone to become self-sufficient as a Facebook creator — the earnings from his Page now allow him to dedicate his professional time towards honing his Facebook presence.
“In the beginning, in-stream ads revenue was just extra income for me, which even then was very nice,” said Barone. “As time went by, the revenue from my Facebook Page started to surpass other platforms, and that’s when I realized my focus was in the wrong place! In March 2021, I stopped treating in-stream ads as extra income and dedicated myself to recording videos exclusively for Facebook in vertical format. Since then my Page has gone from around 30 million monthly video views to nearly 150 million! Monetizing my Facebook videos changed my business and my life.”
Matchroom Pool’s huge jump in in-stream revenue coincided with their emphasis on long-form video uploads as well. In August and September 2020, the Page uploaded just 26 videos, but in November and December, that total increased to 127 — 40 of which were monetizable. This led to a corresponding jump in monthly payouts — in-stream revenue grew more than 7x comparing December vs. October 2020.
You can manually add cue points in videos to signify where you’d like to place ads, or let Facebook’s automatic placements feature find the best natural cue point for an in-stream ad while trying to maximize earnings. Either way, you determine where and how you want ads displayed in your content.
Laurène of Cook & Record is a big fan of the automatic placements option, saying she’s “happy to let Facebook determine the best placements in my videos. Turning the option on and letting them optimize it, it’s so easy.” With a lifetime in-stream ads payout above $19K, the strategy seems to be working.
“I’ve seen great results monetizing my videos — I actually wasn’t even aware it was possible to monetize on Facebook until January 2020 when one of my videos went viral. Thanks to this video, I earned a lot of followers and importantly, it unlocked monetization options like in-stream ads.”
“In-stream ads have been a really good experience. People can get tired of advertising, but when you explain to them how it benefits us as content creators, fans like it. They understand how it works and are more accepting of the ads. Some even say to me ‘I know you earn money from some videos, can you remind me which ones to watch so that I can help you earn money?’ Which is so lovely — that they understand the ads allow me to earn money from the content I create.”
