Auto-Playing Video Ads Will Infiltrate Facebook News Feeds Starting This Thursday

Facebook via Mark Zuckerberg's pageThis Thursday, Facebook will launch auto-playing video ads in some of its users' News Feeds. The ads will appear both on desktop and mobile devices.

The Wall Street Journal first reported the news which Facebook has since confirmed.

Video ads are a large source of revenue, both online and off. Advertisers paid $66.3 billion for TV ad spots in 2013. One of Facebook's first video advertisers will be Lion Gate Entertainment for a new movie, Divergent.

Facebook has been testing video engagement in September. The company described how its new ad spots will work on its blog.

From Facebook:

• Rather than having to click or tap to play, videos will begin to play as they appear onscreen - without sound - similar to how they behave when shared by friends or verified Pages. If you don't want to watch the video, you can simply scroll or swipe past it.
• If the video is clicked or tapped and played in full screen, the sound for that video will play as well.
• At the end of the video a carousel of two additional videos will appear, making it easy to continue to discover content from the same marketers.
• On mobile devices, all videos that begin playing as they appear on the screen will have been downloaded in advance when the device was connected to WiFi - meaning this content will not consume data plans, even if you're not connected to WiFi at the time of playback.