Facebook updates Instant Articles to assist publishers generate revenue

Facebook is updating its advertising policy for Instant Articles, after publishers expressed their difficulty in the revenue generation from the content posted.

From today, the social media giant allows companies to include more advertisements per article. That means, instant articles will enable ads to be placed ever 350 words instead of 500 words as resolute earlier. Along with that, they will also be permitted to sell Facebook-only ad campaigns to marketers at premium prices.

Publishers will also have the liberty to emphasize and link to specific content hosted on their home websites from the related article segment at the bottom of Instant Article templates, including sponsored or branded post.

Complaints have been received that Facebook’s former policy made it hard to produce as much revenue as they could from just publishing articles on their home websites. Facebook claims that publishers earn 100 percent of revenue from ads they sell or a lesser percent if they prefer to tap into the Facebook Audience Network platform.

Additionally, for more ad-focused updates, Facebook will now permit publishers to manually hand the links to editorial content on their own websites which will open on mobile web rather than in Facebook apps on either iPhone or Android. iPhone users already have an access to Instant Articles since October, though this feature has not be introduced to Android users yet

Facebook commenced testing Instant Articles in May and continues to work to have room for more than 100 publishers. Facebook claims that around 300 media companies are now enrolled, waiting to add more each day.