Facebook confirmed Tuesday that users will begin seeing video advertisements play automatically in their News Feeds this week.
“Marketers will be able to use this new format to tell their stories to a large number of people on Facebook in a short amount of time — with high-quality sight, sound and motion,” the company said on its blog. “This approach will continue to improve the quality of ads that you see in News Feed.”
Integration of video ads into News Feed had been rumored for months. Much like video features on Instagram, Facebook’s video ads will play automatically without sound on people’s News Feeds. Users must click to un-mute the ad. Although there’s no way to prevent the ads from playing when they appear on screen, Facebook clarified that users can “simply scroll or swipe past it.” They do not consume additional data.
This new unit is currently still in test mode, so this week only a “small number” of Facebook users will see video ads for the film Divergent.
Here’s how it will look on the mobile Facebook app: