Beginning in January 2025, Meta, the parent company of social media sites including Facebook and Instagram, plans to start running adverts on its social networking app, Threads. An important step in Meta’s plan to make money off of Threads, this change will allow a limited number of marketers to start publishing advertising.
The Information reported that Meta may introduce advertisements to Threads as early as next year. According to reports, Threads would permit a limited number of advertisers to create and publish advertisements in January as part of its strategy.
That is consistent with the July ad rollout report from my colleague Alex Heath. Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, has also stated that Meta “definitely” intends to introduce advertisements to Threads. At the time, Mosseri stated, “I understand why people are worried, but ultimately, we’re a business, and Threads needs to make enough money to pay for the people and servers that it takes to run the service and provide it to people for free.”
This is an important step in Meta’s plan to make money off of Threads since it will allow a small number of sponsors to start running advertising.
Meta’s most recent earnings report stated that advertising accounted for 97 percent of its total revenue, or $39.8 billion, over the preceding three months. The business does not anticipate Threads to become a “meaningful driver” of sales in 2025, according to Meta CFO Susan Li during an earnings call.
Sources close to the situation told Reuters that Meta intends to let a select group of advertisers start running advertising on Threads in January 2025.
Ads on Threads may show up as “sponsored” posts, which reverse engineer Alessandro Paluzzi recently noticed in development, though we don’t yet know how they will look.
A staff from Instagram’s advertising section, which is leading the effort, will oversee the initiative. However, Meta has stated unequivocally that early on in Threads’ development, monetization features will not be a top focus.
Only up-to-date details regarding app advertisements were provided by Meta spokesperson Matthew Tye in response to questions regarding The Information’s findings. “At the moment, Threads does not have any advertisements or monetization features because our top priority is to increase consumer value,” Tye stated. Regarding Meta’s future ambitions, he remained silent.
This development marks a new stage in the platform’s development and growth, as it was introduced in July 2023 as a rival to X (previously Twitter).
According to Susan Li, CFO at Meta, the company’s top priority for Threads is to concentrate on increasing consumer value, and despite the impending ad rollout, Threads is not anticipated to be a “meaningful driver” of revenue in 2025. This is an expectation towards the revenue.
“At this time, there are no advertisements or monetization features on Threads because our top priority is to build consumer value first and foremost,” she said.
Li added that Meta intends to gradually add more features to the app, which could enhance its potential as a platform that generates income in the future.
Given that X has had difficulty retaining its advertiser base since Elon Musk took control, Threads may have an advantage over it thanks to its advertising strategy.
Major corporations such as Mars and CVS Health were sued by X in August 2024 for allegedly planning to boycott the platform, which has resulted in a decline in ad income.
Concerns regarding brand safety have been voiced by advertisers, particularly in light of Musk’s changes to the platform’s content management guidelines.
It will be interesting to observe how the dynamics of the social media advertising ecosystem change as Meta prepares to launch advertisements on Threads.
The expansion of Threads has been enormous since its launch. The Head of Threads and Instagram, Adam Mosseri, claims that there are already 275 million active users on the platform each month.
This achievement highlights the platform’s growing popularity as it continues its efforts to compete with X (formerly Twitter).
During the Q1 earnings call in April 2024, Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, revealed that Threads had topped 150 million monthly active users.
He disclosed that the app, which had been released a year earlier, had amassed more than 175 million active users by July 2024. Since then, Threads has experienced significant growth, with 275 million active users—a phenomenal 57.14% rise since July.
If marketers want a safer option than X, they might go to Threads, but according to a Financial Times article today, some advertisers are preparing to return to X in order to gain favour with Elon Musk and President-elect Donald Trump. Jay Graber, the CEO of Bluesky, has stated that she will not “enshittify” that expanding platform with advertisements.
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
