Facebook starts testing new auto-play video ads

Facebook has reportedly announced that it will start testing auto-play ads, which will feature in a user’s News Feed.

The social networking giant said that the auto-play video ads won’t play audio at first and only when the user taps or clicks on it, the sound would play.

According to Huffington Post, mobile users will have an option to set the auto-play ads on default play through ‘Wi-Fi only’, thereby saving them excessive data plan charge.

However, the site’s more than 1 billion members would not be able to opt out of having the ads automatically played as they scroll through their NewsFeed.

The report said that only one video, a trailer for the new movie ‘Divergent’, will appear in the initial limited test available to only a small number of people.

Meanwhile, head of global marketing at Kenshoo, which is part of Facebook's Strategic Preferred Marketing Developer program, Aaron Goldman told Mashable that the average click-through rates on video ads are between 0.8 percent and 2 percent and a higher click-through rate on Facebook ads is expected.