Facebook is preparing to launch automatically playing video adverts in the UK.  It has trialed the feature in the US and the first ads are expected to play in the UK within weeks. Facebook is also unveiling the feature, called Premium Video Ads, in Brazil, Canada, Germany Australia, France and Japan.

Facebook said the introduction would be tentative and, while the first ad could appear in June, most would not run until later as it attempted to control quality. “We’ll roll out Premium Video Ads slowly and monitor how people interact with them…This limited introduction allows us to concentrate our efforts on a smaller number of advertisers with high-quality campaigns.”

Each video advert will be 15 seconds long and will start playing without sound as it appears on the screen. The ads will stop playing if users scroll past them. But, if people tap or click on the video it expands into a full-screen view and sound will start. On mobile devices, ads will only play when there is a wi-fi connection.

Facebook did not reveal the companies that would be advertising.

Facebook’s figures for the first quarter of 2014 showed it made $2.27 billion from advertising, an 82 per cent increase on the same quarter last year.

Categories: Ads, Advertising, Articles, Social Media