Adverts on the world's largest social network will soon fill screens on mobile devices.
Last night, Facebook announced its latest advertising offering allows marketers to take full advantage of smartphone screen estate.
The product, Canvas, will appear in users' News Feeds as a normal advert, with the only difference being that it will have a 'tap to view' sign at the bottom. Once tapped, the advert will expand to the full size of the screen.
The Canvas advert is not a static picture, but rather advertisers can create immersive and customisable multimedia stories. Once the advert has expanded to full screen, marketers can use a combination of video, still images, text and call-to-action buttons in an attempt to keep the viewer from clicking the little 'x' button in the corner.
Facebook feels this solution will address concerns many advertisers have with the mobile space. "What's remained top of mind for advertisers is how challenging it is for them to tell compelling brand and product stories on mobile in ways that are enjoyable for people and effective for their business," said the company.
Facebook said previous advertisements within the platform directed users to outside Web sites but these were slow to load and not always optimised for mobile. "This created a disjointed and frustrating experience for people," said Facebook in a statement.
The adverts created on Canvas will load in less than a second, keeping users within the Facebook app. Tests found 53% of users will view more than half of a Canvas advert and spend an average time of 31 seconds in it.
Facebook designed the Canvas platform to be easy to use, requiring no code or software, so that even small brands and businesses will be able to take advantage of it.
Canvas is available to advertisers around the world starting today. It only works on mobile and is available for both iOS and Android.
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