Eager to Test Threads, Marketers Are Undeterred By Meta’s Brand Safety Roll Back

A year and a half after its debut, Meta’s text-based social platform Threads is testing its first-ever ads with “a handful” of brands in the U.S. and Japan, according to Instagram head Adam Mosseri. Ads will appear as image posts sprinkled throughout the home feed and will only appear for “a small percentage of people,” he said.

Despite Meta’s recent decision to loosen content moderation policies and ditch third-party fact-checking—which may inspire new caution from advertisers—media buyers are eager to try out the new offering.

“Beyond increased reach, advertisers have been eager for Threads to be monetized since its explosive early adoption,” said Traci Asbury, social investment lead at Goodway Group, an independent New York-based media agency. “This is a chance for brands to establish benchmarks on an X alternative and shape the platform’s ad landscape.”

That’s not to say the investment won’t be without risks. Goodway Group, for its part, is advising clients to adopt new safety measures when transacting on Meta—such as implementing Integral Ad Science’s content filters, which can be used to automatically prevent ads from appearing alongside unsuitable content.

Nonetheless, advertisers are unlikely to abandon Meta, as the company’s platforms offer sophisticated targeting and measurement, in addition to unparalleled social reach.

There may also be a cost incentive at play. Adding Threads to Meta’s ad inventory could help stabilize or lower the CPMs on the company’s platforms, especially as more advertisers shift dollars away from controversy-riddled X and TikTok, (though sources note that reduced costs could be temporary and will ramp up with the maturation of Threads’ ad product).

Initial results from tests of Threads ads will, of course, also weigh into the equation for buyers.
Much will hinge on the “capacity to exhibit measurable ROI and user engagement,” according to Christena Garduno, CEO of performance marketing agency Media Culture. “If Meta can demonstrate that Threads’ user base is highly active and receptive to advertisements, and if Meta can provide robust targeting capabilities, media purchasers are likely to allocate budgets,” she said.

Both Goodway Group and Media Culture plan to evaluate potential Threads ads investments for clients once they gain access to the product.

It’s an opportune moment for Threads, which is enjoying a bump as users continue to evacuate embattled X, née Twitter. X’s U.S. monthly active users are expected to dip to 51.8 million this year, down 3.7% from last year, per Emarketer data. Meanwhile, Instagram-integrated Threads is on track to grow to 51.2 million U.S. MAU in 2025, putting it on par with X.

The highs and lows of integrating Thread buys into Ads Manager

During the initial test, the option to transact on Threads is integrated into Meta Ads Manager, according to the announcement, so media buyers can simply check a box to include Threads ads. The integration comes with both pros and cons: on one hand, this integration provides a painless means of trying out the offering. On the other, some anticipate that the option to opt out of Threads ads in the future will be difficult.

“Each time Meta releases a new targeting capability, product, or placement, they find a new way to obscure the buyer’s ability to find the control switch for that component within the campaign set-up module,” said Allie Lichtenberg, founder and CEO at AD LUCEM, an independent media buying consultancy. “Meta doesn’t want buyers to be able to fine-tune their own setups and autonomously decide how to deliver their own campaigns.”

“At some point, Meta will likely just add Threads as an inventory source into campaigns without media buyers ever knowing,” she predicts.

AD LUCEM is not part of Meta’s initial tests for the tool, but Lichtenberg said that the consultancy will be open to running tests for clients that express interest down the line.

Threads users, meanwhile, aren’t embracing the planned changes to the app’s experience.

In response to Mosseri’s post announcing the rollout of ads, one user wrote: “Instagram is now drowning in ads so you rarely see content from the people you follow. If you do that to this platform, I’m gone.” Another wrote: “How many social networks do we need to abandon and how many more subscriptions should we have to pay until y’all understand we don’t like ads????”