Meta’s move comes as advertisers are allocating bigger budgets to social media.

According to Gartner’s 2025 CMO Spend Survey, marketers are allocating an average of 30.6% of their total budgets to paid media, a 10% year-over-year increase. Social media ranked as the second-largest digital channel by ad spend.

“Instagram has a higher purchase intent as a platform compared to Facebook and YouTube,” said Greg Carlucci, senior director and analyst at Gartner. “Any ad format that attempts to test and learn will benefit from learning how to implement social commerce and ad format types that cater to customer preferences.”

Non-skippable ads have traditionally been priced at a premium because they guarantee advertisers full viewership, Carlucci said. Skippable formats could help Meta gather new engagement signals without overwhelming users, rather than necessarily drive more ad dollars right away.