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As the shortform video boom continues, agencies looking to attract or retain top-tier clients must now elevate their marketing strategy. Since its global launch, Meta’s shortform video format for Facebook and Instagram, Reels, has proved its chops in building brand awareness and performance — and it’s only been a year. Offering the freshness of a new format while slotting in seamlessly into Meta’s stable of ad placements, Reels is ideal for clients looking for the full complement of Meta activations.
Just add Reels
While adding a new format to your offerings may seem daunting at first, Reels are simpler to integrate into your social media plans than you may think. Though you can (of course) create bespoke content for Reels, you can easily opt into Reels through clever repurposing of existing campaign assets — saving both you and your clients time and resources while building up your familiarity with the format.
As a Meta product, Reels provides a simple and intuitive experience to those already familiar with Meta’s interface, with no new platforms to learn or accounts to create. With built-in tools like product tags and lead forms, you can use Reels to drive lead generation and even sales directly in the app, depending on campaign objectives. And with plenty of data from your previous Meta ad campaigns to hand, you can instantly see the effect that simply adding Reels has on your client campaigns.
Featured prominently across Instagram — with placements on the home feed, Explore tab, and Reels tab — Reels offers unparalleled discoverability within Meta’s ecosystem. When combined with snappy and shareable content, the format lends itself naturally to driving incremental reach for clients across a range of verticals.
In its short time, Reels has already seen encouraging results. In a recent Meta-commissioned Factworks survey, 98% of respondents said they had taken action after seeing Reels, while 75% said they had followed a business after watching Reels.1 Those results aren’t exclusive to the upper funnel, either. Adding Reels ads to existing Facebook and Instagram Feed and Stories campaigns drives stronger performances across favourability and purchase intent than campaigns that didn’t include Reels,2 with more than 60% of Factworks’ respondents having purchased a product or service after watching Reels — between 7–9% more than on other shortform video platforms.3
Using Reels to drive growth
Putting Reels to the test, Kotex Malaysia ran a two-cell brand lift study that compared business-as-usual video ad placements on Instagram Feed, Explore, and Stories to an identical campaign with one simple addition — Reels.
The campaign with Reels delivered measurably better results, scoring an 8.6-point higher ad recall across the board, with a 9.8-point higher standard ad recall among 25–34-year-olds as well as a 5.6-point higher intent to purchase within the same demographic.4
These results are increasingly being found globally; a recent study of marketers across multiple verticals found that enhancing existing Facebook and Instagram ad campaigns with a Reels ad placement improved brand lift. Of the brands surveyed, 79% reported that doing so drove better favourability, while 78% said they recorded improvements in purchase intent by adding Reels.5
Perhaps your clients are still testing the waters and exploring repurposing existing assets for Reels; maybe they’re convinced of Reels’ value and ready to optimise for 9:16 creative, or even create bespoke Reels-first ads. All of the above is possible — and can be measured with pinpoint accuracy — with Meta’s smart measurement solutions, as detailed in this guide for agencies.
Trend ahead by tapping into next-gen creators
Finally, Reels’ popularity with creators and authentic feel makes it the perfect format to collaborate on with influencers who are aligned with your brand’s desired image — leading to superpowered word-of-mouth buzz, when done successfully.
The fresh and relatable nature of creator-led Reels ads automatically convey a sense of authenticity; a survey showed that 63% of 18–34-year-olds trust what a creator says about a brand more than what the brand says about itself, while 86% of people said they try, purchase, or recommend a product when content is deemed “shareworthy.”6
The team behind Australian beer brand Carlton Dry discovered this for themselves when testing a creator-led Reels campaign to increase its brand relevance with a young, diverse audience. To connect with these communities, they collaborated with four Gen Z creators — dubbed the Carlton Dry Collective — each of whom created Reels ads with their own unique flair. Comparing the results from the Carlton Dry Collective campaign to a more traditional product-focused promotion with heavily branded assets, the creator-led campaign outperformed the traditional campaign across various metrics such as affinity, incremental reach, average watch time, and cost effectiveness.7
As marketers the world over continue to report similarly impressive results, Reels is demonstrating itself to be an easy and effective enhancement to existing Meta strategies, affording brands and agencies the opportunity to experiment with new formats, styles, and partnerships while leveraging the scale and solutions of a tried-and-true platform.
Learn more about how to incorporate Reels effectively into your clients’ social media strategies with Meta’s in-depth guides for agencies.
[1] Global Consumer Short-Form Video Survey by Factworks. (Meta-commissioned online survey of over 12,600 consumers ages 13-64; Users of SFV content in AU, US, BR, DE, UK, KR, JP, IN and FR), Oct. - Nov. 2022.
[2] Meta Internal Data, based on data from 13 brand lift studies with global brands across multiple verticals in Q4 2021.
[3] Global Consumer Short-Form Video Survey by Factworks. (Meta-commissioned online survey of over 12,600 consumers ages 13-64; Users of SFV content in AU, US, BR, DE, UK, KR, JP, IN and FR), Oct. - Nov. 2022.
[4] Instagram/Kotex brand lift study.
[5] Meta Internal Data, based on data from 13 brand lift studies with global brands across multiple verticals in Q4 2021.
[6] Meta-commissioned research conducted by Kantar (online study of 15,0003 people aged 18+ across US, GB, DE, KR, BR), Q4 2019).
[7] Instagram/Carlton Dry brand lift study.
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