Can You Still Use Instant Articles for Ads?

No. Meta announced on 2 February 2023 that it would remove Instant Articles and the Instant Articles ad placement from Facebook starting 20 April 2023. If an old media plan or a saved template still lists the placement, remove it and review the placements that remain. Meta’s announcement names no replacement placement, so you choose what takes its place.

What was the Instant Articles placement?

Meta’s 2023 post says Meta first introduced Instant Articles in 2015 so publishers could create interactive media articles on mobile and monetize them with ads on Facebook. In March 2017 Meta described a test of ads in the related articles section at the bottom of Instant Articles.

For an advertiser, the placement was something an ad set could include. If you inherit an old account, look for it in saved placement lists and in documents written before 2023. A plan that depended on this placement needs a new placement choice now.

When did it stop?

The announcement is in Meta’s developer post of 2 February 2023, which introduced Graph API v16.0 and Marketing API v16.0. Meta wrote that it would remove Instant Articles and the placement starting 20 April 2023. From that date the placement is no longer available for new campaign creation in Ads Manager or the Marketing API.

That is 77 days between the post and the removal date. If your reporting stretches back before April 2023, mark the date in your notes so you do not read missing delivery on this placement as a fault in your setup.

Why did Meta remove it?

Meta’s stated reasons are that news discovery is a small part of the Facebook experience for the majority of people who use the platform, and that people tell Meta they want to see less of this content in their Feeds. Meta said it was adjusting its investments to better align with user preferences.

Meta’s post gives reasons about what people want to see, not about advertiser results. If you are weighing a placement decision today, use the data from your own account for the placements you can still choose.

What happened to existing ad sets?

Meta’s post describes two outcomes after 20 April 2023:

• Ad sets that exclusively contained the Instant Articles placement were paused.
• All other ad sets that included the placement were automatically updated to exclude it.

If you find a paused ad set from that period, open its placement settings, choose from the placements available today and then decide whether to turn it back on.

What can you do now?

Review the placements in each active ad set and confirm none depends on a removed one. Compare placement choices by results in your own reports, not by an old guide. For the current list of Facebook and Instagram placements, read the placements list page on this site, and read the Advantage+ placements page if you want Meta to choose placements for you.

FAQ

Were campaigns paused automatically?

Partly. Meta’s post says ad sets exclusively containing the Instant Articles placement were paused after 20 April 2023. All other ad sets that included it were automatically updated to exclude the placement.

Why did Meta stop Instant Articles?

Meta said news discovery is a small part of the Facebook experience for the majority of people on the platform, and that people want to see less of this content in their Feeds. It said it was adjusting its investments to better align with user preferences.

How much notice did advertisers get?

The post is dated 2 February 2023 and gives 20 April 2023 as the start of the removal, which is 77 days later, or 11 weeks. Meta announced it in the notes for a Graph API and Marketing API release.