Heard stirrings about Facebook teaming with publishers? Columnist Andrew Waber explains how it works and what it means for marketers.

Earlier this month, Facebook took the wraps off of its new Instant Articles offering.

Another content-focused play for Facebook, Instant Articles is explicitly targeted to media outlets and allows them to, among other features, minimize their content’s loading time on mobile devices — a problem faced by many publishers. Additionally, the product layers some additional look-and-feel improvements.

But perhaps most importantly, Instant Articles gives media outlets nearly complete control over the ad revenue generated through its hosted content.

There’s some flexibility on this end. Publishers have the option to fill their inventory themselves — keeping 100 percent of the resulting revenue — or they may have Facebook fill the inventory for them in exchange for a 30 percent cut.

Opportunities For Marketers Abound

That latter case presents the most promising opportunity for marketers. For practitioners already using Facebook and FAN, Instant Articles ad inventory will not only be another extension of Facebook ad reach, but a no-nonsense means of serving more trackable, targeted ads across high-value media properties.

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