Meta’s advertising business is on an upward trajectory, fueled largely by AI targeting efficiencies and the monetization of vertical video. But that growth comes with complications as the company faces user-control experiments, regulatory scrutiny, and its own push to diversify beyond ads.

This FAQ covers Meta's ad business scale, where the inventory is growing, and how advertisers should plan.

How big is Meta's advertising business?

Meta's ad revenues will surpass $240 billion globally in 2026, with much of that growth stemming from improved AI targeting and Reels, according to an EMARKETER forecast.

The scale reflects Meta's position across Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger, which together give advertisers reach across nearly every consumer segment. The growth drivers matter as much as the number: automation and AI now shape most campaign delivery, while short-form video supplies the new impressions.

For advertisers, Meta remains the default performance channel, which is precisely why format shifts and pricing changes on the platform ripple through entire media plans.

What surfaces are driving Meta's ad growth?

Reels leads the way. 53% of all Instagram ads ran on Reels in Q4 2025 and Reels accounted for 46% of all time spent on Instagram per Sensor Tower data cited by EMARKETER. Reels' share of total Instagram ad impressions jumped from 13% to 21% year over year in Q2 2025, per a Tinuiti report cited in the same article, making it the platform's fastest-growing ad surface.

Meta is also finding ways to build on that momentum. Advertisers across the globe can now place ads after organic Reels longer than 60 seconds, with viewers required to wait five seconds before receiving the option to skip. Meta is also testing Series, a feature that groups related Reels into serialized episodes, encouraging viewers to return for more, per EMARKETER.

Why are advertisers spending more on Meta?

When pressure to deliver results rises, advertisers tend to favor platforms that offer broad reach and familiar measurement tools. Food and beverage brands provide one example: Their share of voice on Facebook skyrocketed, almost doubling YoY in Q3 2025, while it plummeted on TikTok and YouTube, per a March 2026 EMARKETER analysis.

The logic is straightforward: when budgets tighten, advertisers concentrate spending where measurement is most established and conversion volume is most predictable. This consolidation dynamic gives Meta counter-cyclical resilience, but it also concentrates advertiser risk: brands dependent on one platform's auction face rising costs whenever competitors crowd in.

How is Meta using AI and data to power its ads?

Meta is widening the data foundation beneath its AI systems as the company expanded its use of activity data from outside businesses to personalize feeds and train AI tools, boosting relevance while testing user trust, per a June 2026 EMARKETER article. The same AI investment drives the targeting efficiencies behind EMARKETER's $240 billion revenue forecast.

Meta is also testing an AI shopping tool to compete with OpenAI and Google for high-intent discovery, per a March 2026 EMARKETER article. For advertisers, deeper AI personalization generally improves campaign performance, but it ties results to systems advertisers cannot inspect, raising the importance of independent measurement.

What pressures does Meta's ad business face?

Meta's momentum coexists with real friction:

• User control over feeds. Instagram's Your Algorithm feature lets people tune the topics they see, raising the stakes for advertisers while offering brands deeper user data, per a June 2026 EMARKETER article.
• Regulatory and legal scrutiny. Meta faces critical questions as AI spending and regulatory scrutiny intensify, per a March 2026 EMARKETER article, and the Supreme Court declined to block addiction and child-harm lawsuits, per EMARKETER.
• Revenue diversification. Meta added paid tiers to Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp to lift revenues beyond ads, per EMARKETER, a hedge that also signals limits to ad-load growth.

How should marketers approach Meta advertising in 2026?

Lean into Meta's strengths while hedging its concentration risks. Priorities:

• Follow the inventory to Reels. With over half of Instagram ads already on Reels and new post-view formats opening, vertical video creative should be the default, not the variant, per EMARKETER.
• Build for the nonskippable moment. For countdown placements, frontload brand, message, and call to action within the first 2 seconds.
• Validate what Meta’s AI-driven is actually delivering. As targeting moves deeper into Meta's AI systems, marketers should use incrementality testing to determine whether campaigns are generating results that would not have happened otherwise.
• Watch the trust variables. User feed controls, off-site data expansion, and youth-safety litigation could each reshape targeting capabilities; plans should not assume today's data access is permanent.

We prepared this article with the assistance of generative AI tools and stand behind its accuracy, quality, and originality.

EMARKETER forecast data was current at publication and may have changed. EMARKETER clients have access to up-to-date forecast data. To explore EMARKETER solutions, click here.