Threads now carries more than 400 million monthly active users and, as of this year, a live ad auction that every brand can enter. That combination rarely stays cheap for long. Threads advertising has moved from invite-only experiment to global default, which means the real question for marketers is no longer “should we test this” but “what do we test first, and how fast.” This article breaks down what changed, what the early data shows, and where to put your first dollars.
Meta spent two and a half years building Threads as the quiet, ad-free alternative to X. That era is over. In January, Meta announced it was expanding ads on Threads to all users globally, a rollout the company said would happen gradually and could take months to fully complete. For brand teams who have been waiting on the sidelines, the sidelines just disappeared.
What Actually Changed When Meta Opened Threads Ads
The headline number is scale. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has repeatedly praised the social app as the company’s next big hit, which has now grown to over 400 million monthly active users. That is not a niche test environment anymore, it is a mainstream Meta surface sitting next to Instagram and Facebook in the same ad buying interface.
Mechanically, Meta made it easy for existing advertisers to expand their reach to Threads by allowing automatic placement through Advantage+ or manual campaigns, with advertisers managing Threads ads alongside Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp in their Business Settings. Supported formats include image and video ads, including the newer 4:5 aspect ratio format and carousel ads.
The platform also kept building out its ad toolkit after launch. Meta increased the maximum height of single image and video ads on Threads feed from 1:1 to 4:5, with video ads supporting aspect ratios from 1.91:1 to 9:16, and launched static 1:1 image carousel ad support, with previous and new campaigns opted into carousel ads now delivering to Threads automatically.
Most recently, the Marketing API picked up two capabilities that matter for performance marketers specifically. App ads are now available for purchase on Threads through the Marketing API globally, with supported objectives including app installs and app event optimization for link clicks or conversions. A second addition, reply moderation tooling, lets advertisers view, hide, and respond to top-level replies on their Threads ads through the API, which matters a great deal for any brand that has been burned by an unmoderated comment thread under a paid post.
Why the Early CPMs Are Hard to Ignore
Here is the part that should get a media planner’s attention. Threads is still early in its ad maturity curve, and that shows up in pricing. Early industry benchmarking has pegged Threads CPMs meaningfully below mature Instagram feed placements, a pattern consistent with how every new Meta ad surface has behaved, from Instagram Stories to Reels: cheap during the land grab, then normalized once competition arrives.
Every new ad surface Meta has launched has followed the same arc: low cost while advertisers are still figuring it out, then a sharp climb once the auction fills up. Threads is in that first window right now, and the window has a close date, even if nobody knows exactly when it falls.
Meta has also been deliberate about keeping ad density low while it studies how users react. The company has said it plans on keeping the volume of ads in Threads intentionally low while it gauges the reactions of brands and users. For brands, that translates into less auction pressure per impression right now, which is exactly the kind of environment where test budgets go further than they will a year from now.
This is also why Threads is drawing interest from teams that have grown wary of X. Meta expanded the third-party verification already available on Facebook and Instagram to the Threads feed through Meta Business Partners, giving advertisers independent brand safety and suitability verification at a moment when its nearest rival is fighting its own content moderation battles. If your brand pulled back from X over suitability concerns, Threads is the first platform offering a comparable audience with comparable verification tooling baked in from day one.
Five Tests Worth Running Before You Commit Real Budget
Don’t boost your Instagram creative and call it a Threads test. That is the single most common mistake brands will make in the next quarter, and it will produce flat results that get blamed on the platform instead of the approach. Here is what actually deserves a test budget first:
- Text-first creative, not repurposed visuals. Threads is a conversation feed. Ads built around a strong written hook tend to blend into the scroll better than a polished product shot lifted from an Instagram campaign.
- Reach and Traffic objectives before Conversions. With volume still being metered deliberately, conversion-optimized campaigns may struggle to exit the learning phase. Start with objectives that generate signal faster.
- Carousel and 4:5 video formats. These are the newest format additions and likely still under-tested by competitors, which means less creative fatigue in the auction.
- Your existing Meta audiences, narrowed. Use lookalikes and engagement-based audiences you already have rather than building Threads-specific segments from scratch. The infrastructure is shared, so your data should be too.
- App install and reply moderation workflows. If you run app campaigns, test the newly supported app ad objectives now while competition for that inventory is thin, and set up reply moderation before you scale spend, not after a thread goes sideways.
Treat this like any new channel launch: small daily budgets, short test windows, and a hard look at incrementality before you reallocate serious dollars. The teams getting this right are the ones who already demand proof over promises from every new placement, not just the ones with hype behind them.
Brand Safety Is the Part Everyone Skips
It is tempting to treat Threads as a free lunch because CPMs are low and setup is easy. Resist that. A conversational feed with live replies is a different risk surface than a static Instagram grid, and the reply moderation tooling Meta just shipped exists precisely because brands were asking for it. Build your moderation workflow before launch, not as cleanup afterward. This is the same lesson brands have been relearning across every user-generated content surface, and it is worth reading alongside our coverage of how UGC moderation has become core to brand risk management.
The same discipline applies to measurement. Threads shares infrastructure with Instagram and Facebook, which is convenient, but it also means your attribution model needs to isolate Threads performance specifically rather than letting it blend into a broader Meta line item. Brands that have already had to rebuild attribution around tighter payback windows will recognize the pattern: new placement, shared dashboard, murky incrementality, unless you force the split from week one.
Where Threads Fits Next to Instagram and X
Threads skews toward lifestyle, culture, and commentary-driven audiences, which makes it a natural fit for consumer brands with a real point of view, and a plausible fit for B2B brands that have invested in editorial-style content rather than pure product messaging. With Threads at roughly 350 million users earlier this year and 75% of profiles following at least one business, the audience was already primed for brand content well before the ad auction opened, which is unusual. Most platforms have to teach users to tolerate ads. Threads inherited an audience that had already normalized following businesses organically.
That said, Threads is not a replacement for X or Instagram, it is an additional line item. The API work Meta has done, including a Threads feed placement that enables broader reach by leveraging existing ad image assets without requiring dedicated creative development, is designed to make that addition as frictionless as possible. If you already run Advantage+ campaigns across Facebook and Instagram, adding Threads is closer to flipping a placement toggle than building a new channel.
For teams managing performance-based creator and media deals, this also intersects with the broader shift toward accountable spend. Brands that have watched performance deals climb toward half of total spend should view Threads the same way: test it on performance terms, not vibes, and be honest about what it is actually contributing versus what it is riding on the coattails of your existing Meta buy. Audience vetting matters here too. As younger audiences grow more skeptical of branded content, the conversational, lower-polish format Threads rewards may actually be an advantage rather than a compromise.
None of this means Threads deserves a huge chunk of next quarter’s budget. It means it deserves a disciplined test, run with intent, measured in isolation, and scaled only on evidence. The brands that treat this like a real channel launch, not a free placement to switch on and forget, will be the ones holding useful data when CPMs eventually catch up to the rest of Meta’s ad ecosystem.
FAQs
Do I need a separate Threads account to run ads?
Yes, in the current setup advertisers need a connected Threads profile to run campaigns on the platform, and Meta has generally required Instagram Feed to be selected alongside Threads within the broader Feeds placement group rather than running Threads ads in total isolation.
What ad objectives are available on Threads right now?
Core objectives include Reach, Traffic, and Website Conversions for feed ads, with app install and app event optimization objectives added more recently for advertisers running app campaigns through the Marketing API.
Will Threads CPMs stay this low?
Unlikely for long. Every Meta ad surface has followed the same pattern of lower costs during the early adoption window followed by normalization as more advertisers enter the auction, and Meta has already signaled it plans to increase ad volume gradually over time.
Can agencies and third-party platforms manage Threads ads?
Yes. Meta expanded its Marketing API to support Threads, which lets social media management platforms and ad networks build Threads ad creation and reporting directly into their existing tools rather than requiring a separate workflow.
Is Threads a good fit for B2B brands?
It can be, particularly for B2B brands that already publish point-of-view or editorial-style content rather than pure product marketing, since Threads rewards conversational, text-first posts over polished visual assets.
Next step: Pick one existing Meta campaign, carve out a Threads-specific test with its own budget and reporting split, run it for two to three weeks with text-first creative, and decide on real incrementality data before you touch next quarter’s allocation.
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