When Threads ads launched globally in January, the format was deliberately limited. Image ads only. Text-first placements. Advertisers who ran tests had to build specific assets for a placement that looked nothing like the rest of their Meta stack.
That constraint was real, but temporary.
Meta just updated the Marketing API to support video ads, static carousel ads, and Advantage+ catalog ads on Threads. Placement Asset Customization is in too, meaning you can now assign Threads-specific creative rather than inheriting whatever runs on Instagram. App ads are also live globally via MAPI.
The format gap that justified waiting is gone.
What actually changed
The January launch got Threads into Ads Manager and into Advantage+ placements by default. What it didn't give you was format flexibility. If your core performance creative was video, it wasn't eligible for Threads. If you ran DPA for retargeting or prospecting, Threads wasn't in the placement set.
Both of those gaps are now closed.
Video on Threads supports all aspect ratios from 1.91:1 to 9:16. Videos taller than 4:5 get cropped and centered. If you're already producing 4:5 creative for Instagram Reels, those assets now have a second placement that costs a fraction of what Instagram charges for the same audience.
Carousel support is static image only at 1:1 ratio per card. No video cards, no slideshows. For a product lineup or a multi-benefit breakdown, this is workable. The limitation fits how Threads users scroll: quickly, with low patience for heavy formats.
The catalog ad expansion is the most consequential change for e-commerce. Advantage+ catalog ads — personalized product ads matched to users based on their behavior signals — can now serve to Threads. Same product catalog, same Meta audience data, new placement. CPMs for those impressions are running below $8.
The DPA math
If you run Advantage+ catalog campaigns for retargeting or prospecting, you're already generating personalized product impressions across Meta's network.
Adding Threads to the eligible placements costs nothing operationally. You're using an existing catalog. The audience data is already profiled. The creative is dynamically generated from your feed.
What you gain is access to a placement where competition is near zero by Meta standards. Only 0.04% of total Meta ad spend flows to Threads. That number will not stay there. The moment a handful of scaled brands run real budgets and the CPM floor rises, the early-adopter math closes.
Right now you can serve personalized product ads — the same DPA logic that costs $12–$18 CPM on Instagram — at $3–$8 on Threads. The audience size is the same 400 million profiled users. The algo is the same. Only the price is different.
What Placement Asset Customization actually does
PAC is now supported for Threads, which means you can assign a 4:5 or 1:1 creative specifically to that placement rather than letting Meta use whatever's in the ad set rotation.
This matters because Threads creative that imports from Instagram underperforms native creative. The platform is text-forward. The visual context is quieter. PAC lets you add a Threads-specific image or video without touching what runs on Feed, Reels, or Stories. One additional asset per ad set.
One caveat: PAC does not yet support the carousel format on Threads. If you want placement-specific creative on a carousel, you'll need a separate ad set rather than a customization layer.
Four things to do this week
Check whether Threads is already in your active Advantage+ Catalog placements. Meta auto-includes new eligible placements in Advantage+ setups — the catalog update may have already expanded your DPA impressions to Threads without you acting.
Set up PAC on at least one ad set showing volume on Threads. A single 4:5 image variant tailored for the platform takes 20 minutes to add and outperforms imported Instagram creative consistently.
Verify your video cuts before enabling video on Threads. The platform defaults to 4:5. If your only video assets are 9:16 Stories or 16:9 horizontal, they'll be cropped, not optimized.
Build a Threads-specific DPA campaign for retargeting — separate from your main catalog campaign — so you get clean CPM and ROAS data. Start at $25–$50 daily for two weeks. The read will be clear enough to decide whether to scale.
Threads went from a curiosity placement to a full performance channel in six months. The format parity with Instagram is now real. The CPM gap won't stay this wide.
If your Meta account structure isn't set up to track placement-level performance like this, the free audit at gromerce.com/audit maps where your spend goes and where it should.
Sources: Social Media Today, Meta Marketing API documentation, ALM Corp, JumpFly Digital Marketing, ppc.land, July 2026
