TL;DR:
- Meta announced at Cannes Lions that livestreams on Facebook and Instagram can now be promoted as paid ads, turning live broadcasts into media units that reach audiences beyond existing followers.
- The feature is currently only available through five US live commerce partner platforms.
- Meta also expanded its creator affiliate program to 22 countries, adding Flipkart, Mercado Libre, and Lazada. This one is available to any creator, no partnership required.
Let's take a closer look at each announcement.
1. Live Video Ads on Facebook and Instagram
Live Video Ads let businesses promote their livestreams as paid ads, reaching audiences beyond their existing followers while the stream is happening.
On Facebook, those ads can be paired with Live Shopping Tools, so viewers who discover the stream through the ad can browse products, check prices, and complete purchases without leaving the broadcast.
Meta says 3.5 billion people across its apps experience AI-enabled product discovery daily. These Live Video Ads are designed to put live content in front of more of those moments in real time, rather than after the fact.
At launch, the feature is not available to all streamers. In the US, only customers of five partner platforms — CommentSold, Firework, LiveMeUp, Sprii, and TalkShopLive — can convert streams into ads.
These are live commerce platforms with existing product catalog integrations built into their workflow. Broader access for streamers outside those platforms has not been announced.
What this means for streamers
The use cases that stand to benefit most are time-bounded, community-facing broadcasts — the kind where the live moment has real value and where reaching new people would meaningfully change the outcome.
For example:
- A church running a live giving appeal currently reaches people who already follow the page. With Live Video Ads, that broadcast could surface to people in the same area who've never attended.
- A sports organization streaming a game notifies its existing followers; promoted, it reaches local fans who don't follow the account yet.
- A nonprofit streaming a fundraiser event can put paid reach behind something that only lives for a few hours.
In each case, the broadcast stops being a notification to existing communities and starts being a discovery moment for people who don't know the organization yet.
Right now that's only available through Meta's five commerce partners. If you're streaming through any other tool or workflow, this isn't something you can activate.
But the direction is worth taking seriously before it opens up broadly. A stream promoted as an ad is a first impression for a stranger — which means production quality, framing, and audio matter more in that context than they do when you're broadcasting to people who already know you. The organizations that will get the most out of Live Video Ads when access expands are the ones that treat their streams that way now.
2. Creator affiliate program expansion
The affiliate expansion is the part any creator can act on today.
Meta added Flipkart in India, Mercado Libre in Brazil and Mexico, and Lazada across Asia to its Facebook affiliate partner network, and expanded affiliate tagging on Instagram to 22 countries total.
Creators connect their affiliate accounts, embed product links directly in posts and Reels, and earn commissions when viewers purchase.
No platform partnership is required. This is available broadly to creators in supported markets.
This builds on Instagram's return to affiliate commerce in late March 2026, when Instagram head Adam Mosseri announced that creators could tag affiliate products directly in Reels — a capability the platform hadn't offered since shutting down its native affiliate program in August 2022.
The Cannes announcement scales that globally and adds major marketplace partners in markets where those platforms have significant commerce infrastructure.
What this means for streamers
One thing worth understanding before diving in: Instagram's affiliate purchases redirect viewers to the brand's app or website to complete the transaction. That's different from TikTok Shop, where the purchase happens inside the app.
The extra step introduces friction, and it's worth factoring that into your expectations. How much it affects conversion depends on the product and the audience, but assuming it works the same as in-app checkout would be a mistake.
For live streamers, the affiliate expansion creates a direct commission path that doesn't require any special access. If you mention or demo a product during a Facebook or Instagram broadcast, affiliate links give you a way to earn on purchases that result from that content.
What to watch for
Meta is assembling the pieces of a full commerce loop on live video:
- Live Video Ads for discovery
- Live Shopping Tools for in-stream conversion
- Affiliate links for creator monetization
- Virtual card checkout (coming this summer in partnership with Mastercard and Visa) for payment security
Right now those pieces are only fully connected for customers of the five partner platforms. But we can hope that Meta will roll this out to everyone soon.
Still, for streamers already building on Facebook and Instagram, the direction is clear enough to be worth preparing for now.