Will Higher Ad Revenues Aid Meta Platforms Stock in Q2 Earnings?

Meta Platforms’ META second-quarter 2026 results, set to be reported on July 29, are expected to reflect the benefits of higher advertising revenues, driven by sustained growth in user engagement and ad impressions across its Family of Apps. In the first quarter of 2026, ad impressions increased 19% year over year, supported by user growth, stronger engagement and ad-load optimization. The average price per ad also rose 12%, reflecting improved ad performance, healthier advertiser demand and favorable currency movements. 

AI-driven improvements to Meta’s advertising systems are likely to have remained a major growth catalyst in the to-be-reported quarter. Enhancements to the Lattice and GEM models drove a more than 6% improvement in conversion rates for landing-page-view ads, while the Adaptive Ranking Model generated a 1.6% conversion-rate increase across major Facebook and Instagram surfaces. Better ad selection and targeting likely encouraged advertisers to increase spending by improving campaign returns. Increasing adoption of Meta’s generative-AI advertising tools is also expected to have aided second-quarter performance.

The Meta AI business assistant, AI connectors and value-optimization tools are also helping advertisers create content, resolve account issues and improve return on ad spending. Meta is further optimizing when, where and to whom ads are displayed rather than depending only on higher ad loads. Ad-load increases on Instagram Feed and Reels contributed to first-quarter impression growth, although user and engagement gains remained the larger driver. The company’s measured approach to placing ads at more relevant moments is likely to have supported incremental conversions without materially weakening the user experience in the second quarter.

These trends are likely to have continued supporting advertising revenues in the to-be-reported quarter. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Meta’s second-quarter advertising revenues is pegged at $59.035 billion, indicating growth of 26.8% year over year. Click here to learn how Meta’s overall second-quarter performance is likely to be.

META’s AI Push to Aid Instagram, Threads and WhatsApp in Q2

Instagram is expected to have benefited significantly from AI-powered recommendation and content-understanding improvements. Ranking enhancements drove a 10% increase in Reels time spent in the first quarter of 2026. Meta doubled the length of user-interaction sequences used to train Instagram models and improved the richness of the data describing each interaction, allowing its systems to better understand users’ interests. Faster indexing and improved content recognition also increased the freshness and diversity of recommendations, with same-day posts accounting for more than 30% of recommended Reels.

AI translation and dubbing are likely to have further expanded Instagram’s content inventory and engagement. More than half a billion users on each of Facebook and Instagram were watching AI-translated videos weekly. Meta’s policy of allowing creators’ videos to reach viewers across different languages and regions means these capabilities are likely to have increased watch time, improved content discovery and created additional advertising opportunities on Instagram during the to-be-reported quarter.

Threads is expected to have benefited from improvements in AI-powered content recommendations, particularly around timeliness, relevance and cultural trends. The platform had more than 150 million daily active users, while Meta continued investing in creator partnerships and priority topics such as sports, entertainment and K-pop. Ads were expanded to more than 200 countries, and improved recommendations are likely to have strengthened user engagement and advertising inventory, although Threads is not expected to be a meaningful contributor to Meta’s overall revenues in 2026. 

WhatsApp’s prospects are likely to have benefited from Meta’s AI push through business messaging, Business AIs and the gradual rollout of Status ads. Business AIs were facilitating more than 10 million conversations per week, up from 1 million at the beginning of the year, helping small businesses answer customer questions and engage potential buyers. 

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for Meta’s second-quarter Family of Apps revenues is pegged at $59.605 billion, indicating growth of 26.4% year over year.

Zacks Rank & Upcoming Earnings to Watch

Meta currently has a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). 

Reddit RDDT, Arrow Electronics ARW, and HubSpot HUBS are some better-ranked stocks in the broader Zacks Computer and Technology sector. Each of the three stocks sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Reddit, Arrow Electronics and HubSpot are expected to report their quarterly results on July 30, Aug. 6, and Aug. 5, respectively. Shares of Reddit and HubSpot have dropped 22.1% and 44.5%, respectively, while Arrow Electronics has jumped 93.5% year to date.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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