The micro drama industry is booming. It's giving Meta two wins at the same time.

Micro dramas are booming outside the US. They're beginning to see traction stateside too, with lots of startups trying to convince American consumers to pay a few dollars to watch soapy stories on their phones.

Zuckerberg's Meta is by far the most popular place for micro drama producers to market their stuff, industry players tell us. Some estimate that startups are directing up to 75% of their marketing budgets to Meta's various properties, in the hopes of getting Facebook or Reels users to come to their sites.

"What I hear consistently from apps is, Meta gets more than half of the customer acquisition spend by most micro drama apps," said Hernan Lopez, founder of research firm Owl & Co. He pegs micro drama ad spending at $1.5 billion globally — excluding China, where the genre started.

So Meta gets the best of both worlds: Micro drama producers give them money and they give Meta engaging videos that keep their audiences on Meta's properties.

GammaTime, a year-old micro drama company, spends some 55% of its marketing budget on Meta, said cofounder Slava Mudryk. Very long ads are part of the mix when GammaTime launches a series or has a series with a particularly strong story arc within the series, he said.

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"We always use it with launches," he said. "What we see is that this long sequence just brings people in to watch. And when it's done, the desire to continue watching on the app is strong."

It also helps that Facebook's aging user base is more likely able and willing to spend money on apps, says Ali Albazaz, whose Inkitt startup runs micro drama app Candy Jar.

But that also seems like it will set up a long-term tension between Meta and its new breed of customers: If micro drama players are able to get real traction, that means they'll eventually be pulling eyeballs away from Meta. It's also not a new tension for Meta: A few years ago, when TikTok was entering the market, Meta made billions selling ads promoting the app to its users — and now TikTok is a giant competitor.