Businesses can now take advantage of Instagram’s advanced advertising game, which was launched globally on 30 September 2015. Instagram has made three major changes to its advertising program which mainly consists of the following:
– New markets for the ads
– Opening up Ad-Buying
– Introducing 30 seconds video ads in Landscape mode
Instagram introduced ads nearly two years ago and since then it has made conscious efforts to ensure protection of its customer experience. Advancing its ad game includes allowing both large and small brands to run campaigns on the service and expansion of this ad viewership in more than 30 new countries including Italy, Spain, Mexico, India, and South Korea.
Along with rolling out ads broadly, Instagram has launched new key tools for marketers. Earlier the video ads were limited to just 15 seconds, but now advertisers publish video ads of up to 30 seconds. It is almost the length of an average television commercial, which allows company’s to adequately tell their story. Instagram is also enabling advertisers to use landscape format in order to give a more cinematic feel to the ads along with new delivery and optimisation tools, which could help, enhance brand campaigns.
Additionally, Instagram introduced a new premium ad tool called Marquee, that helps drive mass awareness and expanded reach in a short time frame. Instagram says it’s a new way to push mass recognition and is a perfect advertising platform for movie premieres and new product launches.
These adverts have definitely benefited Instagram by ramping up its revenue. Instagram’s ad revenue is projected to reach $1.5 billion in 2016, according to eMarketer, a research firm, and nearly double by 2017 to $2.8 billion.
This leads us to a few questions concerning these ads, Would you watch an entire 30 seconds ad while looking through your Instagram? Would it cause any interference in your user experience? How much of an impact do you think these video ads have on companies?
http://www.cnbc.com/2015/09/08/finally-here-comes-instagrams-big-ad-push.html
http://www.ibnlive.com/news/tech/goodbye-ad-free-instagram-hello-sponsored-photos-1088975.html
I understand why Instagram decided to integrate these advertisements. Nearly every social media platform has advertisements and ads seem to have a positive effect on revenues. First I was a little annoyed with the announcement of advertisements on Instagram, but I must say they are completely integrated within regular pictures/videos. There are times in which I unintentionally watch an advertisement, because I thought it was a regular post by a company that I follow. In my opinion advertisements in general affect user experience, but I think Instagram does a great job with the integration of the advertisements. I think this successful integration also has a great impact on the revenues of companies and it is a great way to give people a peek of your products. Shortly, revenues of both Instagram and companies increase and the integration limits the negative effect on user experience.