Instagram’s New Ad Roadmap: The Three Things You Need to Know

Recently, Instagram expanded its ad roadmap. Since ads were launched a year and a half ago, the company has been working with brands and agencies to design an advertising experience that is native to the platform. Instagram has also been working on improving its ad formats to be more impactful, moving from photo to video to carousel ads (ads that display several images that rotate within a banner). So what does this mean exactly? Here are the three things you need to know:

1. Ad offerings are expanding to include action-oriented formats

From awareness and message association to website visits and offline sales, Instagram ad formats will evolve to serve every business goal. Users will be able to learn about a product or service and then take action directly from an ad to sign-up on a website, buy a product, or download an app. These ‘call to action’ buttons will prompt users to leave Instagram to complete a desired action on the brand’s site.

2. Access to data is enabling enhanced targeting capabilities

From travel and fashion to cars and entertainment, people come to Instagram to follow their interests and connect with the people they are passionate about. Utilizing Facebook’s data, Instagram ads will be able to reach users based on demographics and interests, as well as first-party information clients have about their own customers. Advertisers will be able to target their messages in more effective ways in order to reach the consumers that matter most.

3. Businesses large and small will find it easier to buy ads on Instagram

To date, Instagram’s price point has been a barrier to entry for many. By leveraging the best of Facebook's infrastructure for buying, managing, and measuring the success of ads, Instagram will look to make its inventory more accessible to advertisers of all sizes. To do this, Facebook is working to make Instagram advertising available through an Instagram Ads API. This first product will hit the market as an alpha test in early July with select Facebook marketing partners (4C, Brand Networks, Ampush, Kenshoo, Laundry Service, MediaVest, Nanigans, Olapic, Resolution Media, Salesforce, SocialCode, Social Moov and Unified).

Although Centro is not involved in the alpha testing, it’s expected that Instagram will expand to Facebook’s ad buying interfaces, including the Power Editor and Ads Manager, which will allow us to easily manage Instagram campaigns through your favorite self-service social squad. As always, we will keep you up-to-date on all of our new developments as they arise.