Instagram is opening up to any advertiser and expanding the number of global markets in which it sells ads. The Facebook-owned company is also adding new ad formats, including ones that take advantage of new non-square formats.
Cautious
Italy, Spain, India, Mexico and South Korea have already been added to the list of countries now able to host ads on the service, and worldwide availability will in force by the end of the month.
The photo-sharing app’s advertising business is nearly two years old but this is the first time it has had a real push forward. Facebook COO, Sheryl Sandberg, said: “We’ve ramped really slowly, and we’re very, very cautious.”
James Quarles, Instagram’s global head of business and brand development, commented: “The purpose of the announcements is to let people know that we’ve moved from testing to a broad roll-out.”
Roll out
Instagram said brands would be able to buy ads using the same tools they use to purchase Facebook ads back in June. The addition of links to its ads made it possible for brands to get people to install an app or buy a product on the brand’s site.
Gilt Groupe, the E-commerce site, reported an increase of 85% in app installs when using Instagram’s ads compared to ads running on other platforms, while Made.com, a British furniture design company. said it had a 10% increase in average order value. “We believe these are representative,” Quarles said.
Landscape ads
Non-square ads are an Instagram feature that is another new addition. Quarles said that landscape “is more of a standard format” and that it fits in with formats available for Facebook ads. This is part of the strategy of making it easier for users to set up their Facebook and Instagram campaigns by just using Facebook’s ad-buying tools.
Instagram is also extending the length of video production ads that a brand can use. The increase from
15 seconds to 30 seconds is only available to marketers and is not being extended to consumers “right now” because of technical limitations, according to the company.
