Instagram just launched its revamped advertising program that will see more ads with longer airtime flood the social site. Instagram, wholly owned by Facebook, is seeking more revenues through ads going forward. Users are now wondering whether the new system will complicate the site’s usage or dilute its appearance, much as it did with Facebook.
Instagram announced on Wednesday that it would make ads ‘available’ in more than 30 countries including Mexico, India, South Korea, Italy and Spain. Initially, ads were only available in the U.S. and for specific companies after been launched in 2013. Soon, the service was stretched to Britain and only last November did Canadian users see ads on their Instagram screens.
After users remained active despite the ads, Instagram execs decided to ramp up its ads service across its 300 million worldwide users.
The new service will introduce three aspects to the site. One, ads will be available in more than 30 countries by end of September this year. They will not only be targeting big industries, as they were before, but also small markets.
Two, the ads will be longer. Before, only 15 second ads were allowed, similar to the maximum video length on posts. Now, ad length has been stretched to a maximum of 30 seconds, meaning television advertisers will have more standardized formats and larger buying options. Businesses will be able to easily port their TV commercials on the social media site.
Third, Instagram will see more advertisers from a larger sphere after recent updates involved call to action prompts such as “Shop Now”, “Sign Up”, “Install Now” and “Learn More”. These will be able to link users outside of Instagram for their services.
To boost ad postings, parent company Facebook reiterated a Nielsen research report that indicated the 457 ad campaigns it hosted were 2.9 per cent more successful than online ads.
The introduction of ads by parent company Facebook shows the listed company’s aggressive push for increased revenues. Currently, Facebook’s mobile ad income has been rising fast in the last few years. They totaled $7.4 billion in 2014, up 135.7 per cent from 2013. The incomes, including those from Instagram ads, accounted for 17.4 per cent of the world mobile ads, placing Facebook as second to Google with 38.2 per cent.
The ads are not Facebook’s only venture to increase ads. After a similar ramp up to its 1.5 billion users, Facebook recently launched a news feature, Instant Articles, that will bring news directly to its platform. The company will nudging users to spend less time outside Facebook and more time accessing news on its servers while viewing and clicking on their ads.
Facebook is seeking to increase its global footprint in the ads market. By being available to close to a third of the world’s population, the site will be pushing more ads up smart phone screens to push revenues up. Ultimately, the focus on ads could kill the user experience and the company afterwards.
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