It has been twenty years since Amazon.com went live - a landmark moment for the future of retail and the beginning of the shift from 'bricks and mortar' stores to online shopping. Two decades later, the importance of bringing your store to your customer cannot be underestimated. Since its launch in October 2010, Instagram has rapidly grown in popularity and now has more than 300 million active users. A recent survey shows that 18% of people in Ireland have an Instagram account, with 46% of them using it daily (considerably higher than the 35% daily usage of Twitter by account owners). Conceived as 'a fun and quirky way to share your life with friends through a series of pictures', Instagram's appeal generated such a huge potential audience for marketing, that a move towards advertising was inevitable.
Sample ad from Instagram - November 2013
Instagram introduced its first ads in November 2013 and then rolled out video ads in October 2014. This year, the Facebook-owned photo-sharing app has introduced carousel ads which allow marketers to fit more images into one single ad and 'Shop Now' buttons (and 'Install Now', 'Sign Up', 'Learn More' buttons) which enable retailers to link to product pages from their Instagram ads. Facebook's ad-targeting tools are also being opened up to Instagram advertisers, making it easier to tailor ads for specific users.
Sample ads from Instagram - June 2015
Instagram's advertising journey took another leap last week with the announcement that it has officially launched its advertising API (application programming interface) with a number of third-party partners. Prior to this development, advertising on Instagram generally required big investments both in budget and time and only offered limited ability to track the effectiveness of ads. The introduction of the API means that marketers can buy ads on Instagram in an automated way for the first time. Furthermore, marketers can plan Instagram campaigns alongside their other digital ads and cross-promote, plan and monitor their Instagram marketing activity across other social networks such as Facebook and Twitter, using third-party platforms. Instagram ads will be available to advertisers of all types later this year and experts are confident of Instagram's potential to become a major advertising business to rival Google and Twitter.
How we can help
As focus continues to move away from traditional store fronts, the release of an API for ads by Instagram represents a great opportunity for advertising for retail businesses. It also underlines the importance of companies knowing the behaviour of their customers, the context in which they will engage with them and where they will engage with them. For advice on reaching your target audience and the potential role of Instagram in your digital marketing strategy, contact us today.
