Instagram Adds Call-to-Action Buttons, More Relevant Ad Targeting

Pinterest isn't the only company announcing a direct commerce initiative today. Instagram has added several new features to its advertising platform, including call-to-action buttons such as Shop Now and Install Now. Instagram noted in an Instagram for Business blog post these call-to-action buttons will start being tested soon: Advertisers want to drive business results across a variety of objectives — from awareness and message association to website visits and offline sales — and our ad formats will evolve to serve all those goals. This will not only help advertisers, but the community as well, as people 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. In the coming days we’ll begin testing some of these direct-response formats. Here's a look at some of the call-to-action buttons Instagram is testing: Instagram is also working to make its sponsored posts even more relevant with better targeting (a strategy imported from parent Facebook). In Instagram's early days of advertising (and still now sometimes), angry commenters flooded sponsored posts with rants about how the post is irrelevant. Facebook's photo-sharing platform wants to curb those angry comments: People come to Instagram to follow their passions, from travel and fashion to cars and entertainment. They want to see ads that reflect the things they care about. Advertisers also want to target their messages in more effective ways and reach people not just because of their age, location and gender, but because of the people, places and things they love. Later this year, we will continue to connect businesses to the right people through expanded targeting options. Working with Facebook, we will enable advertisers to reach people on Instagram based on demographics and interests, as well as information businesses have about their own customers. We will also improve the feedback mechanisms within Instagram to give people greater control and improve the relevance of the ads they see. Instagram is working with select Facebook Marketing Partners to bring more advertisers onto its platform through the company's ads application programming interface. They're working to bring Instagram ads via Facebook's ad buying interfaces over the next few months. Instagram also shared that their sponsored posts are working quite well. In the aforementioned blog post, Instagram noted that across 475 campaigns measured globally with Nielsen Brand Effect, ad recall from these posts was 2.9x higher than Nielson's norms for online ads. Advertisers have been quite happy so far. Old Navy media director Michele Schuh talked about Instagram ads with parent publication Adweek: It's an ideal platform to shop on as it's so visual and fashion oriented. We're thrilled that Instagram is now offering users the ability to click directly through to a product, creating instant gratification without any cumbersome steps. Readers: What do you think of the latest advertising features from Instagram?

Social Pro Daily

Instagram Adds Call-to-Action Buttons, More Relevant Ad Targeting

Instagram has added several new features to its advertising platform, including call-to-action buttons such as Shop Now and Install Now.

Justin Lafferty

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