Instagram Previews New Ad Designs

In keeping with its promise to take it slow rolling out the new ads, Instagram previewed a sample ad US users can expect to start seeing in coming weeks on its official blog. But this wasn’t just an ad preview, the blog also outlined what users can expect to see in terms of look and feel.

“You’ll know a photo or video is an advertisement when you see the ‘Sponsored’ label where the time stamp normally would be,” the blog post says.

If there’s an ad you don’t like, there’s also a function that enables users to hide ads and provide feedback. According to the blog post, this will enable Instagram to provide more interesting ads in the future.

“Building Instagram as a business will help us better serve the global—and ever growing—Instagram community, while maintaining the simplicity you know and love,” the blog post reassured users.

While Instagram is being very careful about this ad rollout, it’s video site is going gangbusters. According to data from marketing technology firm Unruly, more than 40 percent of the most shared videos on Instagram are from big brands including MTV, GoPro and NBA among the most popular.

According to The Next Web, Instagram has confirmed that US users will start to see occasional in feed video ads. Still, the company is being cagey about the official launch of the video ads but they are aren’t afraid to “show off” the designs.

If the data from Unruly is any indication, the video ads are likely to be a big hit on Instagram. Users are already interacting with and sharing videos from lots of big brands. Incorporating videos into the user feed as native ads will only serve to put the brands in front of more users.

It’ll be interesting to find out what the user feedback is and if Instagram continues its kidd glove approach.