Martin UX Team On Instagram Story Ads
We asked our UX team to give us their thoughts on Instagram's big announcement yesterday on adding ads to Stories.
"Instagram is looking to monetize one of its core features, Instagram Stories. Currently, it is testing video ads which display in between Instagram Stories, as well as live and “formerly live” videos. Advertisers participating in the test have the option to exclude certain content from featuring their brands.
This announcement comes in tandem with Facebook making a larger effort to monetize its video content with mid-roll ads.
Instagram’s approach to ads is much like Snapchat’s, which also includes ads in-between Snapchat Stories. But this also gives content creators on Instagram a reason to stay on Instagram versus moving over to Snapchat. For its part, Instagram brings a high degree of targeting, thanks to Facebook’s trove of data.
That data paired with the high-impact visuals featured in the Instagram Stories ads will be a powerful combination for brands looking to make an impact, and that’s a combination Snapchat will have to work to catch up to provide.
The big challenge with this rollout, as well as Facebook’s, will be giving brands confidence that their ads won’t show up amongst content they’d rather not be associated with.
Facebook Video is taking a major step, monetization. Now, videos on Facebook will be able to generate money for publishers with mid-roll advertisements. These mid-roll ads can be inserted 20 seconds into any video that lasts at least 90 seconds, which is a shift from YouTube, which typically runs videos prior to videos, some of which are skippable after five seconds.
The mid-roll ads will be limited to 15 seconds. Facebook will keep 45% of mid-roll ad revenue with publishers taking in the remaining 55%, the same split as YouTube.
The new mid-roll ads come after Facebook tested the ad format in Facebook Live videos last year.
The introduction of ads into videos makes Facebook Video much more attractive to publishers. Now, they have a monetary reason to invest in creating content for the platform. It also opens up a new way for brands to share their video ads in alignment with content consumers show they care about. And with ads not showing until at least 20 seconds in, publishers will be pushed to make their content as engaging as possible to keep audiences watching. That, of course, should be closely watched by YouTube, which relies on a similar process with its pre-roll ads. "
- Taylor Wiegert, Planning Director, UX Strategy
"It was bound to happen, with the success Instagram has seen with Stories in general (nearly half of their user base is using stories) - and we’ll see how the consumers feel once the initial complaints stop.
But from an advertising/positive perspective, it’s a great way to re–use vertical video ads that are being produced for platforms like Snapchat, that have had historically limited places to run. It also helps force a new conversation and perspective in producing video content for mobile platforms – we’ve seen on Snapchat that the more organic those video ads to the platform, the better they perform, so I’m assuming the same will hold for Instagram.
It’s a great point of discussion internally and with clients when going into production, or even briefing for video content and TV – that the idea has to also be able to live vertically, and in a more “organic” and mobile way for platforms like Snapchat and Instagram. You can’t just slap up the TV spot to these platforms like you’ve been able to do with traditional pre-roll."
- Meg Riley, VP/Planning Director, UX Strategy
