Female users in the US will see the ad regardless of whether they follow the designer
It's official: Instagram now has ads, and the first one appeared Friday courtesy of fashion designer Michael Kors.
A colorful image of a luxury watch sitting on a table appeared on the photo-sharing app Friday, an Instagram spokesman confirmed. It was shown to women in the U.S., regardless of whether they were following the brand.
Instagram began testing ads last week, but the Michael Kors post is the first branded advertisement to officially run on the service. More ads are on the way, Instagram said, but the company did not specify when or how often.
Facebook bought Instagram last year for roughly US$ 1 billion, when the app had practically zero revenue. Since then Facebook has made significant progress in monetizing its own site on mobile, and Instagram appears to be its next area of focus. The aforementioned ad trial on the app encompassed 10 different companies, Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg said earlier this week during the company's third-quarter earnings call.
Ads on Instagram will be labeled as such with the word "Sponsored" in the upper-right corner. By clicking on the "..." in the lower-right corner, users can hide the ad after it appears, and provide feedback to Instagram about what they didn't like about it. This feedback, according to Instagram, will let the app deliver more relevant ads to users.
Friday's ad is a still photograph, but ads will also appear on Instagram in video form. The ads will be designed to fit in naturally with people's feeds, Instagram and Facebook have said. "Ads should fit the format of the product they're part of," Facebook's Sandberg recently said.
Compared to Facebook's 1.19 billion monthly active users, Instagram is small, with 150 million active users, according to Facebook. But the app's popularity is strong, so it could become a lucrative place for ads, if Facebook doesn't drive away users in the process.
Zach Miners covers social networking, search and general technology news for IDG News Service. Follow Zach on Twitter at @zachminers. Zach's e-mail address is zach_miners@idg.com
While approaching a customer in a shop and asking what you can help them with is Retail 101, how many of us actually enjoy being approached? Generally, you have to give the forced, fake smile and say, “Just browsing, thanks,” while screaming on the inside, “just leave me alone!” Maybe it’s just me?
Not a day passes by in the life of business executives where digital innovation or the prospect of disruption is not front of mind. This in turn, drives an unrelenting flow of questioning, discussion and strategy papers.
Unless you’ve been marketing under a rock, you’ll probably have questioned whether your media agencies are offering you transparency.
In Episode 10 of this new podcast series, BrandHook MD, Pip Stocks, talks with Country Road GM of brand and customer experience, Col Kennedy, about how brands enabling teams to support the customer no matter what they want to achieve is vital to the engagement equation.
Nice post Brad! very useful information. The retail stores are really mean for every brand I am agree with you. Now Online Service Market...
Srialto
The rise of online retail marketplaces and what they mean for brands
Minor correct Nadia, just wanted to clarify that the "Marketo consultants" that did this work, were actually Hoosh consultants
Fab Capodicasa
What it's taking for Edible Blooms to grow a stronger personalisation strategy
Im not surprise though, been in the industry for couple of years and I feel and see it with my tow eyes how eCommerce platforms innovated...
Jason Smith
Australia Post earmarks $20m for Australian ecommerce innovation investment
For marketers that are "going Agile" I recommend using Ravetree. It's a really powerful suite of tools for Agile project management, reso...
Janice Morgan
7 ways to run your marketing department like a software startup
Over the years very part of our lives has become technological. That’s why I am not surprised to see that Australian home loans are going...
GreatDayTo
Why Aussie Home Loans is embracing digital transformation