And just when you were starting to get bored of all your other ways of marketing to millennials. The newest way of advertising on Instagram: Stories Ads.
That’s right, earlier this month Instagram announced that ads in stories are now available to all Facebook and Instagram advertisers. Now, when you select the objective “Reach” on Power Editor and Ads Manager, you’ll be able to serve your ads to Instagram stories. Note, that ads in Instagram stories are only available when you select the reach objective. Instagram has currently not specified whether or not they will expand the stories placement to all of their objectives. But hey, we’ll take it.
Here’s How to use Instagram Story Ads
The reach objective allows you to show your ads to the maximum amount of people in your audience, and to control how frequently they see them. When posting your ads within Instagram stories, it’s important to remember this is the only objective that supports this so far. When you chose “Automatic Placement,” Facebook only serves your ads to the placements they are eligible for. So, if you haven’t selected “Reach,” then your ads aren’t eligible for the Instagram stories placement. You can also choose the “Edit Placements” option and select where your ads are placed specifically yourself. But again, if you haven’t chosen to optimize reach, then Instagram won’t show up as one of your placement options.
And, here’s whose been using them already
Ads in Instagram stories will be full screen, 10-15 seconds long videos. In January, Instagram let over 30 global companies, including Nike, Netflix, and arguably most notable, Airbnb, test ads within stories. Let’s just say, the results definitely did not disappoint. During this little test run, Airbnb ran a campaign to build some buzz around their largest new product launch, “Experiences.” With this campaign, Airbnb reported a double-digit point increase in ad recall and a pretty significant lift in overall brand awareness, too. So, needless to say, it’s working for them.
Ads for Instagram Stories have been rolling out since March 1st, and should be available globally within the next three weeks. So, if you don’t have access yet, definitely keep an eye out for this.
