Instagram posted information titled: “Promote Upcoming Launches And Reach More People With New Instagram Ads”. In my opinion, nobody wants to have their Instagram feed filled with ads – especially if those ads are irrelevant to the user. I guess this is how Instagram is attempting to make more money.
The information from Instagram starts with: People comes to Instagram to discover new brands, products, or upcoming events. Today, we’re introducing two new ad products that give businesses more ways to get discovered and from meaningful connections – Reminder ads and ads in search results.
Reminder Ads
We recently partnered with brands such as Starz to test a new ad format that makes it easier for businesses to announce, remind, and notify people of future events or launches that they might be interested in.
Reminder ads, rolling out to all advertisers as an option in feed, help advertisers build awareness, anticipation, and consideration for upcoming moments. People can opt into convenient reminders and receive three notifications from Instagram one day before, 15 minutes before, and at the time of the event.
Ads in Search Results
We’re also beginning to test ads in search results to reach people actively searching for businesses, products and content. Ads will show up in the feed that people can scroll when they tap into a post from search results. We plan to launch this placement globally in the coming months.
The Verge reported while Instagram’s post vaguely states the ads will “reach people actively searching for businesses, products and content,” company spokesperson Shenny Barboza has since confirmed to The Verge that “ads will show up for search terms that fall within our community and recommendation guidelines.” That means we could potentially see ads on all the searches that meet those criteria.
According to The Verge, Instagram has only been adding more and more ads over the years, which now populate the platform’s Explore page, Explore feeds, Reels, Stories, and even user profiles. Emma Roth, writing for The Verge, stated “I can’t say I’m surprised that Instagram’s bringing them to search result feeds as well, but I will be mourning the loss of yet another part of the platform where my scrolling isn’t interrupted by ads.”
TechCrunch reported that once the ad placement rolls out widely, users around the world will start to see ads related to their searches. For example, if you search for “Skin Care”, you will see relevant ads within the search results feed. You can tell the difference between ads and regular posts through a “Sponsored” label under the account’s name.
According to TechCrunch, these new tools serve to boost the company’s ability to pull in revenue at a time when Meta has been seeing declining ad sales. As part of its Q4 2022 earning results, Meta revealed last month that its ad revenue fell to $31.2 billion from $32.6 billion in the same quarter last year.
TechCrunch also wrote that after Meta reported its first-ever quarterly revenue decline in Q2 2022 amid declining ad sales, the company increased its ad load on Instagram with the launch of two new ad slots. Meta launched a new ad format for Facebook Reels, and started allowing advertisers to run ads on the Explore home page and in profile feeds.
Personally, if it turns out that the plethora of ads Instagram posts is more than I’d like, I will definitely consider removing my art from Instagram and deleting Instagram itself. Instagram/Meta is taking huge risk that current users will leave the platform rather than having deal with so many ads.