Instagram ‘Enhancing’ Ads To Up Interaction

In what has been, thus far, a rapid and persistent push for greater monetization in 2016, Instagram has continually been rolling out new upgrades to its ad platform, hoping to make said ads more desirable for their virtual army of users, lucrative for their advertisers and a growing revenue stream for itself.

This week has seen the latest run in upgrades to the Instagram platform. Four new features are going out and live with the hopes of upping revenue stream.

What is changing on Instagram?

Call-to-action buttons are getting a more central placement. The response areas in Instagram ads that get retailers to drive consumers to wherever they most want them to go: to their eCommerce site, to install their mobile app or (the classic) to a place where they can complete a purchase.

The ad “enhancements” will be rolling out in the next few months and are designed to make it that much more likely users will choose to interact with an ad.

Upgrades will include more actions that will “summon” a call-to-action button, like resting on an ad for an extended period or tapping into an advertiser’s profile from an ad. Said buttons will also be updated with any additional information Instagram can find, like price, destination URL or app store rating, and it will automatically add that information to the call-to-action button.

Users who unmute video ads will be taken to a advertiser’s desired URL, while the video continues to play at the top of the screen.

The moves come to buttress changes Instagram put into effect in June to make the call-to-action buttons larger and more easily accessed. Instagram reported a 45 percent uptick in user interaction since the initial change.