Instagram Is Starting To Offer Clickable Carousel Ads

In its latest move to expand the company’s money-making advertising features, Instagram is starting to roll out its new “carousel ads” to a limited set of advertising partners in the United States. The new ads will allow brands to post multiple images, which users can scroll through by swiping their finger across the phone’s screen. Perhaps the most important feature of this new ad type is that it provides marketers with the ability to link outside of Instagram for the first time, by using a “Learn More” button.

On Instagram’s blog post, the company explained that the idea is to match the multi-page ad campaigns found in print magazines. For example, an auto dealership will be able to highlight various features of a new car, with multiple images, while including a link to a website with additional product information.

“Instagram helps brands share stories through imagery,” wrote the company on its blog post. “And since we began offering a way for advertisers to reach people on Instagram in 2013, we’ve heard from marketers that they want to tell sequenced stories in beautiful, compelling ways that lead to meaningful results for their businesses.”

One of Instagram’s shortcomings as an ad tool has been the lack of ability for advertisers to include clickable links within posts on the platform, so marketers will certainly welcome the new ability to drive traffic to their own websites from Instagram ads. Although some businesses have used workarounds to help with this problem in the past by directing users to their Instagram profiles, being able to include links to external sites will greatly improve the promotional value of the platform for marketers.

“We’ve also received feedback from the Instagram community that they are interested in learning more about a brand or product after they have been inspired by a sponsored photo or video,” the company explained.

Instagram is known to roll out new advertising features slowly, and the company is continuing that strategy with its latest offering. “In the coming weeks, you may see carousel ads and might notice variations of the format as we learn what people are most interested in and what performs best,” wrote the company on its blog post.

James Quarles, Instagram’s global head of business and brand development, said that despite the addition of links, the new format is aimed at brand advertisers as opposed to direct-response ones. It’s not necessarily intended to drive app downloads or web-based transactions, but instead is meant to drive awareness and “inspiration”. To meet this intension, the ads will be sold on a cost-per-impression basis as opposed to cost-per-click.

Instagram’s announcement comes at the same time as reports of the company’s significant growth in recent times. According to market tracker eMarketer, the number of U.S. Instagram users climbed last year to 64.2 million, indicating growth of almost 60 percent in comparison to the prior year. Based on these numbers, the company is now the second most used social media service in the United States, now exceeding Twitter, which ended the year with 48.4 million U.S. users, or growth of 12.1 percent from the previous year. Facebook remains the leading social media platform in the U.S., with 152.4 million users, indicating growth of 3.4 percent.