Instagram has switched on its advertising API (application programming interface), letting mobile marketers buy ads and planning their marketing on the social networking app in a more automated way.
Previously brands had to talk to Instagram sales people directly, meaning that advertising on the photo sharing network was limited to those with big budgets and plenty of time to negotiate.
With the ads API, brands and agencies will now be able to schedule their campaigns on Instagram in the same way as they do on Facebook and Twitter, coordinating their efforts and getting analytics on how they’re performing.
Using third party software that they may also use to manage other digital or social advertising such as Facebook and paid search advertising.
Instagram mobile ad revenues are predicted to reach $2.81bn worldwide in 2017 according to eMarketer.
Kenshoo is one of a select few Facebook Marketing Partners granted initial access to the Instagram Ads API.
“Kenshoo has been a proven partner with our Facebook advertising, and was the first company to come to us with access to Instagram’s inventory,” said Matt Casertano, SGN’s SVP of Game Operations. “The results have already exceeded our expectations, driving tens of thousands of installs through the API in the first three weeks.”
“We’ve been really pleased with the link click performance we’ve seen from the initial test. We assumed that the broadening of Instagram’s ad product offering was going to lead to new positive outcomes for advertisers, but the lack of a clickable experience within Instagram to date had us projecting only modest success in response to this new feature. Instead, the early returns are fantastic,” said Maikel O’Hanlon, VP, social media strategy for Horizon Media.