Instagram introduces search ads to its platform

The company began testing its latest addition to the app's ad load in March.

Instagram has made a new search ad format widely available to brands and advertisers using its social platform.

Search ads will not appear as separated content at the top of a list of results, as they might on a search engine or ecommerce site. When an Instagram user taps into an organic post from their search term, they are taken to a scroll-able feed of posts matching their results; search ads will appear as a post within this feed, featuring the same “sponsored” tag used for other ads on the platform.

Instagram first began testing search ads in March, saying it was a way to reach users as they actively searched for businesses, products and content. The format is now widely accessible to advertisers through the Instagram Marketing API, and is available immediately without an upgrade. It also has access to the same features as other ads within the API, including creation, previews and performance insights.

Parent company Meta has been increasing the ad load on Instagram over the last 12 months, both as a way to reverse declining ad revenues and to make up for its focus on the Reels short-form video format, which the company has said is a harder product to monetize.

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