PMG Social Pros Talk About Instagram Dynamic Ads

Following on the heels of Facebook’s success with Dynamic Product Ads, Instagram is now dipping their toes in the water. With the recent announcement of an algorithm change that will re-order content based on what you’re likely to engage with, brands will now have the opportunity to expand their Dynamic Product Ad programs into the Instagram newsfeed.

With something so new and innovative, you’re probably wondering, “what’s the catch?”

At PMG, we specialize in gathering insights, analyzing paid social data, and providing countless learnings across all social platforms for a multitude of brands. We are paid social fanatics and are always on the lookout for new and exciting ways to advertise on any social media platform.

Here are a few predictions of possible challenges that might come along with this release:

 Cost efficiencies within Instagram vs Facebook

Due to scale and social interaction across Facebook, we tend to see better cost efficiencies when comparing Facebook to Instagram.

We have seen that Facebook drives a much higher CTR, thus bringing the overall CPC’s down lower than what we see on paid Instagram. Facebook generates more than double the click through rates than what we are seeing on Instagram, with much more efficient CPCs.

 Watering Down the Instagram Vision

Instagram currently holds a strong position as a pure engagement platform – and a way to showcase your own, beautiful, inspiring images. As Instagram is slowly progressing toward an advertising platform, a possible challenge that they might face is battling their former reputation of displaying strictly user generated content.

Advertisers will need to ensure that the product images they are serving in dynamic product ads feel more native – no more white background product images that feel unnatural to the Instagram feed.

 Slow adoption by user

With the dynamic product ads on Instagram, users will need to adjust to a few things:

Seeing images within their feed that do not feel native to the platform (ex. A product instead of a beautiful Instagram shot) be user education.

Currently, Instagrammers aren’t clicking through as often – thus advertisers will need users to change this behavior in order to give DPA’s a chance to survive.

However, we feel that the Instagram DPA’s are ushering in a new era of Instagram – one that may move away from the original vision, but can give consumers new opportunities to engage with a brand, and shop relevant products:

The introduction of DPAs will help Instagram become a well-considered platform for advertisers.

DPAs on Instagram is a step in the right direction to begin training users to shop on Instagram.

Even if it takes some getting used to before Instagram will be a consistent source of revenue for brands, DPAs will still create product awareness.

All in all, we’re super excited about this. Our prediction is that after initial user backlash settles, that the relevancy of surfacing highly targeted imagery will move Instagram forward as a revenue driver for brands.

Love,

The Social Pros of PMG