Instagram Has 200,000 Advertisers Now

Instagram has announced that it now has 200,000 monthly active advertisers. To put things into perspective, a year ago, Facebook said that it had more than 2 million active advertisers. Meanwhile, Twitter says it has 130,000.

The 200,000 monthly active advertisers are paying to reach out to Instagram’s 400-million-plus monthly active users. The company opened its self-service ad platform last September and among the advertisers, the vast majority are small and medium-sized businesses.

The photo-sharing service announced the figures through an official post on Instagram For Business.

“Last September, we opened up advertising to businesses of all sizes around the world. As a result, we now have more than 200,000 advertisers reaching customers on Instagram with ads that spark the various interests of our community—whether it’s selling concert tickets, increasing downloads of a mobile gaming app or building awareness of a small business for book lovers.”

Twitter said it had 130,000 advertisers, four years after opening its self-serve ad platform. Meanwhile, the Facebook-owned app has been able to achieve better figures much sooner than Twitter.

However, perhaps the most remarkable thing about the number of advertisers on Instagram is the fact that this photo-sharing service owned by Facebook only had a few hundred advertisers until very recently. The much smaller advertiser number was reported in June 2015.

One thing to take note of here is Instagram’s built-in advantage, which has been helping it expand its advertiser numbers in a very quick manner. Facebook has a very large advertiser base of around 2.5 million through which it can easily tack on the purchase of Instagram ads.

“Much of that growth has been international — Instagram’s ad program expanded globally five months ago, and James Quarles, Instagram’s head of business and brand development, told me that 75 percent of advertisers are outside the United States”, wrote Anthony Ha of TechCrunch.

“For example, Instagram points pointed to German supermarket Rewe, which ran a campaign that resulted in a 37 percent improvement in ad recall. There’s also Brazilian e-commerce company PetLove, whose campaign saw a 30 percent lower cost per install compared to other online channels,” Ha added.

Quarles also signaled Instagram as a great place for advertisers to reach consumers and influence their behavior. In a recent user survey, 60 percent of respondents said they know about products and services through Instagram. Meanwhile, 75 percent said they take action after seeing by an Instagram post. The use of Instagram as a search engine has also been on the increase recently for users to find nearby products and services.

Among the top 100 Facebook advertisers, ninety-eight are also on Instagram. “We recommend that businesses be both on Facebook and on Instagram — it’s the same back end, but a different storefront,” said Quarles.

All these sound good for advertisers and marketers, but what about a regular Instagram user? Are they going to see more ads in the coming days?

Quarles said that’s not essentially the case, since just having more advertisers doesn’t necessarily mean more ads.

“A bigger, more diverse group of advertisers can improve the user experience, since you’re more likely to see ads that are relevant to your interests. The number of ads you see is ‘commensurate with amount of time spent on Instagram,’ and Instagram has been working with businesses to help them ‘find their visual voice’ so that the ads are high quality and effective.”

With Facebook’s huge advertiser base and Instagram’s recently launched 60-second video ads, Instagram is expected to make a positive impact on Facebook’s bottom line.

[Image via Pixabay]