With only a few months into 2017, we’ve already witnessed ad changes amongst Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram – with many more ad updates to come that could alter your business. Are you prepared?
Ah, digital ads. The landscape of digital marketing evolves faster than you can mutter “PPC!” under your breath.
Previous years brought rapid advancements to digital advertising with the shift towards native ads, more structured PPC efforts + spend, and advertisements integrated into our favourite social media platforms:
Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat.
More channels than ever possess unique advertising possibilities; it’s important to know the ins-and-outs of each platform to ensure your brand maximizes their digital footprint with each move on each channel; conveying the right messaging towards your customers; resulting in better conversions and brand engagement.
Photo by Jaelynn Castillo on Unsplash
Quick Facts:
- 150 million people used Snapchat daily in 2016
- 41% of adults ages 18-34 use Snapchat daily
- $41 billion will be spent on advertising in 2017
- January 11th saw Facebook announce that brands will be able to advertise within the Instagram Stories section. Some companies that are already taking advantage of this news include Nike, Airbnb, Capital One, Nike and many more.
- Instagram introduced its Stories feature in August 2016. After just two months, BuzzFeed News reported that Instagram Stories were experiencing 100 million daily active viewers — this represents two thirds of Snapchat’s total user base, period.
- Facebook is the behemoth when it comes to social media ad revenues, bringing in more than $7 billion last year — 80% of which came from mobile ads.
- Instagram, on the other hand, is doubling down on ecommerce with the introduction of Shoppable Instagram, a feature that lets users buy products directly by clicking on a CTA in the app.
2017 is no exception to these rising trends! This year marks the beginning of unique updates to each social platform, opening up new possibilities for brand engagement and growth, including Snapchat’s deep-linking, Facebook Stories, mid-roll videos, and more.
Read onwards to get the jump on the ad updates planned for Snapchat, Instagram, and Facebook in 2017!
Snapchat’s Ad Updates: Deep-Linking+Auto-Fill
To say the least, it’s been an interesting year for Snapchat–especially with Instagram’s recent Story feature introduced in August 2016 that has been dominating social.
In January, Snapchat tested two features within their Snap Ads to help advertisers meet their targets and engage with users: deep-linking and web auto-fill.
Deep-linking allows advertisers to take users out of the app and into others; it’s similar to what Instagram does with it’s “Swipe Up!” request on stories to migrate to another platform and similar to what Snapchat already does with it’s Uber integration. If users don’t have the app requested, they’re redirected to the requisite download page.
Auto-fill takes advantage of user-signup information; leveraging that info to auto-complete forms for other ads that pull info from Snapchat: names, phone numbers, addresses, etc., to increase the likelihood of users engaging with ads that have their info pre-populated.
As a side note, Snapchat is following in the footsteps of Facebook with these ad features, since Facebook has already achieved massive success with them.
What’s The Story On Facebook Stories?
With the huge success of Instagram stories in a few short months, it’s a no-brainer that Facebook–now the owner of Instagram–would try to replicate their success in the form of Facebook Stories.
In fact, Facebook began testing their own Beta version of the stories feature in Ireland soon after Instagram launched their version in August 2016.
With brands preparing to advertise within the 24-hour Instagram story on a cost-per-thousand impression model, Facebook is likely to implement a similar model once Facebook Stories are made accessible worldwide.
Again, Facebook’s ownership of Instagram begs a number of questions: Will the two be integrated? Will there be a one-button feature to share your story to both platforms? How will Facebook’s success with the story feature compare to Instagram’s?
Facebook Mid-Roll Videos
If you haven’t been convinced already, let us reiterate: video within content marketing is dominating. Hard. Video right now–and for the coming years–is like the version of Kobe where he scores 81 points.
Every game.
The word-on-the-digital-street is that Facebook will introduce mid-roll video ads to compete with YouTube and maximize their video advertising revenue; the idea is that advertisers will have their ads appearing in the middle of content after users have engaged for a minimum of 20 seconds. There are a few requirements to be met for mid-roll ad implementation, though:
- Publisher’s video content needs to be 90 seconds in length minimum
- Video ads need to be 15 seconds in length
- No 30-second ads for mid-roll!
Some see it as a potential boon, while some see it as a shrewd move; publishers have 55% of sales–similar to the YouTube model–but some sources are concerned that mid-roll videos might be intrusive and reduce overall engagement.
Although Facebook has the highest reach among any platform, there has been trouble with monetizing the engagement from video content, which is where mid-roll videos are supposed to come into play.
In any case, time and data will tell how mid-roll ads perform.
Shop Till’ You Drop With Instagram
For advertisers, one of the biggest issues with Instagram was the initial difficulty the platform presented for users to engage in ecommerce efforts without multiple, cumbersome steps.
With their announcement of Shoppable Instagram, they’re taking the massive engagement rates they have among all platforms (58x more likely to engage with branded content on Instagram compared to Facebook and 120x more likely compared to Twitter) and marrying it with eCommerce.
Pair that with Instagram’s mobile-first approach, and you’re looking at a serious Kobe-scoring-81-points type of domination within the digital space for 2017.
Take for example Michael Kors first Instagram ad series, garnering them almost 40’000 new followers due to very specific targeting. With advertisers like Nike, Apple, and Adidas beginning to advertise in the story section, the future for Instagram’s ad updates looks bright.
What are your thoughts on 2017’s ad updates? Anything you’ve had your eye on as the next big ad update to make a wave in the digital pond?
