We introduced ads on Instagram on November 1 and today we’re sharing results from some of our first sponsored campaigns in the home feed on mobile. Ads on Instagram are designed to support brands focused on reaching large audiences with memorable, high quality content. We think this aligns with the way people and brands already use Instagram – sharing photos and videos that capture a moment, inspire others, or shift perceptions. For this analysis, we focused on metrics such as reach, ad recall, and awareness, which reflect the value and effectiveness of brand campaigns, rather than on social metrics such as comments, likes and followers.

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Results from the first four completed Instagram campaigns:

Reach

  • All four initial ad campaigns measured were successful at delivering the broad reach our advertisers were seeking
  • The marketers achieved a high impact with a very low average frequency of ad impressions per user
  • Levi’s reached 7.4 million people in the U.S. across a nine-day period, targeting people aged 18-34
  • Ben & Jerry’s reached 9.8 million people in the U.S. over eight days, targeting people aged 18-35

Ad Recall

  • Across the four campaigns, there was a 32-point incremental lift in ad recall per campaign for people who were repeatedly exposed to a particular campaign versus control groups

Awareness

  • Across the four campaigns, there was a ten-point incremental lift in brand message awareness per campaign for people who were repeatedly exposed to a particular campaign versus control groups
  • In particular, seventeen percent of people who saw a single ad for Ben & Jerry’s Scotchy Scotch Scotch-flavored ice cream not only became aware of the new flavor, they also associated it with the brand

Read full case studies for two of the four initial campaigns, Ben & Jerry’s and Levi’s.

While these initial results are promising, we believe that early campaigns may benefit from an overall increase in awareness of ads on Instagram due to their recent introduction. We will continue to optimize our ad products to make them successful for marketers and a great experience for people on Instagram. We’ll share additional case studies and results periodically in the future.

As we emphasized when introducing ads, our goal is to make them enjoyable, engaging and natural to Instagram, so we started by partnering with brands that were already great members of the community. We’ll continue to work closely with marketers to maintain the quality content people expect to see on Instagram.