Facebook Inc.-owned Instagram is giving retailers and brands more room to highlight products, lifestyle images and videos in the ads that appear in Instagram Stories. Instagram Stories allow users and brands to post photos and videos that disappear after 24 hours.
Starting on Thursday, retailers can leverage Facebook’s Carousel Ad format within Instagram Stories. That enables brands to feature up to three pieces of content (photos or videos) per Stories ad. Advertisers were previously limited to a single photo or video per ad.
The ads are similar to other Stories content, which means that users can tap through, swipe back and forth or pause the content.
Gap Inc., No. 24 in the Internet Retailer 2017 Top 500, is among the retailers using the format.
“The captivating nature of Instagram Stories provides another platform for our consumers to experience the Logo Remix campaign,” says Craig Brommers, Gap’s chief marketing officer. “The campaign is all about paying homage to Gap logos of the past, while featuring some of today’s global culture remixers. We love using Instagram’s creative tools to add fun details to our creative, and the full-screen format of Instagram Stories makes it feel like you’re part of the remix.”
Ads in Instagram Stories on Instagram is a small, but quickly growing part of Facebook’s ad revenue, said Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, on Wednesday during a conference call with analysts. “The format is pretty exciting from a sales point of view because it has a lot of potential,” she said. “Its full screen is authentic [and] very engaging. So, the opportunity in the future for us is to combine the power of this new format with the targeting and measurement we offer. we think it’s going to be really powerful for both our business and the business of our clients. It’s early days, but I’m pretty optimistic about this.”