Popular photography application Instagram is foraying into the world of performance advertising by introducing clickable links and carousel ads that offer deeper content and a story feel.

With more than 300 million users, Instagram is an easy choice for advertisers. However, in the past the app has lacked the ability to click on brand ads.

?There is a growing trend towards mobile ads being performance based,? said Esha Shah, manager of mobile and strategy at Fetch, San Francisco. ?They must inspire some kind of action or lead to a greater experience that can impact engagement or ROI.

?The carousel ad format still sticks to the image-based format Instagram initially came out with, but now brands can incorporate more into the stories they are trying to tell,? she said. ?They can also include links to inspire more interaction with the ad and include a more solid call to action.?

Instagram is an app available for all mobile devices and can also be accessed online. Users are able to upload and edit pictures by adding filters, captions and hashtags.

The carousel feature will allow advertisers to add multiple pictures on one post. Similar to a slideshow, consumers can scroll through if they wish to see more, but move on if they are not interested. 

In addition, a clickable See More feature will be added to the right-hand corner of the ad, taking consumers to the advertiser's Web site.  

Instagram carousel ad and clickable link

Such functionality lets advertisers create a unit that tells a story instead of just a single picture and caption. 

For an example, Instagram explained that a fashion brand would be able to post multiple products from an individual look. Users can click on a link if they want to know more. 

?We've designed this format of carousel ads to be an extension of our current brand offering of photo and video ads,? said a spokesperson from Instagram. ?Carousel ads give brands more flexibility in telling their stories by allowing people who view their ads to swipe left for additional images and eventually link to a mobile site from the brand. 

?Brands can use this sequence of photos to tell a more comprehensive story, giving people a richer, deeper connection with the brand. The link gives people the opportunity to learn even more about the brand outside of Instagram as a continuation of that brand story.

?Campaigns with carousel ads will work the same way those for photo and video ads do: they are broad-reach campaigns with the goal of driving brand awareness or affinity.?

Brand names currently working with Instagram have not yet been released. 

The introduction of these features makes a huge change in advertising on Instagram.

Brands jumped on the bandwagon when it quickly became apparent how popular Instagram had gotten. Also, Creating social media accounts is a cheap and easy way for marketers to reach consumers. 

The problem with Instagram was a lack of clickable links in posts. Brands eventually learned to add links in the biography page of the app but this was multiple clicks away.

Indeed, individual posts show up in a personalized newsfeed per user with the bio feature located pages away. Consumers had to go far out of their way to see more of something that caught their interest. 

This was true for sponsored posts and advertisers as well. The only difference between an advertisement and a user post was an icon indicating that the image was sponsored. 

Even though many people were exposed to these ads, there was not an easy flow of traffic from Instagram to outside Web sites.

?With carousel ads, Instagram is addressing two needs that they were hearing from their community," the Instagram spokesperson said. 

"Brands advertising on Instagram wanted more ways to tell more complete stories around their brands, and the Instagram community, as a whole, wanted the ability to learn more about the brand, image or product featured in an ad.? 

These new features are exclusive to sponsored posts enticing companies to become advertisers with Instagram rather than just making accounts. 

Instagram is introducing these ads on a limited basis. It will make changes based on the responses that these sponsored posts receive. 

The app originally launched with users in mind with the absence of advertisers. But monetization became key for Instagram to grow as a business.

For a social media app, adding ads is becoming inevitable. But Instagram claims it does not want to scare its users off with an influx of advertisements, so its leaving control to consumers. 

The option to hide an ad is available on each post. Users are also able to provide feedback. 

Employees of Instagram will be documenting what consumers say and be able to further develop the ads. 

Mercedes-Benz has been a consistent sponsor of Instagram and committed to the app due to the ability to post emotional imagery (see more).

?Currently, Instagram ads are extremely expensive and therefore limited only to large brands,? Fetch's Ms. Shah said. ?By allowing more than one image in the carousel ad format, brands can offer more content and tell a bigger story. 

?More imagery allows users to connect with a brand on a deeper level and allows more for ways viewers can engage with the brand,? she said. ?In addition, having clickable links allows for a more effective metric to track KPIs, measuring engagement beyond just impressions.

?Instagram can position itself as a more valuable platform to advertise on by providing more of a way for its advertisers to track engagement/KPIs via links and Webpages. This type of unit will attract more advertisers who may previously have been wary about the effectiveness of advertising on Instagram due to lack of metrics and to measure effectiveness of cost. Instagram is entering into the world of brand performance advertising.?