Dive Brief:
- Instagram's ad user base is expanding beyond fashion and beauty with gaming companies lining up to try out the app's visual ad products.
- The social media platform opened its ad platform to a wider audience this summer and gaming companies have begun jumping into the mix.
- Instagram is an attractive ad network because it rides on the same ad tech of its parent company, Facebook.
Dive Insight:
Because Instagram is a visual social media experience for users, gaming ads are a natural fit for a platform better known for fashion ads. After the photo-sharing app opened its network to all marketers earlier this year, brands have been flocking to use its ad products.
The Facebook-owned app has become a highly-popular platform for digital ads with research by RBC Capital Markets and Advertising Age on marketers’ views of ad platforms finding that at 72%, Instagram was the most popular destination for ad budgets. A reason Instagram might be attractive for advertising is it recently hit the 400 million monthly user mark, and its ad platform is tied to Facebook's targeting and ad tech.
Mobile game developers such as Supercell, Gree, CrowdStar and Kabam have all signed on. Though the experience is much different than advertising on Facebook, data-driven gaming companies are seeing Instagram as the next challenge to meet.
Aland Failde, director of product marketing of gaming company Pocket Gems, told the Wall Street Journal, “People are there to consume content. And everyone on the platform is fundamentally a content creator. You have to come at if from a different angle.”
Failde said as of this point, Pocket Gems has seen a positive return from its Instagram ads.
