Dive Brief:
- Facebook-owned Instagram has reached 200,000 active advertisers this month, according to a blog post from the social media platform, surpassing Twitter’s 130,000 active advertisers from Q4 2015, but still trailing Facebook’s 2.5 million advertisers.
- Instagram has been building its advertiser base since it opened up its platform to some advertisers in June 2015 and all advertisers later that year.
- After conducting a user survey, Instagram found that 60% of its users learn about products and services on the network, and 75% of users "take action after being inspired by an Instagram post—like visiting a website, searching, shopping or telling a friend."
Dive Insight:
Instagram has only been actively building its advertiser base since mid-2015, but it's already put Twitter and its active advertiser numbers in the rearview mirror.
Instagram has rolled out numerous new ad formats in the last six months to help marketers reach consumers. It also shares an ad platform with parent company Facebook, which makes it easy for marketers to execute campaigns across the two networks.
James Quarles, Instagram’s head of global advertising, told Venture Beat that the Facebook relationship helped the social media network grow its user base and ultimately attract advertisers.
"People can be creative in using the two together and run things across both platforms," he said. "That really hasn’t existed much in the marketing world.”
Instagram, an image and video sharing social media platform, is also benefiting from the popularity of mobile video ad formats.
