Ads, Ads, and More Ads - Social Media is Blowing Up | Wallaroo Media
social ads blowing up

There’s a reason we’re focusing on social media advertising at Wallaroo. That’s because the space is blowing up, and budgets are shifting to digital at an exponential rate.

In order to keep up with demand, social platforms are iterating faster than ever before on their respective advertising platforms. In the last week, there have been significant improvements and new features from every major player. Here are the highlights:

 

Instagram

Instagram’s shoppable tags are popping up in Stories, first reported by TechCrunch. Beginning last week, hitting a little shopping bag sticker in a Story will lead you to more details on the product and allow you to buy it quickly.

In a press release about the new feature, Instagram shared the following:

“With 300M using Instagram Stories everyday, people are increasingly finding new products from brands they love. In a recent survey, Instagrammers said they often watch stories to stay in the-know with brands they’re interested in, get an insider view of products they like, and find out about new products that are relevant to them.”

instagram shopping tags

 

Reddit

On the heels of officially becoming the 3rd most popular website in the US, Reddit announcedit’s bringing autoplay native video ads to desktop and mobile. The social network has 330 million monthly active users and video is growing at a 23% month-over-month clip, so the site should not be ignored by advertisers. “We have an opportunity to business-build,” Reddit VP of Brand Partnerships Zubair Jandali told TechCrunch. “Reddit has remarkable product-market fit on the consumer side and we’ve not layered a business on top of it. There aren’t a lot of opportunities that tend to come around like that.”

 

Pinterest

Pinterest recently held a big event with the purpose of wooing more ad buyers. They are beefing up their insights and analytics offerings. The head of market development Vikram Bhaskaran had this to say:

“This data is not abstract. It’s real data on people’s lives. This is the database on identity and intent. Amazon might know about intent, but they don’t know who you are.”

A slide in his presentation described Facebook and Instagram as “I hosted a party,” Twitter and Snapchat as “I am currently hosting a party,” and Pinterest as “I am going to host a party.”

 

Snapchat

Snapchat is working hard to build out its commerce offering within the platform. Its partnering with SeatGeek, Nike, and other brands to allow Snapchat users to check out right in the app. This new offering will surely increase conversion rates for products (and hopefully ad buys for Snapchat).

 

Google

Not to be outdone, Google recently flexed its muscles as well. It has introduced a handful of new advertising options. Get the full rundown here. The new offerings include online-to-offline ads, location extensions on YouTube, local catalog ads in Display, local feed partnership program, and more.

Author

Brandon Doyle

CEO + Founder