Facebook & Instagram Stories Ads. Advertisers continue to shift spending to Stories Ads, with more than 2 million brands active with the format across the Facebook ecosystem last year
According to recent research by Cowen & Company, the Stories Ads format shows no signs of losing popularity among digital marketers.
In 2018, 61% of senior ad buyers in the US earmarked at least part of their ad budget to Instagram Stories. That’s up from 49% in 2017. When it comes to total spend, however, it’s a different story. Only 31% of brands’ Instagram budgets was spent on Stories Ads in 2018, as compared to 69% on Newsfeed. This is likely due to Stories Ads still being a less expensive format. As such, brands that are active with Stories Ads now have an opportunity to capitalize on the value the format provides, before the platform improves its ability to monetize.
![Instagram Ad Budget Chart of Instagram ad budget: News feed vs Stories Ads](https://skai.io/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/244577.png)
What else is driving the popularity of this format? Its immersive, full-screen, vertical orientation gives brands a great canvas on which to engage consumers. And the audience is there: Instagram stories is now up to 500 million daily active users.
The explosive growth of this ad format can’t be overstated. Stories Ads have been available on Instagram since January of 2017, and only launched on Facebook last fall.
If you’re not yet taking advantage of this format, now is the time to act. Many of the hurdles associated with creating video ads—namely time and money—are easily cleared nowadays. Surprisingly, creating Stories Ads is easier and cheaper than ever if you leverage the right resources. And once you set out to tackle production, you’ll want to make sure you follow these creative best practices for Instagram Stories Ads.
Skai Social helps enterprise marketers to run campaigns more easily and effectively
Whether you’re looking to just get started with Stories Ads or to expand your program, the Skai Social tool can help. It offers a feature-rich technology platform that will give you greater capabilities, deeper insights, and more control than native tools alone, across your entire social marketing effort. Contact us for a demo today!