Instagram ads: it’s all about content personalization

Since its foundation Instagram has shown its potential as a critical marketing channel and throughout the years it has become the most relevant social platform for fashion and luxury brands. The social media has completely changed the way ad works; as a matter of facts, nowadays success is less about paying for ad pages in a magazine and more about catching customers’ attention where they spend time, that is to say on social media.

Two years and a half ago Instagram introduced the direct-response format for the US market ads, giving the opportunity to a handful of brands like Levi’s and Banana Republic to target their audience by gender, age and country. This was the path to follow to create a real and effective “conversational engagement”, as James Quarles, Instagram CEO, said. He also added that “making ads more relevant and delivering them to the right target was the next stage of development”.



Recently, Instagram introduced new media buying functions with Instagram partner program, promoting advanced retargeting and content personalization functions. Its partnership with some of the most important agencies in the US, such as SocialCode or Resolution Media, gives brands the chance to retarget visitors to their websites through personalized and dynamics ads on the social network. Indeed, with new dynamic ads, they can promote relevant products to shoppers who have browsed their website or mobile app.

What’s next? Instagram could represent a perfect bridge to drive costumers from the online channels into stores, increasing sales and defining a more and more complete profile of the customer. The emergence of the “see now-buy now” trend in supply chain could represent the chance for the social network to connect the launch of runway capsules and the “instant shopping gratification”, according to customers’ preferences.