Instagram's advertising product has received a significant upgrade that will appeal to travel marketers of all kinds: it's called Carousel Ads, and is similar to the recently introduced Snapchat product Sequenced Stories which allows brands to tell multi-image stories.
Rather than one image sitting in the standard Instagram scroll, small buttons will appear below ads with multiple images. Users can then swipe to experience the other images, with a final screen featuring a call-to-action that promises to create an actual conversion funnel for advertising on the visual photography medium that is Instagram.
The company says that its trying to replicate the feeling of a multi-page magazine spread with the inherent tracking advantages that a digital experience provides. This is how it looks:
https://vimeo.com/121179555
Instagram has already been a test bed for innovations, such as booking hotels via images from Conrad Hotels. The applications for marketers using Carousel Ads are many, such as:
- Hotels can sequence a series of images that showcase specific parts of the hotel, which could then be targeted to different demographics. For example, foodies might only be shown images of on-property F&B while the fashion set might be shown design shots. The final screen could then push an actual booking, especially if the targeted nature of the platform is leverage to ensure peak relevance. These sorts of promotions could be especially effective at selling rooms during special events — target those who went to Coachella last year with rooms for this year, for example.
- Airlines could highlight one destination per ad, specifically focusing on a special deal or great fare. The images could focus on different aspects of the experience depending on the user targeting, and then could link off to take advantage of the fare. This could also be a new way to promote last minute travel to social media users.
- Restaurants could showcase several dishes and then offer a quick way for the user to make a reservation. This could be especially useful with geo-targeting or looking at users who had just posted from the airport, and thus might be in the market for a restaurant during the visit.
- Tour operators and other in-destination providers can showcase specifics of a tour and then offer bookings on the final page.
Of course, the viability of these units for travel depends greatly on the cost, which is dependent on engagement. If the conversions are low, then the unit — regardless of how visually interesting it is — may not be financially viable for travel marketing.
At the moment, the ad format doesn't include videos or the ability to re-share the content. Instagram says it will be monitoring user interactions with the new advertising to determine how it will be evolved in the near future.