As reported in certain online outlets this week, Instagram will now allow new advertisers in certain regions to create Instagram advertising campaigns without having to link to Facebook pages.
What Instagram Said:
“You can now create Instagram ads without having a presence on Facebook. If you are promoting a post from your Instagram business account for the first time, you won’t have to connect to a Facebook ad account or Facebook Page.”
Keep in mind that this is for NEW ADVERTISERS only. Most Instagram advertisers have already connected their profiles to Facebook Ad Manager as required, and these businesses now do not have to choose to disconnect their Instagram profiles from their Facebook Page and can still serve ads.
Companies that do choose to advertise only on Instagram cannot manage them through their Facebook advertising accounts. Instead, they must run ad campaigns directly on Instagram and track their effectiveness.
To promote Instagram Post independent of Facebook, advertisers need to:
Now What?
- Tap the post they’d like to promote
- Below the post’s image, tap ‘Promote.’
- Fill in the details of their promotion by setting things like ‘Destination’, ‘Audience’, ‘Budget’, and ‘Duration.’
- Tap ‘Next’ once details have been completed
- Tap ‘Create Promotion’ under ‘Review’
Instagram pointed out that this option is only available to new Instagram advertisers in the US and Turkey at this stage.
Facebook seems to have spent years to ensure business connections between Instagram and Facebook accounts, and all promotional activities are conducted through a centralized platform.
Some people speculate that the recent strong opposition to social networks is behind this new update due to failure to address hate speech concerns.
Last week, a coalition of civil rights organizations in the United States called on major advertisers to suspend their advertising spending on Facebook in July to send a message to the company that its lack of action was not good enough.
This highlights the potential cause of this split-if Facebook starts to recoil on its policy decisions, even if Instagram is owned by Facebook, Instagram does not necessarily have to lose to the association.
Reason Behind It?
Instagram said that this was not the reason for the change and saying that it has been in development for several months.
However, it isn’t easy to imagine any other logic behind this option, especially as mentioned above, because Facebook has been pushing advertisers to link their Facebook and Instagram presence. Establishing such links has excellent benefits for Facebook, including improved data tracking, target-oriented benefits, integrated features, etc. Splitting them seems to require a lot of back-end work-but then again, maybe Facebook is just ensuring that its function is to maximize advertising revenue by removing the Facebook Page connection as a requirement.
Either way, it is only available in the United States and Turkey, and there are no plans for further expansion.
Takeaway
Instagram is regarded as the company’s greatest hope for continued growth in advertising revenue, so it needs to be protected. This change did not do this, but it does indicate that this may be the inner thought of Facebook’s revenue strategist.