Instagram Reels Ads: Early Insights
Have you heard?
Instagram Reels Ads are now rolled out globally, but it’s a slow adoption so far.
Are they the digital marketing savior we’ve been looking for? No.
Are they a solid option for scaling and investing in for the future? Yes.
We’ve now been testing Reels ads for just over a month in some accounts and have some early learnings to share.
CPMs = super low. This means that these placements are great for awareness and cheap wide reach. Engagement is also quite high, which makes sense for the platform, as likes, comments, and other clickable features in Reels are easy and intuitive.
CTRs = not great (yet). Keep in mind that while Reels ads are new to advertisers, seeing ads in-feed is also new to users. It will take time for users to adopt ads and to see them as a real method for shopping like they do with Instagram Stories (which also had advertising adoption very similar).
Unlike other placements for ads, Reels is not a part of Auto Placements, and can only be used when running as a Reels-only placement, or in conjunction with Instagram Stories. Due to the newness of Reels and the need to test in individual accounts to determine if they’re worth using moving forward, we suggest not combining with Stories as placements.
Also unlike other ad placements, Instagram Reels content really needs to be Reels content only. No more one-size-fits-all for this placement. What’s working best is what looks like an actual Reel (or TikTok) that is vertical video, quick cuts, some text overlay, moving GIFs (like arrows). Also note that the content actually has to be 1080x1920, so unlike Stories, it can’t resize a square graphic. This placement also requires videos.
The placement isn’t great yet for conversion, but we have ran conversion ads for Reels-only placements, then retargeted those video views with a middle funnel conversion ad.
Reels ads ran as a video view optimization will get incredibly cheap views and reach/impressions, but have yet to convert (at all) in any of our testing. We hypothesize that it’s finding users who watch lots of Reels videos, but are not necessarily purchasers or users who have any intent to stop watching Reels videos.
Because the placement is also rolling out still to users, the total audience size is still quite small. We suggest only using this placement for large prospecting audiences (no retargeting - audience size is too small), with an audience size 25 million or more.
While CTR is low, so far, the website conversion rate is steady with other ad campaigns on Auto/non-Reels placements. This shows that the audience that is clicking is pretty qualified, which is a great sign for the future of Reels ads.
