Instagram and ROI

An article I recently read by Jayson DeMers from Forbes.com really captured my attention and I wanted to share it. He is commenting on how businesses use Instagram as a means to market their products. Specifically Jayson is wondering how to capture what the return on investment (ROI) is when advertising on Instagram. Sure, companies can see how many clicks a certain add gets but it is very difficult to understand how it correlates to sales and ROI. It does not matter how many views an advertisement gets unless it actually makes you money.

That being said, it looks like Instagram is going to be a platform that more and more companies are going to use for ads in the near future. For example, 60% of Instagram users claim they use the platform to learn about a company’s products and services. That makes Instagram users some of the most receptive to businesses compared to other social media. The primary reason that Instagram is so good at capturing attention is the visual aspect. A picture of a product that the company offers can show up on your timeline and take up your whole screen and not just on the side of the page. The more visually appealing the ads are, the more successful they can be.

Unfortunately even with Instagram’s use as a platform for advertisements, it is still extremely difficult to determine what the ROI is. The author states that the best ways to build a better ROI are to post regularly without spamming, be consistent, and have a call to action. Even with these suggestions it is still hard to determine if your ads really worked.

It would be interesting if in the future there could be a better way to tell if Instagram ads really added any value to a company. I would argue that this could be said about most marketing and advertising strategies however. For instance, at my internship over the summer I worked closely with the marketing team and they constantly dealt with questions from upper level management of how their projects would work to generate revenue. It is a difficult question to answer and one that is hard to quantify not just for Instagram ads but all types, from mailing campaigns to billboards and everything in between. Either way, prepare for the growth of “insta” advertisements in the near future.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jaysondemers/2017/11/06/instagram-is-popular-but-does-it-have-a-high-roi/2/#64e214926b89