Instagram will start showing 30-second video ads

Instagram has announced that it will now start showing video ads. The ads can be up to thirty seconds long, fifteen seconds longer than normal Instagram videos. The company relies heavily on Facebook’s advertising infrastructure.

The photo service itself writes this on its company blog. Facebook’s experience with reaching specific target groups will come in handy with the new advertising service. With the roll-out of the service, more different business types will also have the opportunity to advertise via the picture sharing network.

According to the blog, during tests this summer, Instagram saw that especially companies active in the e-commerce, travel, entertainment and retail sectors experienced positive effects from the use of video ads. During the test period, the video ads were up to 15 seconds long, which is the same as the maximum duration of a personal video. Advertisers are now allowed a maximum of thirty seconds of playing time.

For brands that are willing to pay more for the new advertising service, Instagram is introducing a format called Marquee. Through Marquee, brands can reach a large audience in a short time. It is not known how much more expensive than normal advertisements Marquee should be. The first Marquee promotion comes from Fox and aims to promote three of its fall shows: The Grinder, Scream Queens and Grandfathered.