Brands everywhere are enthusiastically double-tapping Instagram’s latest announcement.
This is because the picture-sharing social media platform announced on Tuesday that it has opened its advertising API to a select group of marketing partners. Many agree with CEO of Brand Networks Jamie Tedford’s reaction to the announcement: “This is one the most anticipated moments in the evolution of advertising.”
Perhaps the biggest reason why the Instagram Ads API is generating such buzz is because the Facebook-owned company now poses a major and immediate threat to rivals Twitter and Google. Economists and analysts speculate that by 2017, Instagram will be well on the way to surpassing Google and Twitter in terms of US mobile display ad revenues. Analysts at Bank of America Merrill Lynch have predicted that Instagram’s ad revenues could approach $1 billion in 2017 and rise as high as $3.86 billion by 2020.
Another reason for the buzz is the fact that marketers’ jobs are about to get much easier. The introduction of this API will allow brands to more easily plan, buy and execute their campaigns on Instagram, a process that was previously much more convoluted.
While currently the release of this API is limited to select marketing partners, including to Kenshoo, Brand Networks, and Ampush, Instagram plans to roll out access to all advertisers over the next few months.
Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/instagram-switches-on-ads-api-2015-8