- Instagram is A/B testing a new ad format - Ad Breaks, that sends out unskippable ads while browsing.
- These are 3 to 5 seconds long ads that could potentially impact user browsing experience.
- It is still being tested on a limited number of users and might pop up on your device if everything goes well for Instagram.
Are you fed up with sponsored posts, ads in stories, and others on Instagram? If that’s so, Instagram is testing out ‘Ad Breaks’. A new ad type, these will be short but unskippable ads that will kick off by interrupting the user’s browsing experience. Yep, you heard that right, these ads will fly right in front of your phone’s screen when you are casually scrolling through your Instagram feed.
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Get ready to see more ‘ad breaks’ on Instagram soon!
Instagram’s parent company Meta has always been on the lookout to introduce more ads and to generate more revenue. It is what Google made YouTube today as an ad-displaying platform having lost the old-world charm of one of its favorite video-streaming platforms. This is why we have seen sponsored posts, suggested posts, in-app purchases, and subscriptions to name a few.
Circling back to Instagram, Meta is currently testing out these new ad types and thus, it won’t be available everywhere and for everyone just yet. If you are one of the selected few, you should get a pill-shaped icon saying ‘Ad break’ with a timer that’s three to five seconds long. Click on the ‘info’ icon, and you should see the prompt ‘You’re seeing an ad break’ along with a short description of why you are seeing it.
While sponsored posts would still camouflage as regular content on the platform, these new ads have spiked what the folks at Android Authority termed as ‘Insta-Frustration’. Even if they are soft ads with no motive to push users to buy or transact further, having such ads interrupting the regular browsing on the platform is surely going to ruin the overall user experience.
People are taking it to Reddit to discuss how ad breaks are annoying even though Instagram is just testing them on a small set of users. Many users state that doing so will have a negative impact on the platform as people would turn down using Instagram if these ads start going crazy and pushy over the coming weeks or so. Instagram users term ad breaks as a ‘terrible business decision’ that might backfire encouraging users to leave the platform and visit X or Reddit among others to continue their usual social media routine but without Instagram.
Instagram’s ad breaks are not for all, yet!
Note that this feature is still available for a limited set of users. Neither Meta nor Instagram have formally acknowledged this feature. The feature is undergoing A/B testing to gauge how users react and its implications on ad revenue before deciding to push the feature officially on-board or roll it off the table.
