The good news: Instagram recently introduced IGTV ads.
Even better news: We’ll tell you what it means and how you can leverage it for your IGTV series.
Despite launching in 2018, the creators have yet to find a way to monetize their IGTV channels other than marketing a product directly to their audience. But in May 2020, Instagram announced that they would begin offering an advertising program to certain creators.
And if you’re a brand looking for another social ad revenue stream, this gives you the opportunity to strike while the iron is hot and capitalize on IGTV ads.
To help, we’ll take a look at what we currently know about IGTV ads and what you can do about it.
Note: In October 2021, Instagram merged IGTV and feeds the videos into a single video format: Instagram Video. IGTV ads are now called In-Stream video ads. Businesses can use the format to increase videos up to 60 seconds. Content creators can monetize longer-form video content. Learn more about changes to IGTV.
Everything you need to know about IGTV ads
While Instagram has yet to officially announce a comprehensive IGTV advertising plan for creators and businesses, we’ve searched every resource we can to find answers to your most pressing questions.
When will IGTV ads be available?
Starting the first week of June 2020, Instagram started offering a monetization program to a select number of video creators. Since this program is still in the early testing stages, it is not yet widely used by brands and companies.
If you’re a brand looking to corner the market for IGTV ads early, you’ll have to wait a little longer. According to Facebook (Instagram’s parent company), they don’t expect IGTV ads to be widely available until 2021.
“IGTV ads will be tested for the remainder of 2020,” said a spokesperson for Instagram. “We believe emerging creators will see the most benefit from monetizing on IGTV, but will be testing this with a variety of accounts as we slowly roll it out to make sure we’re getting the experience right. There are currently no specific plans to share the expansion.”
Instagram has been prototyping IGTV ads to select influencers so far through the Instagram Partner Program as early as February 2020.
Source: Jane Manchun Wong
If these are any indication, it looks like you’ll be offered a range of monetization tools featuring IGTV ads.
Of course, by then they could start making it more widely available throughout 2020. But don’t hold your breath because they’re going to drop all IGTV ad features before 2021.
How much can content creators earn from IGTV ads?
Instagram plans to share 55% of IGTV ad revenues with its creators. That’s the “industry standard”, according to Instagram COO Justin Ososky.
In some contexts, both YouTube and Facebook Watch give their creators 55% of ad revenue, while keeping the other 45%. So this complies with industry standards.
Which creators will be eligible for IGTV ads?
Like so many other things on this topic, we’ll have to look at how Facebook Watch handles its ads for clues.
Currently, Facebook pages are eligible for ads as part of affiliate programs if they meet the following criteria:
- They shoot a 3 minute video
- Videos have garnered more than 30,000 1-minute views in the last two months
- Has 10,000 Facebook followers
- Available in countries where in-stream ads are available
- They meet Facebook’s Monetization Eligibility Standards
In this YouTube Advertising post-apocalyptic world, Monetization Eligibility Standards will likely be what Facebook is most committed to. After all, ads are Facebook’s way of making money, and they don’t want anyone’s videos to affect their profits.
What are the standards? In summary:
- Follow Community Standards. No hate speech, no incitement to violence, and no sexual content.
- Share original content. This means that there is no infringement of trademarks or copyrights. Use music, video and pictures with permission.
- #No FakeNews. Content that appears to be giving false information will be flagged and removed. This will probably be much more rigid as time goes on because of the *arms around*.
- Create authentic interaction. Don’t try to game the system by artificially increasing your views and engagement with things like bots or buying followers.
- To be established. Facebook wants creators to have “a unique, built-in presence on Facebook.” This means you must be on Facebook for at least 90 days.
- Comply with political and government ethics. Facebook says current and appointed government figures cannot monetize their videos. Our deepest apologies to Judge Ruth Bader Ginsberg, who definitely wants to monetize her upcoming “Supreme Court Justice Responses” series.
For a comprehensive breakdown, read the full Facebook Monetization Principles.
Why are they promoting IGTV ads now?
Instagram decided to run IGTV ads with its creators in mind.
“Creators are such an important part of Instagram, so we continue to look for ways to allow creators to bring their passions to life on the platform,” said Jim Squires, VP of Business and Media at Instagram.
If we dig a little deeper, we can assume that Instagram also offers ads to attract new creators to their platform. There are several indications that they are struggling to get people to both watch and create videos on IGTV.
Think about it. If you’re a creator choosing between investing most of your time in YouTube (paying top creators $5 per 1000 views) and IGTV (currently paying creators nothing), which would you choose? Of course you’ll want to go where the money is.
What will IGTV ads look like?
While there are likely to be new features that come with IGTV ads, we can expect them to be very similar – if not exactly – to Instagram Story ads.
These are mid-roll ads that will likely play between 15 and 30 seconds. You will also have the option to skip the ad after a certain amount of time, just like on YouTube.
The only difference is that the ads will most likely be all videos. Remember, this will be IGTV—Instagram’s proprietary video platform. This means you’ll want to make sure your IGTV ads meet the exact specifications of Instagram videos.
Oh, son. If only we had a comprehensive list of social media platform video features…
Hey, look. Below are the Instagram Story video features:
Recommended size: Upload the highest resolution video available that meets file size and rate limits.
smallest size: 500 x 889 pixels
Supported aspect ratios: 16:9 – 4:5 and 9:16
Recommended features: .MP4 or .MOV format, maximum length 120 seconds, maximum file size 30MB
Instagram has the same video suggestions as Facebook. Upload the highest resolution video possible that complies with file size and rate limits, H.264 compression, square pixels, fixed frame rate, progressive scan and stereo AAC audio compression at 128 kbps+.
Pro tip: Do you really want to stand up? In the meantime, make sure you know exactly how to advertise on Instagram.
How can you create an IGTV ad?
As we said, there is no way to create an IGTV ad yet. However, if we look at the advertising process for Instagram (not IGTV), we get a good indication of what they will do.
To do this, you need to create a Facebook page and create ads through Facebook’s ad manager. If you’ve used this or YouTube’s ad manager before, the process looks pretty familiar. Choose a budget, the type of ad you want to run, and equip the ad with video clips, images, captions, and a headline. Request! You have just created an ad.
We’ll have to wait until the full schedule is announced to know for sure, but that seems to be the direction they’re going.
For a full breakdown of exactly how to do this, check out our article today on how to advertise on Instagram.
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