By the end of the year, more than $25 bil­lion will have been spent on social net­work adver­tis­ing across the globe. Adver­tis­ers have already invest­ed $600 bil­lion on Insta­gram adver­tis­ing dur­ing its short his­to­ry. Insta­gram ad rev­enues are pre­dict­ed to dra­mat­i­cal­ly increase year-over-year, and will pull in more rev­enue than oth­er lead­ing mobile ad plat­forms by 2017. So why are mar­keters and adver­tis­ers spend­ing more of their ad bud­gets on Insta­gram?

Insta­gram now has 400 mil­lion users, with half of them using the site dai­ly. The amount of active users alone is one rea­son to increase ad spend on this social net­work. How­ev­er, brands are most like­ly shift­ing their ad strat­e­gy to Insta­gram because their tar­get audi­ence is flock­ing to the app. Accord­ing to Pew Research Cen­ter, 55 per­cent of online adults ages 18 to 29 use Insta­gram. These sta­tis­tics show an upward growth in the amount of ad rev­enue because the num­ber of con­sumers you will be able to reach is rapid­ly increas­ing.

Mobile Growth

Today, you can’t walk down the street and exchange a smile, nod, or wave eas­i­ly. Most peo­ple are star­ing down at mobile devices while they go about their dai­ly lives. Last year, close to half a bil­lion mobile devices or mobile con­nec­tions were acti­vat­ed world­wide. Mobile devices are not just a busi­ness neces­si­ty or lux­u­ry item, it is a way of life. Forty-six per­cent of smart­phone own­ers say they couldn’t live with­out their device. To under­stand the increase of mobile usage we need to take a clos­er look at mil­len­ni­als. By study­ing their mobile behav­iors you can get a glimpse into what the future holds.

• 87 per­cent of mil­len­ni­als always have their smart­phone at their side at all times (CMO Coun­cil)
• 78 per­cent of mil­len­ni­als spend over 2 hours per day using their smart­phone (CMO Coun­cil)
• 91 per­cent of mil­len­ni­als pur­chase on mobile month­ly (Social Lens Research)
• 35 per­cent of mil­len­ni­als would like to pur­chase more on mobile but it’s too hard to do so (Social Lens Research)
• Mil­len­ni­als in the U.S. spend an aver­age of 7 hours a month on Insta­gram (Sta­tista)

Clear­ly, mobile usage is a way of life for gen­er­a­tions born into the tech­nol­o­gy era. Mar­keters and adver­tis­ers must adapt to the mobile shift so they can reach their audi­ence.

Increased Ad Blocking

There are numer­ous pos­i­tives to con­sumers becom­ing more social­ly savvy. How­ev­er, there is one major hur­dle that mar­keters and adver­tis­ers need to over­come – ad block­ing. Con­sumers are tired of being bom­bard­ed by ads almost every­where they go, and they are tak­ing action. Ad block­ing usage in the Unit­ed States grew by over 48 per­cent dur­ing 2015. So, how is ad block­ing affect­ing brands? Adobe esti­mat­ed that this year alone, $21.8 bil­lion of rev­enue will be lost due to ad block­ing glob­al­ly. Mar­keters and adver­tis­ers can’t afford to leave this much mon­ey on the table, so they are turn­ing to oth­er dig­i­tal plat­forms, such as Insta­gram, to spread their mes­sage.

Achieving Results Through Instagram Ads

Mon­e­tiz­ing posts is a real­is­tic pos­si­bil­i­ty with Insta­gram ads. Brands and adver­tis­ers that have been able to adver­tise on Insta­gram are start­ing to see the pos­i­tive results from their efforts. Now that they have proven Insta­gram ads dri­ve rev­enue they and focus­ing on struc­tur­ing strate­gies to influ­ence more rev­enue with each cam­paign. There­fore, adver­tis­ing rev­enue gen­er­at­ed by Insta­gram will reach a whop­ping $1.48 bil­lion in 2016, accord­ing to eMar­keter, as mar­keters look to spend more to get a greater return. The more data and track­ing you have in place, the bet­ter you’ll be able to pro­duce results. The key to adver­tis­ing on Insta­gram is to stick to the fun­da­men­tal prin­ci­ples of the social media net­work. Mar­keters and adver­tis­ers should cre­ate com­pelling ads that are not over­ly pro­mo­tion­al, and blend in with the user-gen­er­at­ed con­tent (UGC) con­sumers are used to see­ing on Insta­gram. Con­sis­tent, high qual­i­ty, authen­tic images are effec­tive­ly increas­ing brand aware­ness and rev­enue.

The Rise of User-Generated Content & Influencer Marketing

The growth of influ­encer mar­ket­ing has giv­en brands and adver­tis­ers access to user-gen­er­at­ed con­tent (UGC) that can be repur­posed in their adver­tise­ments. The ben­e­fits of using UGC in your Insta­gram ads are worth the time and effort to iden­ti­fy the most engag­ing con­tent from the best social influ­encers. One of the most impor­tant rea­sons brands should focus on col­lect­ing authen­tic UGC is because it is more trust­ed than brand con­tent. UGC influ­ences con­sumers to buy because they receive val­i­da­tion from oth­er cus­tomers that the prod­uct pro­vides val­ue. When mar­keters reveal the authen­tic side of their brand it builds brand trust and loy­al­ty with con­sumers. Get­ting per­mis­sion from social influ­encers to use their UGC is a bud­get-friend­ly way to get cre­ative for your ads. The great thing about UGC is that there is fresh new con­tent being cre­at­ed by thou­sands of peo­ple dai­ly.