Instagram’s new Stories feature — the one it cloned from rival Snapchat — is about to start generating a little cash.
Instagram found a new place to show you ads: Inside its Stories feature
150 million people now use Stories every day.
Ute Grabowsky / Photothek via Getty Images
Instagram announced Wednesday that it will start placing ads in between Stories. Stories, which are collections of user photos and videos stitched together into little montages, currently play one after the other once you start watching them.
The ads, which will be full-screen photo or video spots, will be inserted automatically as you jump from one friend’s post to another. Ad Age previously reported these ads were on the way.
It’s an important move for Instagram because it means the company will have a lot more ad inventory to sell, a big deal considering Facebook just recently admitted it’s running out of places to put ads in News Feed. So the company is looking for alternatives, and now Instagram is providing one.
Instagram says Stories is a popular product — 150 million people use Stories every day, up from 100 million back in October. That’s the same size user base claimed by Snapchat, which used to run similar ads but stopped abruptly back in October.
The new ads will roll out with just 30 advertisers, but will be available to all advertisers globally within weeks, says Vishal Shah, Instagram’s head of product management for monetization.
This article originally appeared on Recode.net.
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