Instagram Switches ‘Sponsored’ Label to ‘Ad’

Business users, this one is for you!

Meta, in particular Instagram, has started a shift away from the classic ‘Sponsored’ tag at the top of advertising content, replacing it instead with ‘Ad’.

The aim of this is to make sponsored content even more transparent – though there are concerns that the much smaller label will actually do the opposite and will serve to hide the fact that content has been paid for. 

What’s the Impact for Businesses?

Businesses that pay for advertising on Meta platforms won’t need to do anything different – rather, they will see their paid-for content labelled as ‘Ad’ rather than ‘Sponsored’. So, you can keep creating content that serves your core audience, targeting investment towards markets you want to grow, and audience segments you want to engage, with no real change.

It remains to be seen what impact this has on user engagement, and whether the change will be met favourably by advertising standards.