Instagram is once again changing their settings to cater to their advertisers. They recently made the change where ads would autoplay automatically within the user stream. But now they are making those video ads loop endlessly automatically.
With the average video add running 15 seconds long on Instagram, this is quite a bit lengthier than the Vine video ads they are being compared to, which run at all only six seconds in length.
It is unclear if advertisers are paying more money for these automatically looped ads, however it appears to be unlikely as advertisers are wanting more views on the platform.
The change is affecting those who download the latest version of the app for iOS and Android. Users do not have the option to pause or close these video ads, but only to mute them. There is also concern that users will be hit with extra bandwidth costs due to the autoplay, as users cannot disable it, they can only choose to pre-load videos on Wi-Fi.
Advertising on Instagram is still largely closed, with the platform only working with select big name brands, so smaller advertisers will still have to wait before they can test out advertising on the platform.
Jennifer Slegg
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Ana Hoffman says
Thanks for the report, Jennifer.
I bet this happened after the Verge published the post you referred to here, but Instagram did add a “This won’t affect how much data the app uses” note on their app download page on iTunes: https://plus.google.com/115854344437995415484/posts/jB1rWy1zx8Q