Carousel Ads Takeover Twitter, Facebook and Instagram

Whether it’s stories or hashtags, emoji stickers or image editing capabilities, the world’s major social media networks like to ‘borrow’ each other’s ideas to ensure we stay connected for longer. And the latest development in this trend sees Twitter adopt a form of advertising previously associated with just Facebook and Instagram – carousel ads.

Twitter is Testing Carousel-Like Ads

Back in June, Twitter announced it was officially testing out carousel-like, horizontal-scrolling ads to give ‘marketers a rich canvas for brand storytelling’. The social network wrote in its blog that this would help advertisers to create ‘compelling, engaging content’ that can ‘develop an authentic relationship with customers’.
The video below shows how these ads would look and work:

Big news! Curate multiple Tweets in a single swipeable ad unithttps://t.co/l0WTGVtI4O

— Twitter Advertising (@TwitterAds) June 3, 2016

Kieley Taylor, Head of Paid Social at GroupM – one of the companies currently with access, told DigiDay:

“Those who scroll through to the second image tend to stick around all the way through,” she said. “We find it to be a reliable leading indicator that there’s an engaged audience looking to learn more about our products.”

Now, four months on, only a select few businesses can see these test ads. So, what can we expect them to be like if successful? We’re pretty sure they’ll appear in a familiar format as, after all, if it isn’t broken… why fix it?

Carousel Advertising: The Ride So Far…

Facebook began the trend for carousel ads way back in 2014 with the ability to support up to five images with links. It has since found that they drive 30-50% lower cost-per-conversion and 20-30% lower cost-per-click than single image link ads (Facebook Business).
Further to this, a report last year by Kinetic Social also claimed that carousel ads drive 10 times more traffic to a brand’s website than regular ads.

Then in 2015, Instagram decided to get in on the action and released its own version of carousel ads which it stated was ‘a new way for brands to share more images with people interested in their posts’. And in May 2016, the app released the ability to add video ads in a similar format.
James Quarles, Global Head of Business and Brand Development at Instagram, told Adage at the time that:

“The hardest thing to do is to capture people’s imaginations, and carousel can help advertisers better achieve that with five pieces of content. As we see people watch more video, we think this helps business bring messages to life more.”