Meet the Instagram Ads Everyone Is Going to Hate

How will users react to having their scroll stopped abruptly by an ad, and being forced to watch it before they can keep scrolling?

Today’s News

INSTAGRAM • Unskippable Ads Coming (Probably)

AI • Google All But Pauses “AI Summaries”: NYT

SEO • How Marketers Get Into the AI Results

M&A • Shopify Buys ‘Checkout Blocks”

THE BIZ • Ad Spending to Grow 5% in 2024

INSTAGRAM • Unskippable Ads Coming (Probably)

Instagram is testing unskippable ads that prevent users from scrolling lower until they’ve watched the full ad.

These ads display a countdown timer, and won’t let you browse more content until the ad finishes. You might recognize this from YouTube’s free version, which also requires users to watch ads.

The ad breaks were showing up in the Feed while watching video posts.

The new ad feature was first noticed by Instagram user Dan Levy, who posted it to social media. Levy said the app stopped him from scrolling past the ad, calling it a “bonkers move.”

Clicking the info icon next to the ad break reveals a message explaining the new feature.

Instagram confirmed the test to Techcrunch.

Many other users reacted negatively as well, with some threatening to stop using Instagram if the ads persist.

Over the last few years, Instagram has become more focused on video content—with features like Stories and Reels—and is exploring new video advertising formats as well.

AI • Google All But Pauses “AI Summaries”: NYT

Reports say Google has scaled back its use of AI search summaries, after a series of embarrassing hallucinations, quoting satire as fact, and so on.

The New York Times says it tested the six queries used at Google’s announcement of the new system — things like “how do you clean a fabric sofa” and “what should I use to get a coffee stain out of my carpet.”

By Friday, only one of the six generated an AI result. Instead, Google returned a regular pre-AI results page.

Google’s Blog Post

The company’s recently promoted head of search wrote in a blog post that the company had slowed down on AI overviews and was trying to go slower with results about health, and sources using satire.

Regular Competition or Panic?

Full Slow Steam Ahead

So while there’s a bit of a pause for now, nothing suggests Google is backing away from its overall goal to have this rolled out to more than a billion users by the end of the year.

SEO • How Marketers Get Into the AI Results

So with Google scaling its AI summaries back for the time being, that might give marketers time to get ready for the inevitable relaunch — with an eye to having their brands in that summary text.

One SEO pro says he’s figured out exactly that — and it turns out, it’s easier than anyone thought.

First, Cyrus Shephard from Zyppy SEO did a search similar to what he expected potential customers to do. Then, he took the text of the AI overview, and basically copied that into his web page. He says if the site was ranking in the 10, it would typically show up as a reference link.

How “Intelligent” Is It?

Shephard then read Google’s patent for the summaries and said he thinks the system is more artificial, and less intelligent.

Win One, Lose Another

But — and this might be a big but — while he succeeding in getting his site into the sources cards, Google actually removed his previously ranking Featured Snippet.

He noted in a social media post that Google is likely changing things quickly, and that marketers might not want to consider blindly copying AI results as a good long-term strategy. “Easy come easy go,” he said. “These things change a lot.”

M&A • Shopify Buys ‘Checkout Blocks”

Shopify has acquired another one of its platform partners — this time, it’s Checkout Blocks, which lets merchants tweak their checkout pages to upsell things, increase conversion rate, and so on.

Checkout Blocks, launched just under two years ago, and lets you add blocks like AI recommendations, custom content, fields, discounts, and so on. It competes with similar tools and so far apparently only 850 merchants were using it.

The Price is Might

As part of the deal, the cost for the toolset will go from $99/month to free — but there’s a big catch.

To get access to it, you’ll need to be in the Shopify Plus program. That costs almost USD$83,000 for a minimum three-year term.

Shopify did not disclose the financial terms of the acquisition.

THE BIZ • Ad Spending to Grow 5% in 2024

Dentsu has updated its global advertising forecast, predicting a 5% growth in ad spend for 2024, up from an earlier 4.6% estimate.

The increase is driven by a strong digital advertising market, the upcoming Olympics, and American elections.

Breaking It Down

Breaking out digital ad spending, that’s expected to rise by 7.4%, making up 59.6% of the market.

Growth in retail media and paid social categories, increasing by 32% and 13.7% year-over-year, will support this surge.

Television spending is expected to grow by 2.6% — but when you look at connected TV by itself, that group will be up by more than 24% in spend. Traditional broadcast TV will be down a touch.

By Geography

The Americas are predicted to grow the fastest at almost 6%

Asia-Pacific will see just over 4% growth, led by China and India

The European region is expected to grow by 4%

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