How to find ads on Instagram

27 May 2020, 17:27 by Elizabeth Kartini

Ads have become a major add-on to social media platforms. This is because businesses have identified social media as a great avenue to sell their products and services.

On Instagram alone, there were over 200,000 advertisers by early 2016. This number should be way over half a million now, shouldn’t it? As the number of Instagram users increases, advertisers keep adding in great numbers.

Whether you’re on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, or Reddit, you must have come across ads. They try to make them very relevant to you. These platforms are guided by the information you provide like your age and educational level.

Some ads may impress you into giving your full attention to them while others may bore you to death (but you won’t die).

Insta-ads

Whenever you scroll on your home screen on Instagram, you usually see ads posted through ad accounts. These are accounts on Instagram that have only one duty – to post ads. There are usually label ‘Sponsored’.

Exaggeratingly speaking, your breath may be taken away by this or that ad that played when you were scrolling on Instagram. Unfortunately, you may fail to follow up with the product or service that the ad was promoting because maybe you looked away or quit the app abruptly. And you know the nature of ads – they hardly come twice considering that there are millions of them waiting to show up on your accounts. So, the odds of reappearing are very low.

Your interaction with that ‘breath-taking’ ad might have been cut short but something can be done for you to have more of that ad. This article will show you how to find ads on Instagram. You will be able to see the ads you interacted with.

Where is my ad activity?

Although you can use Instagram on the web, it is not possible to view your ads’ activity. So, the steps that follow will work on iOS and Android (the app). Make sure you are connected to the Internet via cellular data or Wi-Fi.

Launch Instagram by tapping on its icon on your home screen. You need to be sure that you are logged into your account and not any other.
On the screen that shows, tap on the bottom-right corner to display your profile’s page.
Tap on the top-right icon (with three short horizontal bars). A menu will be displayed showing more account functions.
Tap on the ‘Settings’ button that is at the bottom of the menu.
On the options that will be displayed, tap on ‘Ads’ which is below ‘Security’.
On the ‘Ads’ screen, tap on ‘Ads activity’. When the screen displays, this label will appear: See the ads you’ve recently interacted with and learn more about the brands behind them. The ads that you have watched will be displayed.
You can scroll to the ad that you had wished to see more. If you need to purchase a product or downloaded an app advertised, tap on the ad and you will be directed on how to do so.

You will realize that some of those advertisers are not actually on Instagram. Instagram has a button that can direct you to their pages (mostly Facebook).

Completely uncomplicated

These steps are simple to follow. Once you get it right, you will be able to go back to an ad or ads whose products or services you wish to explore.

This is Instagram’s proactive gesture to advertising businesses. Businesses are confident that if an Instagram user seeks to engage with an ad further, they can do it with ease.