Facebook’s photo and video sharing platform, Instagram, is finally letting creators make money via IGTV ads. Since its inception, Instagram creators haven’t been able to make money directly from the platform apart from partnering with brands.
Creators will be getting a 55 percent cut from the total revenue the company makes from the displayed ads on their IGTV videos. This is the same amount of revenue it shares with Facebook Watch creators. Creators must also be approved to join the program.
Instagram creators will have to adhere to the platform’s monetization policy to ensure ads only show up with brand-friendly content.
Currently, the 15-seconds vertical video Ads will only show up when one taps on the watch button from IGTV video previews in the Newsfeed. Justin Osofsky, Instagram’s COO, says the platform will also test different ways to deliver IGTV ads throughout this year.
The program is currently in its early stages, so the company is manually reviewing every IGTV video to check if it is monetizable, according to Osofsky. But, moving forward, the platform hopes to start leveraging both human reviewers as well as software-based reviews.
Starting next week, some approved creators (all English-speaking) will have ads on their IGTV videos.
More Ways To Make Money via Instagram
IGTV ads mark the start of the journey to making money directly from Instagram, and it doesn’t stop there. Instagram plans to start testing a way to let creators sell badges via Instagram Live as well starting next month.
Badges will have variable prices starting at $0.99, to $1.99, and even to $4.99. The initial phase will onboard a small group of creators and businesses, but the full rollout will begin in nine countries across the US, Brazil, Mexico, UK, Germany, and more.
Via/TheVerge