Instagram has a counterfeit ad problem | Marketing Dive
Dive Brief:
Facebook’s photo-sharing app Instagram is facing a flood of advertisements showing counterfeit products, with some featuring doctored brand logos, Digiday reported.
Many of the fake ads promote highly discounted products like clothes, electronics, real estate and shoes that lead users to scam sites. Digiday pointed to one sponsored post from an account called “Summer discount” that featured an Adidas logo above a photo claiming to sell the brand’s Yeezy sneakers for 70% off.
“Instagram is essentially validating [the ads] by featuring [them] in consumers’ feeds, ” Blake Ricciardi, CEO of retailer Popular Demand, told Digiday. “Just like Facebook has to get a better handle on fake news, Instagram needs to get a better handle on advertisement of fake products. ”
Dive Insight:
When the term ad fraud is tossed around, it’s often related to high-tech, complex operations involving bots or other methods that trick platforms into recording ad views and clicks that never actually include actual consumers. The fraudulent ads on Instagram are far more straightforward but potentially more damaging to the platform’s reputation as a safe place for brands to advertise. This is especially relevant to lifestyle and fashion brands and retailers that covet Instagram for its image- and aesthetic-focused and highly shareable content model.
While tech-related ad fraud means someone in the chain pays for ads that never reach the target audience, the ads for counterfeit items mean that people buying the products are not getting what they think they are paying for, and brands might suffer when consumers are disappointed by low-quality bootleg items they believe are legitimate. These fake ads could also create confusion among consumers, on top of brand management problems when people buy the heavily discounted products.
Instagram ads are bought via a self-serve platform, which comes with both scale advantages and loss of control for the platform’s one million-plus advertisers. Though Instagram doesn’t allow counterfeit items to be sold on the platform, the flood of advertisements created each day can be difficult to police. An Instagram spokesperson told Digiday that the company reviews millions of ads each week to catch violators and remove their accounts.
The photo-sharing app isn’t the only social media platform facing this issue. Bad ads appear on Facebook, Twitter and even Snapchat, whose recent rollout of self-serve ads could likely lead to a wave of new advertisements that cannot be properly vetted. Ad fraud has been among the most pervasive challenges facing the digital ad industry, harming publishers’ bottom lines, keeping marketers’ messages from reaching target audiences, wasting ad budgets and casting a shadow over digital advertising overall. The global economic loss as a result is expected to hit $6. 5 billion this year, according to the Association of National Advertisers.
You can now buy products directly on Instagram – CNN
New York (CNN Business)You can now buy the leather jacket you found while browsing Instagram on the app Tuesday, the photo-sharing platform announced a new checkout option that lets users purchase products and manage orders directly on the feature will be initially available to people in the United States for 20 brands, including H&M, Kylie Cosmetics, Nike (NKE), Warby Parker and Zara. More brands will be added in the coming months, the company said. “Since our earliest days, people on Instagram have loved to shop, ” the company wrote in a blog post Tuesday. “Instagram is a place for people to treat themselves with inspiration, not a place to tax themselves with errands. “Facebook-owned Instagram has been steadily adding tools to make shopping easier. Brands could already add shopping tags in some photos so users could see product details such as price, and then click out to the brand’s website to buy the item. Over 130 million people tap to see these product tags in shopping posts every month, up from 90 million people last September, according to the Instagram. Anindya Ghose, a professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business who teaches a course on e-commerce and social media, said the checkout button allows users to “act on that impulse [to buy] right away. “When people are forced to leave a platform and go to a different one to complete a task, there is typically a big drop off in user traffic, Ghose said. “Enabling the entire transaction to occur within the same interface without going outside [the app] may not sound like a big deal, but that’s when most of the [traffic] leakage happens, ” he stagram users will be able to tap a shopping product tag to see more details, and a “Checkout on Instagram” option will appear. Users then enter information, such as their payment method, shipping address, billing information and email. Instagram will save the payment information so it does not need to be reentered every time someone wants to buy something companies have made forays into social e-commerce but with mixed success. Instagram may be better positioned to succeed as people already seek out fashion inspiration on the app. Its large user base and broader demographic appeal than other platforms could also help. Instagram will have a “selling fee” to help fund the feature and offset related expenses, such as payment processing. The company said payments will be secure and processed in partnership with PayPal (PYPL). Some people may be wary of giving Instagram — and parent company Facebook (FB) — credit card information and home addresses amid a string of privacy and security scandals at the company. For its part, Instagram said it doesn’t share payment information with sellers, and it keeps financial information on secured servers. In its blog, the company hinted that there is still more to come on the shopping front: “Checkout is just one part of our long term investment in shopping. We’re excited to introduce even more ways for people to enjoy shopping on Instagram this year. ”
How to Use the Shop Feature on Instagram to Buy Products
It’s easy to use the Shop feature on Instagram to buy certain featured products.
Shutterstock
You can use the Shop feature on Instagram to buy products directly featured on your Instagram feed. The easiest way to use the Shop feature is with the @shop Instagram account, which curates these products and allows you to buy them without leaving the app. You can also use the Shop feature anytime you see a small shopping bag icon on an Instagram post, but sometimes you will have to go to the product’s website to complete your purchase. This story is part of Business Insider’s Guide to Instagram.
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If you are a frequent Instagram user, chances are you may have noticed some posts in your feed with a small shopping bag icon, tucked in the lower left-hand corner. This is Instagram’s Shop feature, which includes products offered by hundreds of brands and retailers across the world — and it’s a wise investment from the social media platform. Analysts told Business Insider that Instagram’s move to shopping will be so successful that it will generate $10 billion in revenue by the Shop feature is easy, too. Any post with a shopping bag icon has a product or products linked to it — just tap on the product name, and you’re taken to the description page where you can save it for later, or buy it now. Some products are available to purchase without even leaving the app, while others take you to the retailer’s website to finalize the transaction.
Check out the products mentioned in this article:iPhone 11 (From $699. 99 at Best Buy)Google Pixel 3a (From $399. 99 at Best Buy)
How to use the Shop feature on InstagramSome retailers partner with Instagram to provide a check-out process within the app. Most of those retailers are featured on Instagram’s @shop account.
Instagram’s @shop account features many retailers that have items available for purchase on the app.
Meira Gebel/Business Insider
Here’s how to use it. 1. Launch the Instagram app on your iPhone or Android. 2. In the search bar, type in @shop or visit the page by clicking here, or locate any other account with featured products. 3. Scroll through the @shop feed and find the item you wish to purchase, or find a specific product post from another account, designated by a small shopping bag icon at the lower left-hand corner of a post. 4. Tap the photo to reveal the item name and price. Select it.
Tap the photo to reveal the item, and tap on the item description.
5. In the product description page, you can choose the color and size of the item.
In the product description page, choose the color and size of the item you wish to purchase.
7. Once you’ve finished, tap “Proceed to Checkout. ”
Select “Proceed to Checkout. ”
8. If you are new to Instagram’s shop feature, the app will ask you to enter your contact information, shipping address, and credit card information. 9. After you’ve filled in the details, select “Place Order” to buy. Shipping details will then be sent to you via email.
Tap “Place Order” to buy.
Sometimes, you will have to exit the Instagram app to complete a purchase. If this is the case, you’ll tap “View on Website” in the product description page.
In the product page, tap “View on Website” to complete the purchase.
This will take you to the brand’s website where you can make changes, choose a size, and buy.
Related coverage from How To Do Everything: Tech: How to get your account verified on Instagram using the mobile appHow to contact Instagram for help with your account, or to report other accountsHow to edit an Instagram post to change the caption, tag people, add a location, or edit the ‘alt text’How to delete your Instagram account on an iPhone, or temporarily disable it
Meira Gebel is a freelance reporter based in Portland, Oregon. She writes about business, culture, and technology for Insider. Her work has been featured in Digital Trends, Willamette Week, USA Today, and more. She is a graduate of Columbia Journalism School and San Francisco State University.
Feel free to reach out to her on Twitter, where she can be found most of the time, @MeiraGebel.
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Frequently Asked Questions about is it safe to buy products from instagram
Is it safe to buy through Instagram?
Instagram will save the payment information so it does not need to be reentered every time someone wants to buy something new. Instagram’s new checkout feature lets users buy products directly from the platform. … The company said payments will be secure and processed in partnership with PayPal (PYPL).Mar 19, 2019
Can you buy products on Instagram?
You can use the Shop feature on Instagram to buy products directly featured on your Instagram feed. The easiest way to use the Shop feature is with the @shop Instagram account, which curates these products and allows you to buy them without leaving the app.Oct 8, 2019
How do you know if an Instagram store is legit?
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