In late October Instagram began rolling out its first trial ads to US users. A few weeks in and the results are looking promising.

Looking good

At the recent GigaOm Roadmap Conference Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom confirmed more than 5 per cent of views of Instagram ads have to led to Likes. That's decent engagement when it comes to online.

For example the advertisement from designer MIchael Kors was seen by 6.15 million people and garnered 218,000 Likes. This translates to 3.5 per cent of impressions leading to Likes, which is still a tidy sum.

Making a mark

Instagram currently has 150 million users who share 55 million photos every day. The platform is expected to roll out ads, or sponsored posts, early in 2014.

The ads will apply to both images and video and be marketed with the term “Sponsored” in the right hand corner, where the time stamp usually appears.  

If Instagram can get the mix right for brands and users, it might be a very nice earner for Instagram's owner Facebook, which is also tipped to launch video ads next year. 

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