Targeted ads experiment on Instagram

Abstract

Ensuring media is brought appropriately and directed toward the “right people” is an important challenge. Marketers have traditionally employed demographic-based strategies such as age and gender to find target ad viewers. This research explores an alternative method by utilizing the embedding of brand relationships drawn from rich social media data. We presume that co-mentioned brands reflect the interest relationships of people and seek to exploit such information for targeted advertisements. Our 3-week experiment demonstrates the efficacy of the relationship-based ad campaign in yielding high click-through-rates. We also discuss the implications of our finding in designing social mediabased marketing strategies.