Instagram crams more ads in less space with Video Carousels

What’s more lucrative than a video ad? Multiple videos in a single ad. To help businesses show different sides of their products in vivid motion, today Instagram is launching video ad carousels. It’s a savvy way for the company to give advertisers more flexibility through horizontal space so as not to further clutter the vertical scrolling feed.

Now the carousels Instagram introduced a year ago can feature videos or a mix of clips and photos, not just still images as before. The carousels just need to have three to five pieces of media inside, and the videos can be up to 60 seconds. Users will see the first slide by default in their feeds, but can swipe to reveal the rest. Airbnb (above), Macy’s, and Taco Bell will be the first brands on the format.

Here you can watch all three of their video carousels back to back to back:

Instagram tells me the photo carousels have already “seen solid results.” And with video the biggest craze in marketing, now it can feature more moving ads without destroying the flow of organic content. Video viewing on Instagram grew 40% between August and February.

In essence, the ads can be a bit like Snapchat Stories, stringing together different moments and perspectives. They make sense for the short attention span world of mobile. Instead of users getting bored with one long clip and scrolling past, they can swipe to essentially fast-forward to ad different scene.