When we launched advertising for all businesses on the platform last September, we introduced the ability to click offsite from Instagram with action-driving ads. To help educate the community on the new functionality, we implemented an image overlay after a user single taps on a performance-based ad. Similar to organic content where a single tap on a photo displays additional information, like a user tag on photo posts or enabling sound on video posts, a single tap on ads helps consumers better understand what action they’re supposed to take from the ad. For advertisers, the overlay confirms a user’s intent to drive offsite — ensuring high-quality traffic is going to your website, mobile app or the app store.

Earlier this month, we made changes to the overlay to help bring richer content to the Instagram community and increase advertiser performance across objectives. Previously, the overlay offered a more generic Go to Website or Go to App Store message depending on the objective. With the update, the overlay now pulls in your business’ Facebook Page name as well as the display or destination website URL you select when setting up your ad. For Mobile App Installs, a View in App Store message will appear for iOS ads and a View in Play Store message will appear for Android ads. To make sure quality customers take action from your ads, we charge advertisers based on the click on the overlay, not the initial tap.

Consumers can take action on your ads one of two ways—either by tapping once on the ad’s photo to reveal the overlay or by clicking on the call to action button. The majority of clicks occur on the call to action button you select, which will take users either directly to your website, the app or deep link them directly into your app experience.

Businesses of every size are seeing the benefits of running ads that drive action on Instagram. To make its Star Wars character footwear come to life, Stance Socks, created a series of photo ads optimized for website conversion. By adding a Shop Now button to its ads, Stance Socks gave consumers a clear action to take. Then, with the help of the image overlay detailing the company’s URL, consumers understood exactly where the call-to-action would lead them. At the end of its campaign, Stance Socks saw an 80% increase in engagement and saw a 36% better return on ad spend compared to other marketing channels.

If you’re running action-based ads, the updated overlay helps drive valuable traffic to your website or app. The overlay is automatically included on all photo and carousel ads, so there’s no action needed to include the overlay in your ads. You can go into Ads Manager and manually edit your campaigns to include a specific display URL. If there’s no display URL listed, it will automatically default to the ad’s destination URL.