MailChimp Launches Instagram Ad Campaigns


MailChimp launched Instagram Ad Campaigns on Monday, adding another marketing channel to its repertoire.

MailChimp customers can now create, manage, and report on email, Facebook, and Instagram marketing campaigns from within the same dashboard.

MailChimp has been transitioning from an email to multichannel marketing automation platform, and already offers Facebook support. MailChimp says that customers who create a Facebook ad using a MailChimp email list see an average return on investment 51% higher than customers who use interest-based targeting alone.

John Foreman, vice president of product management at MailChimp, says Instagram helps small ecommerce business owners remain competitive against big-name retailers.

Foreman says the key is specialty retail -- "really unique products they want to demonstrate with strong images and brand messaging. All of that works super well on Instagram.”

MailChimp has also unveiled several helpful targeting capabilities along with the Instagram integration. Customers can target Instagram advertising to their MailChimp email list subscribers, or target lookalike audiences to recruit new customers. Reporting metrics available include engagement, clicks, items sold, revenue details, subscribers added, and customers acquired from the Instagram ads.

Marketers can also quickly create Instagram advertising by repurposing saved content previously created in MailChimp. Foreman says MailChimp’s content manager stores every email campaign created, while its store integrations allow its retail customers to access product photography. MailChimp has storefront integrations with Shopify, Magento, WooCommerce and Big Commerce, as well as offering an open API.

Foreman says approximately half of MailChimp’s ecommerce customers have storefronts on Instagram, cementing the logical union.

MailChimp’s retail customers have increased by 47% over the past year, according to statistics provided by the company, and 40% of MailChimp’s revenue now derives from ecommerce customers. An average of 637,000 orders have been generated by MailChimp campaigns daily since the start of 2017, and the company notes that retailers benefit from increased revenue opportunities by leveraging MailChimp’s marketing automation features. 

For example, small business owners generate an average of 31% more revenue from campaigns utilizing MailChimp’s product recommendations feature, and customers earn 20% more revenue from marketing after implementing A/B or multivariate testing. MailChimp’s abandoned cart triggered automation service generates an average of $619 additional revenue from product purchases per month. 

Foreman says MailChimp now views itself as a marketing automation platform, and confirms that the company will continue to invest in extending its services to additional marketing channels. MailChimp will have additional ad partners to announce by the end of the year, he says, bringing MailChimp’s services to “ad channels beyond Facebook and Instagram.”

 

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