Why are ads appearing on Instagram?

Targeted advertising is big business. 98 per cent of Facebook’s revenue comes from advertising; in the first three months of 2019 alone, this equated to $14.9 billion and was up 26 per cent year-on-year – an increase that is primarily driven by Instagram.

Google collected $30.7bn and Twitter $787 million, respectively, in ad revenue for the same three months. Facebook, Google and Twitter approach advertising slightly differently, but their success comes down to the same thing: targeting.

Targeted advertising makes sure you see adverts that are supposedly relevant to your interests. Data based on your gender, age and income, or psychographic traits including attitudes and interests is used to put specific adverts in front of your eyes.

Facebook, Google and Twitter will look at your activity, location and searches over time to predict your preferences and show you relevant ads and banners from third parties.

They do not sell your data directly, but they do sell access to you. If you’re searching for a flight on Skyscanner then you might immediately see airline or hotel deals when visiting Facebook or Youtube. It always feels creepy.

To block annoying ads and banners from popping up on your sidebar, you could download ad-blocking extensions to clean up your browser. But unless you are willing to unplug from social media and search engines, there is little you can do to stop them (and other companies) from tracking you entirely. Facebook’s Pixel, which is used to track behaviour across the web, appears on more than eight million websites and even follows people who don't have Facebook accounts.

However, there are some ways to control what ads you see and how they are targeted to you.

How to check and block targeted ads on Facebook

First step, find out how you are being advertised to by clicking on “ad preferences” in the settings. What Facebook thinks your interests are is determined by the pages you like and follow, places you check in, and posts you engage with. These can be found in the Your Interests section of its ad settings. They’re split into categories and can all be removed, but you’ll have to go through them one by one and click “remove” in the top right corner.

Advertisers will upload a customer list to Facebook using email addresses or phone numbers. They will have collated these from newsletters or offers you signed up for, or when making a purchase at a retailer. Facebook will then match them to your profile without revealing your identity to the advertiser. Did you sign up to an ASOS newsletter to get £10 off your first order? Don’t be surprised when banners start appearing on your Facebook feed every time the online fashion store is running a sales promotion.

At the time of writing this article, I was matched with 22 businesses who had run ads on Facebook within seven days – most of them were associated with apps installed on my smartphone. Ads from these advertisers can be hidden but, again, they need to be disabled individually. There is also a section where you can review ads you engaged with and report a negative experience.

The “your information” section helps Facebook profile you for personalised advertising. If your relationship status says single, do not be surprised if you see an ad from Happn or another dating app. There is no need to remove this information from your profile, but you can prevent Facebook from sharing it with third parties. Just switch the toggle to do this.

Next, make sure to go through the ad settings to give you more control over your data. It is possible to block Facebook from exchanging information on your online activity with its sister products (e.g. Instagram) or partner websites and apps. For instance, if you access Spotify or Netflix using your Facebook login, information on your activity and interests will be shared between the companies.

People want to know what their friends like. And Facebook knows that. The company will show ads to your friends based on your activity, including likes, follows, shares, check-ins and events you joined on the platform. These ads will appear in your friends’ main feed and make it seem like you endorsed a certain business page. It is possible to opt out of this by clicking on “ads that include your social actions” in the settings and choose “no one”.

Finally, while ads cannot be blocked completely, you can choose which topics you do not want to see in the “hide ad topics” section at the bottom of the page. Enable the toggle switch to hide the preset topics such as alcohol or parenting permanently and suggest any additional topics.

How to check and limit ads on Instagram

Instagram ads look almost like a normal post, except they say “sponsored” below the handle. A promoted post can be hidden by tapping the … menu on the top right corner. Instagram will ask why you do not want to see it. Report the ad as inappropriate, rather than “not relevant” or ”I see it too often”, to banish it completely.

The ads section on Instagram only provides information on the ads you recently engaged with and a link to FAQs. Instagram will show you ads based on your activity on the platform, its parent company Facebook and other third-party websites and apps. This means, you might see ads based on the people you follow and your interests on Facebook. Any changes made to ad preferences on Facebook will be applied to Instagram.

How to check and block targeted ads on Twitter

As is the case for Facebook-owned products, it is not possible to remove promoted Twitter posts and accounts altogether. You can opt out of interest-based ads and data sharing by disabling the “personalisation and data” sections in the privacy and safety settings. Additionally, access the “your Twitter data” section to see a list of topics and accounts that have been matched with you based on your profile and activity. The number of matches was 127 in my case. It is possible to untick these individually, but the list will only be replaced with topics and brands when liking, commenting, sharing and searching for new tweets.

These settings only apply to ads served by Twitter and not those by third-party advertising partners, including Google. You can visit optout.aboutads.info and www.networkadvertising.org/choices, two self-regulatory online advertising organisations, to opt out of receiving interest-based ads from participating companies in your current browser.

How to check and block targeted ads on Google

You can opt out of targeted ads using Google’s ads settings. This site provides more details on how your ads are personalised: they are based on personal information you have added to your Google account, data from partner companies and Google’s estimation of your interests. Disable the toggle button to block ad personalisation; this will apply to Google products and the two million or so websites and apps the company partners with, except for Google Search.

If you are logged in, visit the data and personalisation section on your account to change ad personalisation settings. Go back to access the activity controls, allowing you to block Google, Youtube and other services from logging your web and app activity, search history and locations. By installing Google’s opt-out browser add-on, Google Analytics will be disabled.

Google’s Chrome, other major browsers and the Youtube app have a private browsing setting known as incognito. Using this feature means your browser and app will ignore ad-tracking cookies and not record your history. (Google still knows what websites you visit though). Google recently announced it will extend the incognito mode to Google Maps.

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