Instagram: How a Photo App Became a Shopping Mall
+20 XPCase study
Instagram: How a Photo App Became a Shopping Mall
A bored, lonely person opens Instagram again and again during lockdown, and finds ads in the feed, between stories, inside posts and in a dedicated shop tab. You will learn how these patterns feed on people's emotions, and what a product can do instead.
+20 XP when you reach the endWhat you will learn
- See how boredom and comparison make people easier to sell to
- Spot ads designed to blend in with real content
- Weigh revenue against the experience of real users
Scroll to follow the story. The screen changes with you.
Based on the learnings from Growth.Design: The Scary Future Of Instagram, presented in our own format.
Step 1 of 10
- An easy escape
01
The setup
After months of lockdown, a lonely person keeps opening Instagram.
They used to spend time with friends. Now, bored at home, they pick up the phone and scroll through landscapes and adventures posted by other people. It is a small hit of pleasure, so they check again, and again.
TakeawayWhen people come to a product to escape a feeling, they are at their most open to influence.
Internal triggersGrowth.Design cites Nir Eyal: people act on memories and emotions. When someone cannot direct their energy toward their own goals, they go looking for pleasure elsewhere, and Instagram is always there.
Someone's best day02
The feeling
Every post shows a life that looks better than yours.
Turquoise water, a sunken plane, a perfect beach in the Bahamas. Scrolling while bored at home, it is hard not to compare. Nobody's real life can keep up with the highlights everyone else chooses to share.
TakeawayA feed of highlights makes normal life feel like it is falling short.
Social statusWe constantly measure our worth against others, and it is one of the strongest drivers of behavior. Growth.Design cites Adam Waytz and Derek Thompson: mixed with negative emotions, it becomes a powerful driver of buying.
Small 'Sponsored'03
Tactic 1
To keep up appearances, people shop, and the feed is ready for it.
Instagram knows that comparison leads to buying, so sponsored posts sit right between friends' photos. This one is a product shot marked 'Sponsored' with a 'Shop Now' bar, designed to look like any other post.
TakeawayPlacing ads where people feel inadequate is effective, and that is exactly the problem.
Sign up prompt04
Tactic 2
Ads also appear between friends' stories.
Tap through a few stories and a full-screen Peloton ad with a 'Sign Up' button fills the phone. Scroll one post, see an ad. Watch one story, see another. Ads are now part of almost every surface.
TakeawayWhen ads appear after every piece of content, the content starts to feel like filler between ads.
The only clue05
Tactic 3
People learn to ignore ads, so ads learn to look like content.
Over time the brain filters out anything that looks like an ad. The response is to make ads indistinguishable from posts: the same layout, the same actions, with only a small label and a colored 'Shop Now' bar to tell them apart.
TakeawayDisguising ads wins attention in the short run and makes the whole product harder to trust.
Banner blindnessGrowth.Design cites the Nielsen Norman Group: people ignore content that looks like an ad or sits where ads usually go. When ads blend into content, the brain gets confused, blocks real content and watches ads, which makes for a poor experience.
Price on a post06
Tactic 4
Even ordinary posts now carry price tags.
A cyclist's photo of a bike shows a tag with the model and a price of 5,900 dollars, plus a 'View Products' label and a link to the brand's shop. The dream life in the feed now comes with a checkout button.
TakeawayWhen every post can be bought, the line between sharing and selling disappears.
Shop in the nav07
Tactic 5
Shopping gets its own tab in the main navigation.
For people who do not want to scroll, a shop hub sits right in the bottom bar with shops, editors' picks and products. Instagram also added shopping to Reels. The app is no longer hiding it: much of the platform is built to make you buy.
TakeawayPutting a store in the main navigation tells you what the product is now optimized for.
The UX paradoxGrowth.Design cites First Round Review: there is a conflict of interest when revenue comes from someone other than the user. Teams optimize for money while the experience for real users gets worse, which leaves room for simpler, more ethical products.
- Built to sell
08
The concern
The shopping features target people when they are most vulnerable.
Someone opens the app because they feel lonely or bored, their brain is looking for a small reward, and that is the moment they are shown things to buy. It works for advertisers, but it is fair to ask whether it is right.
TakeawaySelling to people at their lowest point is a business choice, not a technical necessity.
- Content first
09
What could change
Limit how much of people's attention is sold.
Other products show it can be done. Growth.Design cites Connie Chan on WeChat, which limited the ads one person sees to about two or three a day, compared with up to 10,000 ads a day for people in the West, and notes those ads reportedly convert better. Signal runs on donations and offers a clean experience with no ads or tracking.
What changed
- Cap the number of ads per person per day
- Keep ads clearly labeled and separate from posts
- Explore revenue that does not depend on attention
TakeawayScarcity of ads can make each one more valuable and the product more pleasant.
The attention economyNobody wants their life to become a long infomercial. Authentic, original content is what people come for, and blurring it with marketing puts that at risk.
What people came for Sharing photosWhat they got Shopping mall10
The result
A small dose of pleasure turned into a steady stream of sales pitches.
The journey starts low, lifts briefly with a scroll, then drops through comparison, invasive ads and finally a shopping mall built on loneliness and boredom. Growth.Design gives Instagram an F for humane experience.
What changed
- Fewer, clearly marked ads
- Shopping kept out of the core feed
- Success measured by user wellbeing as well as revenue
TakeawayIf revenue grows while the experience declines, users will eventually notice and leave.
Every takeaway, in one place
- The setupWhen people come to a product to escape a feeling, they are at their most open to influence.
- The feelingA feed of highlights makes normal life feel like it is falling short.
- Tactic 1Placing ads where people feel inadequate is effective, and that is exactly the problem.
- Tactic 2When ads appear after every piece of content, the content starts to feel like filler between ads.
- Tactic 3Disguising ads wins attention in the short run and makes the whole product harder to trust.
- Tactic 4When every post can be bought, the line between sharing and selling disappears.
- Tactic 5Putting a store in the main navigation tells you what the product is now optimized for.
- The concernSelling to people at their lowest point is a business choice, not a technical necessity.
- What could changeScarcity of ads can make each one more valuable and the product more pleasant.
- The resultIf revenue grows while the experience declines, users will eventually notice and leave.
Source: Growth.Design: The Scary Future Of Instagram
Grow revenue without spending your users' trust.
When a product earns money from attention, it is easy to drift into patterns that wear people down. Zyxware can review your monetization touchpoints, show where they erode the core experience, and design models that keep users coming back because they want to.