[eMarketer] Instagram pivots away from social commerce to sharpen its focus on advertising

Instagram reportedly plans to refocus its social commerce efforts on initiatives that drive advertising revenues, shuttering its Shopping page in favor of a simpler, less personalized, version per The Information.

The development represents a significant shift in strategy for Meta, which spent much of the past two years focused on making ecommerce a priority. The company was looking to offset revenue losses caused by Apple’s AppTrackingTransparency (ATT) privacy changes, which will cost it $10 billion in 2022.

The pivot comes amid a challenging time for Meta, as the company faces an economic slowdown that has significantly deterred advertising spending, Apple’s ATT changes that have hindered its ad targeting capabilities, and TikTok’s growing strength as a competing marketing channel.

Direct sales are a fairly small portion of total social commerce sales for any individual platform—including Instagram—and for the overall market.

eMarketer posits that amid a challenging environment that saw its Q2 revenues decline, Meta is getting back to basics. That means homing in on initiatives that can deliver clear results and cutting those that don’t.

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