Redesigning Instagram ads to protect creator identity

Small businesses and creators weren't afraid of ads. They were afraid of what ads would do to their reputation. I designed a new ad model to address this fear.

Overview

The boost flow had a 91% abandonment rate, users explored the flow, previewed their post as an ad, and left

The correct diagnosis wasn't "the flow is hard to use", it was: boosting a post asked users to alter their identity in public, and that felt like a cost they weren't willing to pay.

I led product strategy and end to end design for a new ad model, ad-only posts, that decoupled promotion from identity and created a new advertising category on Instagram.

My Role

I led this work from issue through delivery, operating across strategy, design, and cross-functional alignment.

The pivotal contribution was reframing the problem at the platform level, shifting the team's investment from optimizing a broken flow to building a new model entirely.

The Problem

Boosting posts had come with a hidden cost.

Boosting was restricted to content from profile only

The flow existed, users found it, but the majority abandoned before publishing.

91% of users who opened the boost flow didn’t complete it.

96% of first-time advertisers abandoned the boost flow, despite strong intent.

This wasn't a typical drop-off pattern. Three behavioral signals I identified through behavioral analysis and dogfooding pointed to something deeper:

Singal 01

First-time advertisers rarely returned to saved drafts (2%), suggesting unresolved hesitation, not task interruption

Singal 02

Drop-off increased when previewing how content would appear publicly as an ad, identity anxiety, not flow confusion

Singal 03

Upsell prompts post drop-off had ~2% CVR despite strong prior intent, users had already made up their mind

The pattern was consistent: users weren't confused about the flow, they were worried about what the ad would say about them.

The solution couldn't live inside the existing boost flow. It required rethinking how ads were created from the ground up.

Alternatives Explored

Before arriving at the right solution, I explored three directions, and ruled each out with a clear rationale.

Upsell at beginning of ad creation 

Education at the start

Provide reassurance as users enter the flow

1. + Reduced uncertainty
   
2. - Introduced friction in a high-intent moment
   
3. - Risked negatively impacting the Instagram boost ecosystem
   

Facebook's Create Ad model

New ad creation flow

Adopt a structured flow similar to Facebook Ads

1. + Clearer mental model
   
2. - Increased complexity and learning curve
   
3. 
   

Audience selection

Guidance during audience creation

Clarify who sees the ad

1. + Increased transparency
   
2. - Addressed only a narrow part of the journey
   
3. - Did not impact core hesitation
   

Option one was too complex. The others didn't go deep enough. The solution had to change what ads are on Instagram, not just how they're set up.

The Insight

Answer already existed

Instagram's archive feature already hid posts from public profiles.

The infrastructure existed, it just hadn't been framed as an ad product.

Solution

Decoupling identity from promotion

How it works

System Design

Absorbing complexity so users don't have to

Ad-only posts required redefining how content, identity, and ads interact across Instagram's systems.

I partnered with Engineering and Product on three interconnected changes, with a single constraint: the user-facing model had to stay simple.

Creation flow

New ad-only post creation flow with clear education, users understand upfront that this content won't appear on their profile

Adoption path

Upsells designed to guide users from boosting toward ad-only posts,  meeting them where existing intent already existed

Archiving logic

Updated archiving and visibility rules in the backend, to keep the user experience lightweight

Tradeoffs & Risks

Decisions made against pressure

Each tradeoff had a stakeholder pushing the other direction.

The Impact

Reflection

What worked:

What I'd do differently:

Last note

How one project became another

Reducing advertiser friction in Ads Manager

Shipping previously an ML suggested posts experience on Ads Manager surfaced an unexpected behavioral pattern:

90% of advertisers used "create ad”

10% of advertisers used "existing posts"

Even small businesses, the most resource constrained advertisers, predominantly created new ads.

Mapped across platforms, the gap was clear, Instagram had no equivalent creation experience.

That insight is what led me to pursue this project.