Instagram Blackout in Turkey: Implications for Advertisers 

Turkey woke up on last Friday to discover popular social media platform Instagram inaccessible within the country. The Information Technologies and Communication Authority (BTK), Turkey’s internet regulator, announced the block on its website but offered no explanation for the decision or its duration. This move comes just days after a high-ranking Turkish official, Fahrettin Altun, criticised Instagram for allegedly blocking condolence posts for the death of Ismail Haniyeh, the leader of Hamas. 

The ban extends beyond the website, rendering the Instagram mobile app unusable in Turkey as well. With just over 57 million Instagram users in Turkey (66% of the population) this will have left millions frustrated. It remains unclear whether this is a temporary measure or a long-term ban.  

It serves as a bold reminder how something so integral to the lives of many people can vanish at the flick of a switch, and access to it can seem to be linked to political headwinds. 

This presents a complex challenge for marketers operating on Meta’s advertising platform. The immediate and most obvious consequence is the loss of a significant advertising channel. With its highly engaged user base, it is/was a crucial component of many marketers’ media mix. Its absence will necessitate a rapid reallocation of ad budgets to other platforms. 

Other technical implications are 

• Campaign Optimisation: Marketers reliant on Instagram’s advanced targeting capabilities and ad formats will need to recalibrate their campaigns for other platforms. This involves adjusting targeting parameters, creative assets, and bidding strategies to align with the specificities of different platforms. 

• Audience composition: Audiences, such as lookalikes, will need to be rebuilt using data from other platforms. This could change the role of different audiences within the media mix. 

• Technical: It is unclear at this time the impact this will have on pixel data collection, or attribution modelling in analytics platforms where conversion paths include Instagram. 

Hopefully, this is not a watershed moment for broader banning of social platforms. The unexpected blocking of Instagram in Turkey has significant implications for marketers relying on the platform. As the situation unfolds, businesses in the country are having to adapt their strategies and explore alternative channels to reach their target audience. Hopefully, this is only a temporary situation, and not a trend of things to come.