Following earlier work to make Instagram ads available to more companies on a self-serve basis, the company is letting advertisers “large and small” run campaigns on its platform, “leveraging the best of Facebook’s ad infrastructure”.

It also added 30 countries to the list where ads are available – including Italy, Spain and Mexico – with the aim of launching in more markets at the end of the month.

“Businesses of all sizes have been testing these new capabilities this summer with positive results, and we’re seeing significant demand, particularly in areas like e-commerce, travel, entertainment and retail,” the company said in a blog post.

Instagram claims its ads have proved to drive strong branding results, with 97 per cent of measured campaigns generating “significant lifts in ad recall”.

It gave the example of online retailer Gilt Groupe, which ran a campaign that “drove an 85 per cent lift in app installs”, and game developer Kabam, which ran a campaign that “helped it effectively acquire new players that stayed in their game longer and purchased more”.

New features for marketers also include landscape photo and video “to unlock new creative opportunities and give ads a more cinematic feel”; video ads of up to 30 seconds; Marquee, a “premium product” for events like movie premieres and product launches; and new delivery and optimisation tools.

Last month, Instagram’s owner Facebook announced support for more ad types and formats through Audience Network, its monetisation service.