Instagram has announced that it will start showing adverts within Stories - the slideshows of ephemeral photos and videos that appear at the top of the app’s feed.

The full-screen adverts, which users will be able to skip, will appear as posts in between those from users you follow.

Instagram said that 150 million people a day are now using Stories - the same as Snapchat's last public number. It launched the feature, which bears a striking resemblance to the Snapchat feature of the same name, in August.

Stories allow users to edit and post series of short videos and photos, each of which disappear after 24 hours.

But unlike the main Instagram timeline, which contains sponsored posts in between those from users you follow, Stories have so far been free of adverts.