Advertising on Instagram
With over 200 million monthly users, Instagram is a great place to start advertising. There’s a pretty high chance your target customers are already on there somewhere!
The great thing about Instagram ads is that you don’t have to spend a lot to be successful! It’s all about planning and being creative with your messaging, design, and placement.
Note: You’ll need an Instagram Business Profile to run Instagram ads. Learn how to set one up in our step-by-step guide.
Instagram Feed Photo and Video Ads
If you’re just getting started with Instagram advertising, choosing to go with a photo or video ad is a good place to start. They look just like regular Instagram posts — flowing right into your target audience’s feed, except they say “Sponsored” in the location field.
When you set up an Instagram ad of any type, you can target specific audiences to ensure that your ad is being shown to the right people. You can target audiences based on location, demographics, interests, behavior, and more.
Often, the most successful Instagram photo and video ads are eye-catching with a clear and direct message.
You can see below how ethical clothing brand, Everlane, uses clean design and a clear call-to-action to draw their audience in.
While Canadian intimates company, Knixwear use an attention-grabbing “Shop Now” video to sell their latest products.
Instagram Carousel Ads
If you’re looking to showcase multiple products at once, Instagram Carousel Ads could be a great option for you.
Equally, you could also showcase one product with several different photos for a richer experience.
You can share up to 10 photos in an Instagram Carousel ad. And just like with photo and video ads, you can set and define and set specific target audiences.
Instagram Stories Ads
500 million people use Instagram Stories every day — so tapping into this engagement hotspot could be a great idea for your business.
If you’re not sure how to create great Instagram Stories, there are a ton of great resources to use. For example, Canva and Over both have quick and easy Instagram Stories templates that you can easily customize for your campaign.
Since Instagram Stories are short in length, it’s important that you’re quick to grab attention. Think, what can you say or show right away that will make my audience stop scrolling?
And, if you have more than 10K followers, make sure your CTA is clear and direct — driving your audience to swipe up.
TIP: Use animation apps like Mojo for an extra attention-grabbing element.
Ready to start creating Instagram Stories Ads that drive sales for your business? Check out these 9 Tips for Creating Instagram Stories Ads That Convert.
Instagram Branded Content Ads
If you’re already working with creators or influencers on paid campaigns, you can turn their posts into adverts by using Instagram’s Branded Content tools.
Instagram’s Branded Content tools are a great way to clearly label your paid partnerships, and they also give you valuable insight into how your partner’s content is performing.
If a partner’s post is doing well organically, this could be a great investment opportunity for your brand.
There are 3 main steps for creating branded content ads. First, businesses need to give influencers permission to tag them in branded content posts. Then influencers need to enable their business partners to promote their post as an ad.
Once they do this, the business will be able to see the post in Ads Manager under Existing Posts and can choose to run it as a feed ad.
Interested in branded content ads on Instagram? We outline all the steps and more in this blog post.
Instagram Promoted Posts
If you’re looking for a quick and simple way to create an ad on Instagram, you can promote an Instagram post you’ve already shared on your feed. Either pick Instagram’s “similar audience” they pick for you or create your own.
It’s a quick three-step process. Simply select a post or story and tap promote.
From here, you can choose where you’d like the ad to direct people: your Profile, website, or direct message.
Then it ’s time to define your audience. You can pick between an automatic audience created by Instagram, creating your own, or you can choose an audience group you’ve created in the past.
Once you’re happy with how it’s looking, pick your budget and duration, review your promotion, and press “Create Promotion”.
Instagram promoted posts are a quick and easy advertising option. They’re also a good choice because you can already take into account how the post resonated with your audience through insights.
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