With more than 2 million advertisers every month, more and more businesses are beginning to see the effectiveness of Instagram advertising.
Whether you are hoping to increase sales, grow your social account, or boost traffic to your website, designing a well-targeted, creative, and novel Instagram ad campaign can definitely drive incredible results.
Tips on Setting Up Instagram Ads
1. Find the Right Campaign Objectives for Instagram Advertising
In Instagram advertising, you can select from a number of different campaign objectives. Choosing the right one for your brand is extremely important as it will determine the way your ads are optimized as well as how you are paying for them. For instance, if your objective is driving traffic to your website, the number of comments and likes on your ad may not be that important.
Here are three broad categories your goals might fall under:
1. Awareness
Awareness campaign objectives ads aim to drive interest in your brand’s product or service. For instance, if you are planning a launch of a new hotel with the objective of increasing brand awareness, your marketing campaign will be designed to highlight your brand to the people in your area.
2. Consideration Campaign Objectives
Consideration campaign objectives ads invite people to start thinking about your brand and actively seek more information. For instance, if you have a site sharing your brand story and unique offerings, you can use the traffic objective and design a campaign that entices users to click through to your website to find out more.
3. Conversion Campaign Objectives
Conversion campaign objectives ads are those that encourages people who are already interested in your brand to make a purchase and use your product or service.
2. Select the Right Targeting Options
Instagram ads targeting is all about searching for the right people to advertise to. Your ad campaign will be more effective if you are reaching out to the people who are most likely to do the action you determined in your campaign objective. Thankfully, Instagram ads have similar targeting options as Facebook ads, such as targeting based on demographics, location, behaviour, interests, and more.
Essentially, your campaign should be targeting a specific gender, country, and age group. The more targeted and specific your ads are to the ideal group of customers, the higher the chance of them achieving your campaign objective.
3. Choose the Best Instagram Ad Format
• Photo ads
If you are planning to display your brand’s products and services using a simple and clean canvas, photo ads are a great option.
• Video ads
A study done on Instagram engagement has found that video ads will achieve twice the engagement level of any other type of posts. Instagram video ads are a great way for you to share in-depth and complex stories a static photo may not be able to convey. It is also especially helpful for showcasing how a product works or sharing the brand story.
When creating new video ads, it is a good idea to keep to a single and consistent focus or theme. Try to design content that will blend naturally into the Instagram feed of your followers.
• Stories ads
Instagram Stories ads are an ideal way to connect with new audiences and display your business, brand, and product offerings to a group of audience who are already engaged and interested.
If you are looking to create stories ads with conversion objectives, a punchy and short message that is straight to the point and easy to read is key.
• Carousel ads
Carousel ads are a great option for showcasing multiple products or services. With carousel ads, users can view more than one photo or video by simply swiping left, and easily click on a call-to-action to find out more.
When creating carousel ads, do remember to use engaging and cohesive imagery. Many small businesses also see amazing results by basing their ads off user-generated content.
How Much do Instagram Ads Cost?
The cost of Instagram ads range between an average of $0.70 to $1.00 for one click. That being said, the costs usually vary depending on the industry, ad placements, targeted sexes, targeted ages, and many more. Demographics and spaces that are more competitive will generally incur higher advertising costs.
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How are the Costs of Instagram Ads Determined?
The pricing for Instagram ads are determined using an auction bidding system, where an advertiser starts by stating the campaign budget and submitting a bid. The budget can be structured either by the total cost throughout the entire lifecycle of a campaign or on a daily basis. Bids refer to the maximum amount a brand is willing to spend on every user that achieves the objective of the ad – whether it is clicking through to a website link or viewing a video.
Ultimately, the campaign objectives will always revolve around driving consideration, improving brand awareness, or converting potential leads.
During the auction, Instagram will select the winner depending on how much value the ad could potentially create for the users. The value is determined based on three key factors:
- The size of the bid stated by the advertiser
- Estimated action rates - the likelihood of a user completing the specific action which the ad is optimized for
- Ad relevance and quality – the likelihood of users being interested in the ad
Follow the 20/80 Rule
Although your Instagram account should ideally drive traffic to your brand’s website or to the store, the focus should not be on simply selling the product or service. The general rule of thumb when it comes to social media marketing is that only 20 percent of your content should be ‘selling’ your products. The other 80 percent should be focused on creating quality and relevant content that is engaging and does not directly highlight your products or services.
Ultimately, Instagram advertising is an interesting and fascinating process that involves capital, calculation, competition, and strategy. Creating an effective Instagram ad campaign will definitely drive incredible results, particularly for small businesses.
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Frequently Asked Questions
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