Instagram is one of the most visual social media platforms being used today. It’s flooded with imagery from individuals and brands daily. In this space, selling and promoting your products and services online makes a lot of sense as potential customers can immediately see what’s available.
The question many online businesses ask themselves when budgeting for social media marketing is, how do I break through the clutter? What will make my brand, products or services, disruptive enough that potential customers sit up and pay attention? We have the answer. Keep reading for simple and effective tips to advertising your brand on Instagram.
5 Instagram Ad Types
One of the biggest concerns online businesses have is moving potential customers down the purchase funnel. In layman’s terms, they’re worried how advertising on social media drives customers to their business site, product/service pages and completing a purchase.
Advertising on Instagram makes this easier. Instagram offers 5 main ad types to simplify the process for business owners, including: photo, video, slideshow, carousel and story. These ads all come with varying degrees of complexity and can be used for different purposes. Defining what you’re advertising, to who and why, will help you choose an ad type that works best.
- Photo ads: These are simple photos, showcasing one product or service, like a bottle of wine, a t-shirt or a work of art. If you’re hoping to promote a new item or service, or clear out old inventory, these ads work well.
- Video ads: Simply put, these are the moving versions of photo ads. With video, you have up to 60 seconds to showcase one or more products, services or your brand. These are great for featuring a new product line, a popular service or promoting a variety of sale items.
- Slideshow ads: This ad is made up of a collection of still photos that play as a slideshow, much like a PowerPoint presentation would. You can use these to showcase a number of products or services in a themed collection.
- Carousel ads: Change up the way you advertise your products, services and brand by adding a carousel. Display between 2-10 images or videos (or both). Your customers will need to swipe to view items individually.
- Stories: This ad type is really picking up popularity on Instagram. Shoppers enjoy watching a “slice of life” video that gives them insight into a brand’s story. Many online retailers are using these to engage potential customers and build brand awareness via influencer marketing.
Creating Your Advertising Campaign
As with Facebook Ads, you need to set clear goals before spending money on your campaign.
Here are some questions you should ask yourself:
- Who do you want to sell to, or your target audience?
- Which social media platforms does this audience use?
- Do you want to increase brand awareness, or drive more customers to your business website?
- What is the most effective way to engage potential customers (i.e., photos, video, stories, IGTV)?
- Which hashtags will get you the most traffic?
- Are there influencers you can use or partner with?
Once you know what you’re trying to achieve, you’ll have a better idea of how to reach potential customers on Instagram.
When you’re ready to create your first campaign, you’ll need to do a number of things.
01. Link your Instagram account to your Facebook page.
Go to your Facebook business page, choose Settings and then select Instagram Ads. Then, log in with your Instagram account details.
02. Go to the Ads Manager section and set up your ad.
In Facebook, you’ll be presented with a tool called Power Editor. While this tool makes the ad creation process easier and gives you a lot more control, we recommend starting out with manual ad creation for those that are new to Instagram advertising.Start by going to the Ads Manager and choosing the Campaigns tab. Then click + Create on the top left of the screen. Choose a clear objective for your campaign, focusing on 1-2 goals.
03. Create your Ad Set for Instagram.
Go to the Ad Set page and choose the type of conversion you want. You can select Purchase or Add an Offer. Be sure to narrow down your target audience and have a clear view of how much you want to spend on your ads. If you’re already running ads on Facebook, you’ll be able to use the same Custom Audiences you already created. All done? Great, now all you need to do is click Continue at the bottom of the screen. In the next step, select the format of your ad, upload your photos, videos and more, and finally, add your text in the text editor. Before your ad goes live, you’ll be presented with an ad preview. This preview shows what your ads will look like to how potential customers. If you’re happy with what you see, choose Place Order. You can make changes to your ads by going back to the set up process and adjusting what you want.
04. Monitor and optimize your ads.
It’s important to know that ads are not 100% foolproof. What you think will work might not work at all. So be sure to keep a close eye on your campaign, or use a tool that optimizes your ads for you. If you’re doing it manually, go to the Ads Manager section of your Facebook Business Manager. From here, you can keep an eye on how your ads are performing. If they’re not doing well, try changing up some of the parameters, like target audience, visuals and even ad type.
Creating your first set of ads on Instagram can be intimidating. But, it’s important to know that you have access to a variety of tools that make it easier for you to promote your business on Instagram and beyond.
So go for it, test it out new social media ideas and feel confident about making mistakes. Once you’ve run your first couple of ads, you’ll be able to see what works for your online business and what else you can do to get customers interested!
