It was only a matter of time before Instagram decided to start cashing in on promoted ads, giving businesses the chance to push their content to this visually-motivated audience. In addition to creating new ways for brands to reach audiences, there are now new ways for audiences to engage with brands through these ads. Instagram ads are now available worldwide to any Instagram user that links their Instagram with a Facebook business account.
How it Works
Instagram ads are set-up through Facebook and you can create them through Facebook’s Ad Editor or Power Editor. Choose from targeting options such as promoting your page, sending people to your website, increasing conversions, getting people to download your app, and increase brand awareness. Instagram provides a breakdown of the step by step instructions to successfully create and publish your ads here.
Quality is Key
It is important to keep quality in mind when deciding on how to position your Instagram ad. For highest engagement, it is crucial to share high resolution images that contain minimal text, which mimics Facebook’s advertising rule of 20% text or less in an image in order to promote it. Here’s how we like to take Instagram-worthy photos.
A Strategy Tip
Instagram ads allow you to place a call-to-action on your ads, and you can choose the one which aligns with your overall goal. Choose from options such as download now, sign-up now, join now, learn more, as well as several others. It’s important to include a directive so that consumers know what you want them to do once they view your ad. However, it is also important to keep the sales talk to a minimum. Your Instagram ad should blend into the audience’s feed, so if it is too pushy or sales focused, it will push audiences away.
Things to Note
One thing to note about using Instagram ads is that your promoted post will not live on your Instagram page/main feed. Your ad only appears in your target audience’s feed during the timeframe in which you set the ad, which is great for limited/time-sensitive materials or deals.
Just like Facebook, users are able to tap on the Instagram ads they see in the feed and specify if they want to hide future ads like this. This helps both brands and audiences ensure that relatable content is being made available to interested audiences.
Our Experience
By using Instagram ads we have been able to exponentially increase our average number of likes on a daily Instagram post for multiple accounts that we manage. On posts where we typically saw around 40-50 likes, we began seeing results that reflect 400-800 likes over a couple of days with a $50 ad budget!
Overall, it’s safe to say that Instagram ads can absolutely increase engagement on your platform and gain brand awareness. With a variety of options, it’s best to try out what works well with your brand and go with it. While we can’t guarantee the exact results you’ll receive, we can guarantee that they are worth considering as part of your social strategy.
