A Step-by-Step Guide to Run Your Instagram Ads
Sharing creative and engaging visual content on Instagram is an easy job for Instagram users but when it comes to running Instagram ads for your business, it requires a lot of thought. In fact, a ton of brands are seeking their ways to Instagram where they run product ads to reach targeted audience everyday. If you’re a beginner, how to get started with your Instagram ad campaigns? How to make your ads run effectively with a high engagement? You’ll find out the answers at the end of this post. We’re gonna walk you through a detailed guide on everything you need to know when starting with your Instagram ads.
1. Things to Know about Instagram Ads
These days, forget about working with Instagram influencers for promoting your brand because this approach turns out to be expensive and less effective (limited audience targeting). Or you may go for sponsored posts to run your Instagram advertising. It means there is a third-party as a social proof that promotes your product. People are more likely to buy your products if they hold a trust on you. Actually, now you can create Instagram ad campaign through Facebook. That’s why processes to produce Instagram ads have to do mostly with Facebook’s advertising platform. You’ll have a complete control over your ads to choose your targeted customers.
Now, take a quick look at key things to know before kick off your Instagram ads.
Research your competitors
Prior to creating an Instagram ads, it is advisable to spend time gathering useful information about your rivals. What are their posting tatics? How do they use trendy hashtags? Which hashtag gets the most engagement (likes, shares or comments) What call-to-action do they use? Then, you’ll get to know the general know-how of how well they are getting with their ad campaigns. This helps you draw key things in building your own Instagram ads.
You can follow them to get their ads on your News Feed, then click to specific ads to see how do they organize them. However, there are more effective ways to keep tabs on your competitors by using Instagram analytic tools. Using these tools will save your time and give you a more detailed insight into your rivals and perhaps make you stay ahead in the competition. Go to this link to see more about how to research competitors on Instagram.
Choose types of Instagram ads of your favor
Instagram allows you to run four different types of ads. You need to think what’s your objective, who is your targeted audience. That’s to say, you can know which type of ads to choose from: Photo ads, Carousel, ads, videos ads, and stories ads.
Photo ads
It’s advisable to get started with photo ads for beginners because it’s the easiest way to create product ads. Photo ads allow marketers tell their story of their products through engaging visual images.
Carousel ads
When it comes to showcasing multiple products in one posts, you should go for Carousel ads. It’s great to encourage your audience to click to see more. When they swipe through the images, they’ll feel curious to go for more info.
Video ads
Instagram enables you to make video ads up to 60 seconds long. Try to make your videos with user-generated content, unique photos.
Stories ads
That’s advertise on Instagram stories with a photo or video content.
Set up ad campaign objectives
It’s great to know that you can set up specific Instagram ad objective. What you expect people to do when they see your ads (like just want them to watch your video or want them to go to your product links). In fact, Instagram offers several campaign objectives to choose. The option that you’ve selected will determine how your ads are optimized and how you pay for them. The options are: awareness, consideration, conversion:
- Awareness: This aims to drive awareness of your business, product or app and reach people are more likely to take interests in your ads (Brand awareness, local awareness, reach or reach frequency)
- Consideration: This involves potential customers to learn more about your product or service offers (Website clicks, video, views or reach)
- Conversion: This deals with the increase in product sales, mobile app download, gets people to take actions such as making purchase. ( Website conversions, dynamic ads on Instagram, mobile app install or mobile app engagement)
Note: if you intend to sell your products or run a remarketing campaign, the first thing to do is install a Facebook pixel which is a piece of code to place on your website to track visitors and conversions. Why? you’ll get the idea of how many sales you actually make.
Select Instagram ad targeting option
Targeting option is all about finding the best customer to advertise your products. Imagine if you’re gonna make Instagram ads about make-ups, you need to target those who pay attention to beauty products because they are more likely to make a purchase. Targeting options are based on location, demographics, age, gender, interests and more. You should narrow your targeted audience to the right users. Then, you will stand better chance of achieving a successful ad campaign.
What’s more, go to custom audience to reach users who have already contacted with your business. They are already visiting your websites.
Or create lookalike audiences to reach new customers who are more likely to become your audience. As Facebook can identify the common traits of people and find who are similar to your customers. It’s advisable to create a lookalike audience based on those who already like your current Facebook page.
2. A Step-by-Step Guide to Create Instagram Ads
Walk through easy following steps to trigger your first Instagram ad campaign
Step 1: Connect your Instagram account your your Facebook page
The first thing to do is link your Instagram account to your Facebook account. Head to Settings for your Facebook page and click on Instagram ads
Tap Add an account and fill your Instagram username and password
Once you finish, click Confirm
Step 2: Create a campaign
When you’ve already linked your Instagram account to your Facebook page, go to Ads manager to create your first Instagram ad campaign (go just as what you do with Facebook ads)
Once you’re on Ads manager click “+Create campaign”
Choose your campaign objective (As mentioned above, consider your Instagram objective to achieve a successful ad campaign.)
Note: If you choose conversion objective, you need to create and download the Facebook pixel.
Step 3: Create Ad Set
Once you’re on Ad Set page, choose Purchase as a type of conversion you want to optimize.
Now you can determine who to see your ads and how much do you want to spend. Create your targeting options by heading to custom audience. Note that at the left corner of your screen, you’ll see Audience definition which notifies you the changes (increase or decrease) in your audience.
Choose your ad Placements. There are options to run your ad campaign on Instagram, Facebook or Messenger.
Budget and Schedule: Decide how much to spend. Of course, the more you spend, the better your ad runs. There are 2 options for your budget, including daily budget and lifetime budget. A daily budget allows your ad run throughout the day and a lifetime budget allows your ad run continuously over a specified length of time.
Then click Continue. A screen pops up that allows you to choose to use a single image, video or multiple images (carousel) in your Instagram ads. Then, upload your images and videos. Remember to add text to your ads such as headline or text caption.
If you’ve chosen conversions as your campaign objective, don’t forget to customize call-to-action in your link button. There are several options such as Apply now, Book now, Contact us and more. The call-to-action that you choose will affect the click-through rate, so make sure to select the one that are the most relevant.
To the of the text editor, you can preview how your ad looks on Instagram. If you feel ok with it, then click Place order. If you’re not satisfied, then click Review order to make changes.
Done! you’ve got the first Instagram ads. To get more, just repeat the processes. For the first trial, you may find it tricky but you’ll go smoothly for next Instagram ads.
Start your trial now and share your experience with us. We will be glad to see your first product ad surface on Instagram.