Instagram Advertising Process – Step By Step Guide

instagram adverts

Instagram offers a platform to tell new visual stories through various ad formats, and many publicists have seen this channel yielding higher ROI in comparison to their other advertising campaigns.

Instagram has over 800 million active users, according to Statista, and the rate of growth it has seen since 2013 is impressive. With so many internet savvy people on their feeds all day, how can customers see a little business like yours?

Instagram is for sharing creative visual, audio, and images, and also an effective way for businesses to grow sales and build customers! According to a report I stumbled on, 75 percent of Instagram users take action, like visiting a website or making a purchase decision, after seeing the Instagram adverts.

Note that the ad is created on Facebook. So even though the outlined steps are about running ads on Instagram, you will have to create the whole set up through Facebook.

Step 1: Research Competitors In Your Industry
Before you start creating your Instagram ads,  time needs to be invested in researching your competitors: What types of ads are they creating? What call-to-actions do they employ? How much attention of the public are they getting?

Step 2: Create your Campaign Goals

campaign goals

Before we get into the essentials of creating the ads, let us talk about campaign goals. A campaign goal is what action you want people to take when they set eyes on your advert. Instagram offers several campaign goals that you can select from — and the goal you will choose will influence how your adverts are boosted.

Clicking on your adverts will not be of much importance if your ad goal is to increase your followership.
You may be aware of the campaign objectives from creating Facebook adverts. However, not all campaign goals are obtainable on Facebook as it works on Instagram. You can choose from the following listed campaign objectives on Instagram.

Brand Awareness: Here, you will reach more people who will be attracted to your advert and through them increase awareness for your product.

Advert
  1. Reach: Shows your advert to the maximum number of people.
  2. Traffic: For clicks to your site or the app store for your app.
  3. Apps: Direct traffic to the store where they can shop for apps.
  4. Engagement: Make people see and engage with your post or Page. Engagement can include commenting, sharing, likes, event responses, and offers.
  5. Video views: This promotes videos that show behind-the-scenes footage, product launch, or customer stories to raise awareness about your brand.

Conversions: Get your audience to take actions on your website or app, such as adding payment info or making a purchase If your objective is to sell e-commerce items ( or to run a .e-marketing campaign for users who visit your website, but you have to, first of all, install a Facebook pixel.

Step 3: Set Up Your Instagram Advertising Targeting

ad target

Instagram ads targeting is about finding the best audience to advertise to, i.e., who is likely to perform the action you mentioned in your campaign objective. Luckily, Instagram adverts have similar targeting options as Facebook adverts, inclusive of targeting based on location, demographics, interests, and behavior. Etc.

Custom Audience
Custom Audiences are people who have already visited your site or shared their personal contact information with you. Ads targeting these groups perform well because they are interested in what you offer.

instagram ads
  1. Go to the Ads Manager, open Tools, click the Create New dropdown and select Custom Audience.
  2.  Then, choose to Add customers.
  3. After sending your data, Facebook will create a new custom audience that you can target with your Instagram advert.
  4. Under the Admin section, go to Property Settings for your desired analytics. Then go to Data Collection under Tracking Info. Then, switch on Advertising Reporting Features.

Step 4: Build your Instagram Advert

First, you need to think about what your goal is, who you’re trying to reach, and what kind of message will inspire people to be interested in your campaign.
There are three kinds of Instagram adverts you can choose from, viz, photo ads, Carousel ads, slideshow ads, and video ads.

Photo Ads                                                                                                                                       With photo ads, businesses can tell their stories and display products through visually engaging images. If you are just getting started, you should stick with photo/image ads. They are very easy to set up and do perform well.

Instagram Carousel ads

instagram ads

If it makes sense to display different products (or multiple uses of a single product), Carousel ads are often the best choice. With Carousel ads, users can swipe to see as many images as possible, and a call-to-action button directs them to a website.

Instagram Video Ads   

carousal ads

You can make Instagram video adverts up to a minute long, but the first 30 seconds is what matters the most. If you can hook your audience within that short period, they might engage with your business for the long term.

Instagram Slideshow Ads
With this, advertisers can create light video ads from as many still photos as possible.

Having learned how to set objectives, target audiences, and build your creative, it’s time to create your first Instagram advert.
How to Create An Instagram Ad

Step 1: You have to link Your Instagram Account to Your Facebook
Page. Go to the settings area of your Facebook page and click on Instagram Ads.

Instagram ads

Step 2: Create The Campaign
Go to the Facebook Ads Manager and click on “Create Campaign,” which is near the top left corner of the screen. You choose your campaign goal here and Install a conversion pixel on your site if your goal is to have a considerable rate of conversions, you can do this by clicking “Create a Pixel” on the Create New Ad Set Page.

Step 3: Create An Ad Set

 

ads

Having chosen an ad objective, then create your Ad Set where you determine who will see your adverts.  And how much you wish to spend on the ad. Should you have already created Custom Audiences, you can select them for targeting with your Instagram adverts.

There are two options for your budget, viz, a daily budget, and a lifetime budget.

A daily budget sets your advert up to run non-stop throughout the day.  Which means that the algorithm will mechanically regulate your spending every day.

A lifetime budget, on the other hand, will position your advert to run for a specific period. That is, the ads algorithm paces your spending over that entire period. Beginners should start low with their ads spend and increase the budget later on if the ad campaign does well.

After identifying the target audience goals, who to target and how much to spend has been chosen, go on to click “Continue at the bottom of the Page.”

On the next screen, you will see an option showing whether you should use a single image or video in creating the ad, or if you prefer to use more than one image for a Carousel ad. Once you’ve decided, scroll down to upload your pictures and videos.

Having uploaded your visuals, scroll down to find an option to add text to your advert. You will choose your topic and text caption.

If you chose traffic increase or conversions as your campaign goals, you would be able to customize the call-to-action in your link button. There are several options for your button, and they vary, based on the Page you’re sending your visitors to.

Your call-to-action has a considerable effect on your campaign’s click-through and conversion rate, so make sure you pick something significant to your offer and specific audience.

You can also click on “Show Advanced Button among the options. However, note that creative options may differ based on the objectives you chose.

Finally, on the left side of the text editor, you can preview how your advert will look on Instagram. You can also preview how your advert would look like in other formats.

You can create the Ad on Facebook and Instagram. But if you only want to run it on Instagram, ensure that the other distribution options to other social media platforms have been removed.

If the campaign looks good as you want, click Confirm.

Step #5: Track Your Engagement and Conversions

ads

Launching your Instagram ad and hoping for the best may or may not give fantastic results.
Instead, you need to continually come back to work on and optimize your Instagram advertising campaign as it runs
.
To see your Instagram ad analysis, go to the Ads Manager, and click on the Instagram ad campaign name. You will see a section at the top right that includes Performance, Audience, and Placement data. Depending on the objective you chose, you will see different available results. You can also view the amount Spent and Cost per Result to understand how your budget is being allocated.

As a rule, if you have an advert that is performing well, you should increase the advert amount once in three days. But if your ad failed with zero engagement, don’t hesitate to pull it down.

Summary
As soon as your Instagram advertising campaign is live, you need to edit and optimize it continually. For a beginner, the best tool for this is Facebook’s Traditional Ads Manager.
Loaded with this information, you’re now ready to run a successful advertising campaign on Instagram! In the meantime, you can plan, manage, and schedule all of your Instagram posts!

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