The ultimate guide to getting started with Instagram Ads
By: Alejandra Hmd
Tags: SEO, Instagram Marketing, Stories, Instagram, Digital Marketing

Identify your targeted audience on Instagram and create Ads within this platform to promote your product or service. Let me show you how!

Source: Snarkis

Instagram became an ideal platform for advertising as it has around 600 million of daily users. It offers different types of Ads and a wide range of costs that, from my perspective, are very convenient for every type of business. As long as your targeted audience is on Instagram you should strongly consider advertising your service or product within this platform.

I consistently use Instagram for different reasons. Around 90% of the sales of my company are made through Instagram, and my targeted audience uses this platform.

With this post, I look forward to introducing you to this Instagram advertisements and to help you identify if they are a perfect fit for the digital strategy of your business.

“When Instagram was bought out by Facebook, we all knew that it would mean great things for the photo-sharing social media app. One of the best parts of this merger was easily the addition of Instagram Ads to the outstanding Facebook Ads system.” Adespresso

Source: Techcrunch

Who is there?

This is the first question you should ask yourself and your team. Before designing a digital strategy including Instagram ads, you need to study your audience and identify if they are Instagram users or not.

So, who uses Instagram? Well… As I previously mentioned, a lot of people. However, the demographics of the platform show that women between 18 and 29 years old are the most active population in the platform. Internet users between 30 and 49 years old are also active on Instagram.

“Thirty-eight percent of online women use Instagram, 28% of online men use Instagram. It’s skewed more toward women. From an age breakdown, 59% of internet users between 18 and 29 are using Instagram and 33% of users between 30 and 49 are using Instagram.” Rick Mulready

Is your targeted audience within these ranges and profiles? If the question is yes, keep reading this post.

Why you should use Instagram ads?

I will mention this number again because it is extremely important for your business: there are about 600 million of daily Instagram users. This is probably the reason why 90% of the top 100 global brands use this platform for sale. Additionally, a study demonstrated that the recall on Instagram ads is higher than in any other social network.

Instagram users follow their favorite brands and they are ready to get engaged with other brands within Ads. You have “la crème de la crème” served on the platform. You just need to reach it.

Source: Semrush

To effectively reach your audience, you need to focus on what you are expecting from the ads to be created. Defining the objective(s) will help you select the right type(s) of Instagram ads for your brand.

Here are some of the objectives identified by Rick Mulready that you might consider:

- Brand awareness

- Reach

- Traffic (clicks on your website)

- App installs

- Engagement

- Engagement for post-engagement

- Video views

- Conversions (website or apps)

- Lead ads

When to advertise?

I recommend posting from Monday to Friday at 3:00 am 12:00 pm and 5:00 pm (EST). This is the time when people spend more hours during the day in their phones. Typically during their commutes and during lunchtime. These times work perfectly for both, posting a regular picture, video or story (stories are very important) and advertising within Instagram.

During the weekend, I don’t recommend spending money on advertisements because people are less engaged. I consider that the main reason is that during the weekend people use to invest more time in different activities with friends and family, and they are not totally engaged with this platform.

Types of Instagram adds

These are the types of adds that you can promote on Instagram:

1. Photo

Source: Productsup

2. Carousel (scrollable photos or videos within the same post)

Source: The next web

3. Story Ads (no longer than 15 sec)

Source: Strike Social

4. Video (no longer than 1 minute)

Source: Medium

5. Slideshow (10 images max)

How to advertise on Instagram?

You need to have a business Instagram account to advertise. You also need to link your Facebook account with your business Instagram account. Go to Facebook’s Ad Creation and get started with the creation of the advertisement. Tip: name your campaign so you can easily track it. Fill all the information regarding the targeted audience that you hope to reach with your campaign. This is a key step. You should know by then what is your specific targeted audience so you can ensure the success of your campaign. Select your budget. You have here plenty of options. You can set a daily budget or a lifetime budget. By selecting the daily option you won’t be able to select the specific hours when the Ad will be posted.

Source: Semruch

“Similar to Facebook ads, throwing some money behind a post will lead to more exposure for your brand, as well as more control over who can see your post.” Margot Whitney

You are all set. Wait for the campaign to begin and start monitoring the results. These numbers are also provided by the app and they are extremely valuable as you will be able to know much more about your audience.

Also, remember that people behave differently within Instagram and they love hashtags and emojis (do not forget to include this on your posts).

This is a platform you should not ignore. I hope this guide introduced you to the wonders of this app.

Please come back to this post to share your thoughts about Instagram Ads and their impact on your business!