The Comprehensive Guide to Instagram Ads - How to Use Them & Why You Should

How to use Instagram Ads?

Well, you've come to the right place mi amigo. Instagram has around a billion users & for advertisers, 'one doesn't simply ignore that'. So this guide will tell you all about Instagram Ads and how to use them and why you should use them.

Before we get into how to use Instagram ads, let's talk about a few key things.

Facebook owns Instagram, so they both operate on a shared Ad platform. Which means, you can create ads for Instagram using the Facebook Ad manager and then choose Instagram and uncheck the Facebook feed and stories placement option. My tip is, if you have a specialized ad for Instagram, then unchecking the Facebook feed and stories option makes sense, but otherwise, use the auto placement and let Facebook decide.

After all they have more data than any of us combined :P .

Instagram Ad Types:

So like Facebook ads, Instagram has a few type of ads that you can choose from. Story ads, Photo ads, Carousel Ads, Shopping ads and video ads. All of these ad formats can be used on Facebook as well. Let's look at these in detail below.

Story Ads

So Instagram stories are used by 500 million users every day. That's a big user base. Now I know marketing to all of these people is stupid but even if you narrow your audience, that's still a lot of peeps.

Including story ads in your Instagram marketing strategy is a good idea. Story ads are the ones which show up in your stories. All people have to do is swipe up, and then they're taken to the landing page of your choosing. Now, make sure your story ads give people a reason to click.

If you want to learn more about social media marketing strategies, then check out my blog right here!

Instagram photo Ads

Instagram feed ads or photo ads are regular Instagram sponsored ads that show up in your Instagram feed. Facebook feed ads are similar. Depending on your ad objective, you can include the CTA that you want to.

My tip would be, keep feed ads simple and straightforward. Since people have a habit of scrolling up and down, depending on how boring or interesting the content is, you have one shot at getting their attention. Again, give them a reason to click.

Carousel Ads

Carousel Ads are ads that have multiple photos or videos in them. They show up in your Instagram feed. If you have multiple products to sell, then this could be a good option. You can upload photos of different products that you're selling, and divert traffic to your landing page.

This format works with videos as well. Make sure that the first image that people see gets their attention, otherwise, they won't swipe ahead. In order to use Instagram carousel ads more effectively, you can tell a story through multiple images.

Instagram shopping ads or catalog ads

Here's why you should use Instagram shopping/catalog ads. You can directly take your customers to a product's landing page.

These are the ads that you see in your feed, where you can click a product that you want to buy. To do this however, you need to setup your online Facebook catalog and link your Shopify, Woocommerce or online web store. The linking process is kind of simple if you know what you're doing.

Facebook is integrated with some of these e-commerce stores like Shopify, BigCommerce, Magento and OpenCart.

If you have your own website store, then there are a couple of options. You can set up a Google sheets feed, upload every product manually or use the Facebook Pixel to auto import the products on your site. To do that, the products need to be tagged and you'll need to do a bit of coding.

Once your catalog is set up, you can create the ad in the ads manager and then tag the products from your catalog. So when a customer clicks on the product, they'll be taken to that specific URL.

You can setup your Facebook pixel on your website and track conversions and leads. This data can be used to further retarget customers on Facebook and Instagram.

Video Ads

On social media, videos usually get more engagement than images and images get more engagement than text. So it makes sense to make a video ad about your product or your service right? Video ads are basically like photo ads.

They show up in your Instagram feed. According to Instagram, you can share videos up to 120 secs, in landscape or square format.

Video ads are great for getting more engagement and can be more immersive than photos, if you know what you're doing. Make sure to hook your audience within the first few seconds of your video.

Also, many people will watch a video on mute, as unmuting a video is an extra tap. So do try to include subtitles on your Instagram and Facebook videos.

Why should you use Instagram Ads?

So some of you might ask, why should I use Instagram ads, when I'm already using ads on Facebook! Well, because Instagram and Facebook have different audiences (kind of).

Instagram works best if you have an audience within the15-35 age group.. Not that Facebook ads don't. It's just that there are higher percentage of younger people on Instagram as compared to Facebook. So you should use Instagram if you want that younger user base.

Also, Instagram is more visual than Facebook. On Instagram, how things look matters more. So if you have a product, that can be presented using stunning visuals, then you should use Instagram ads.

Also, don't just use the same content from Facebook. If your budget permits, use separate content for Facebook and Instagram. Different content works for different platforms so ideally, keep separate content for Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Snapchat etc. To know how to make the most of Instagram organically, check out my Instagram Strategy blog here!

Instagram also has tons of influencers (people with a huge number of followers) in every niche imaginable. So a tie up with the relevant influencers in your niche makes sense, if your goal is to get more eyes on your product.

Creating an ad in collaboration makes even more sense. Also, make sure you do your research before doing a collab with someone. Weigh all the pros and cons and make sure it benefits you and/or your company/brand.

Tips for setting the Budget

A key component of using Instagram ads effectively is your budget. Understanding how budgets works is crucial to your Instagram advertising strategy. Facebook offers you two budget options, daily and total.

You can set a daily budget or a total campaign budget. Now in order to get the most out of your Facebook/Instagram ads, you need to get your numbers in order. You need to know your profit margins, your avg. cost per lead and conversion and your expected/current ROAS (return on ad spend).

You need these numbers in order to understand how much you would be okay with spending on you ad. If you don't have conversions yet, then figure out your average cost per order. That's a good starting point.

Testing, and Testing a Lot

In order to effectively use Instagram ads, you need to know what works and what doesn't. The way you can get this data is by testing different ad copies, creatives, demographics, locations etc. Create different copies of an ad and test one variable at a time.

Then just shut off the losing ads and scale up the winners. A/B testing will give you a clear idea of what your audience likes.

Scheduling Ads like a Pro

If you know at what time your audience is online, then you can run your ads specifically during that time. Let's say your customers are online every day between 9-5 pm, then you can set the ads to show up during that time frame. I would generally leave the ads running during the whole day, but it all depends on your specific niche and your followers.

Audiences

Now because Instagram ads are run using Facebook Ad manager, you can use the same custom audiences and lookalikes that you use for Facebook.

To get the most out of your Instagram, do install the Facebook pixel on your website, in order to feed data to your Facebook ads. Make sure that you are collecting leads on your website using event tracking and conversion tracking.

Use the website data to create custom audiences and lookalikes in order to get your targeting right. The same lists can be used to run Instagram ads as well.

As always is the case with social media ads, yes you can get profit solely from social media but to get the max out of your social media marketing efforts, you have to integrate social media in to your broader marketing strategy.

You also need to (if you can afford it) have to get a strong sales strategy in place and tie that with your social media strategy as well.

Thanks for making it to the end.

Hope you find the above info useful.

Abhishek Samant