How much to advertise on facebook and instagram


How Much Do Instagram Ads Cost in 2022? In-Depth Guide from K6

Instagram has more than 1 billion active monthly users. This platform offers an incredible opportunity to communicate with potential leads interested in your products or services. You can generate even more leads and grow your business by using Instagram Ads.

But how much do Instagram Ads cost?

Instagram Ads cost depends on your bidding model, such as cost-per-click (CPC) or cost-per-impression (CPM).

Typically companies on average pay, $0.50 to $1 per link click. In highly competitive industries, like apparel, you’ll pay more. The cost of Instagram ads may go up to $3.00 per click.

Instagram Ads is still new to some companies that run social media advertising campaigns. Our goal is to help your company with some strategic tactics. If you’d like to learn more about Instagram ads, keep reading!

This guide will help you understand the cost of Instagram ads, how it compares to Facebook ads, how the cost is determined, and much more!

How Much Does an ad cost on Instagram?

One of the most pressing questions from advertisers who are interested in Instagram advertising is how much does a click or conversion cost?

Let’s take a look at what various resources say.

AdEspresso found that the Instagram average cost-per-click is $0.80.

On average cost-per-click Instagram ads, are between $0.70 and $1.00.
There are however many elements that affect the cost of your Instagram ads.

The cost of Instagram ads ultimately comes down to the audience you are targeting that’s why knowing your Instagram demographics is so critical.à

The going rate for Instagram Ad post design can vary depending on your experience, portfolio, and location. In general, you can expect to charge anywhere from $50-$200 per post. Instead of Creating the post use user-generated content and showcase customer centric images to increase sales.

For Example – Toyota increased its ad engagement by 440% using UGC with the launch of Feeling The Street – a global campaign highlighting and celebrating the world’s best street performers.

Instagram Demographics

As you can see in the diagram above, women are much more active than men on Instagram. This leads to higher CPCs for targeting female audiences. Age demographics, however, paint quite a different picture.

Most Instagram users are under 50. The following image shows the average cost per click (CPC) for Instagram ads in 2017 across all age ranges goes from $0.70 to $0.80, according to AdEspresso. Also, it highlights that the highest CPC age groups are 18-24, 25-34, and 35-44-year-olds.

AdEspresso CPC by Age

CPC estimates vary based on the campaign. For instance, ad costs for Instagram will likely rise during major events or holiday like Black Friday, Thanksgiving, Labor Day, and Cyber Monday.

Instagram Ads compared to Facebook Ads

Facebook and Instagram are two of the most successful social media advertising platforms out there, which is why comparing the two makes sense. Which platform offers your business the most cost-effective option, and gives the best network to reach your audience?

Social NetworkCPCCPM
(cost per thousand impressions)
Instagram$0. 20-$2.00$6.70
Facebook $0.97$7.19
Comparing Instagram and Facebook Ads Cost

In addition to assessing the expense of Instagram and Facebook Ads, it’s important to look at each platform’s demographics. While Facebook can target almost any age group, Instagram thrives when it comes to targeting audience members who are 25 to 29 years old.

Focus your efforts on the social media platform which provides the most value and best results for your ad campaign. Even if you can advertise on one site for less, you can miss the opportunity to connect with shoppers and leads that matter.

From a study done by Rival IQ, where they analyzed 2,100 of the most engaging brands and companies. As shown in the image below, Rival IQ found that out of all social media platforms, Instagram had the highest engagement rate. This means that even if you have to pay a little bit more, your insights will be better in the end.

Rival IQ study

Shopify did a marketing report that shows Instagram users spent $65 on average compared to Facebook, where users only spent $55 per referred sale.

Shopify Marketing Report on Average Order Value

How Instagram Ads Cost Is Determined

While determining ad costs, Instagram follows the same guidelines as its parent company, Facebook. This means that you will be launching a worldwide competition for people’s attention when you launch an Instagram ad campaign.

There are four main factors that decide how much you will pay:

Bid Amount

Your bid amount determines how much you spend on an Instagram ad campaign. You have to decide how much you are willing to pay to get leads. The value of your bid also affects how much you pay.

Instagram has higher bid rates; you will want to be ready to pay more for clicks and impressions.

Let’s say you only have $500 in your budget and your bid amount is $2 per click, you get only 250 clicks on your ad. But, a $1,000 budget with a $2 CPC gets you 500 clicks. Having a bid amount of $0.50 in the same scenario would allow even more clicks with those two budget amounts.

Relevance Score

Your ad relevancy score will also affect the cost of your Instagram ads. Your relevancy score is how relevant your ad is to Instagram users who will see your ad.

Instagram strives to give users relevant content in their feed. They’ll base your score on how users respond to your ad.

Estimated Action Rates

The estimated action rates will also affect your Instagram ad cost. According to Instagram, the rate is dependent on the probability of users acting on your ad. Basically, they want to gather how likely your audience will interact with your ad.

These interactions include actions such as clicking and converting. Instagram wants to promote ads they think users will engage with and connect with.

If Instagram believes it’s likely that more people will interact with your ad it will be put first. This means you will get a lower bid amount, which will help you gain more leads and conversions.

Competition

Competition will always affect the price of your Instagram ads. When you try to reach a specific demographic of people, there will always be competitors trying to reach that same group. Your competition could cause the cost of your Instagram ads campaign to change.

If other people are bidding to target the same audience, this can lead to a bidding war. Businesses will need to outbid each other to get the top spot. This means that your CPC might go up trying to bid against competitors.

There are a few additional factors:

  • Holidays and events: Competition during holidays, especially Christmas, is significantly high. More businesses are competing to achieve desirable leads that push CPC upwards. You will need to recognize holidays and events around the time when you run your ad and budget for it.
  • Day of the week: Instagram users engage more on weekdays than on the weekends. This means you should plan to pay more for running an ad on a Tuesday compared to a Sunday.
  • Gender: Advertising to females ends up costing more than males. Females are more likely to interact with and engage on Instagram, so getting to female viewers will cost you more.
  • Target Market: The market that you aim to reach for influences the cost of your Instagram ad. It’s more expensive for B2B companies to run ads because Instagram has fewer businesses than people. Due to high competition some industries, such as apparel, are more expensive.

Even though Instagram ads are more expensive, advertisers do have control over how they allocate their budgets. You can choose, for example, between a daily budget to restrict the amount spent every day or a lifetime budget, which is when you set up your ads to run for a specific length of time before the budget is gone.

How Do Instagram Ads Work?

Instagram ads are paid content that appears in Instagram stories and news feeds. Instagram ads are aimed at users that are likely interested in your product or services.

People see Instagram ads that are based on their demographics and interests. Such advertisements are designed to effortlessly blend into the point that users don’t even recognize them as advertisements

There are two indicators that posts are paid advertisements. The first indicator is the world “sponsored” that is under the company’s name.

Leo Designs Chicago sponsored ad

The second indicator is the call-to-action (CTA) seen at the bottom of the post. Typically, these have phrases like “shop now,” “learn more,” or “book now,” depending on the goal of the campaign.

Biossance call-to-action ad

How To Lower Instagram Ads Cost?

When it comes to social media advertising, you want to do whatever you can to reduce advertising costs. Below are a couple of best practices that can help you reduce the expense of your Instagram ads and maximize your return.

1. Use Automatic Bidding

If you haven’t used Instagram ads before, using automatic bidding for your campaign is beneficial. For you, it’s a simple way to get a bid that’s right for your campaign.

Automatic bidding is the best way to go if you don’t have any historical data informing you of a good CPC to set for your campaign. This will help you determine the bid amount that matches your campaign.

By using automatic bidding, you are preventing your company from overbidding to run an ad. The shortage of previous data can make it tough for you to know the right bid amount. You might bid more than you need to.

Automatic bidding is a smart way to minimize the expense of your Instagram ads.

2. Use Precise Targeting

When setting up your Instagram ads the goal is to target people who would be interested in your products or services. Use precise targeting to reach your desired audience

Instagram lets you target people by:

  • Location: You can target people based on their geographic location. It can be as broad as a country or as specific as postal code.
  • Demographics: The most common way to target leads is through demographic information. This information includes gender, age, and race.
  • Interests: As people communicate on social media, you see where their interests lie. Whether it’s design or tech, you can target people directly based on what they like.
  • Habits: When someone takes particular steps to browse your website, based on those behaviors, you can target them.

By using precise targeting, you will reach more people who are interested in your products and services. This means that your ad copy will become even more relevant to them, helping you get a higher ad rank and a lower CPC. This would also result in a rise in sales which will help cover the costs of running the campaign.

3. Set Goals

Setting goals will help maintain focus on what you want to accomplish with your advertisement.

There are three main goals you should focus on attaining with your Instagram Ads:

  • Awareness: You should concentrate on growing awareness about your company, brand, product, app, or service through an awareness campaign. You want to call attention to it, and help people be familiar with it. For this goal, you will focus on running a CPM campaign.
  • Consideration: If your goal is consideration, then you will focus more on educating your audience. You’ll want to give more persuasive information to your audience, which will get them to convert. To this end, you will focus on earning clicks, views, and leads.
  • Conversion: Many businesses aim to get their customers to buy their goods, install their apps, or use their services. If you focus on conversions for your campaign goal, you want to have a persuasive copy that will get your audience to buy your products or use your services right away.

You will have a much more cohesive campaign, by setting goals. Effective ad copy leads to greater interaction and conversions.

4. Make Relevant Landing Pages

Most businesses make the mistake of directing leads to their home webpage after clicking on their Instagram ad. This does not promote engagement, since, people are not led to an ad-relevant landing page. If a user is taken directly to the product they see in the ad, they are more likely to convert.

When a customer is taken to the product directly, they are more likely to convert. This will help recoup the costs of running your campaign.

5. Test Your Ad

You must test your ads to make sure you put out the best version possible. At this stage, many companies look for professional help with marketing assignments because testing your ads lets you make a more relevant copy of the ads. Relevant ad copy means you will have a higher ad spot, leading to a lower CPC.

How To Launch Instagram Ads

There are three ways to start running ads:

1. Instagram App

You can share posts that you’ve already generated on Instagram by accessing ads in the Instagram app. You go into the app and choose the post that you want to promote. Once the post is selected, it can be launched as an ad.

You can start monitoring how many people see your post and engage with it once you have launched your promoted post.

Instagram Ads uses the same Ad Manager tool as Facebook. It’s simple and secure if you’d like to run ads through this program.

By using Ads Manager, you can organize your campaign, make adjustments to your campaign, and measure the progress. It’s a good way to run an advertising campaign for Instagram.

3. Instagram Partners

If you do not have a lot of time or need extra support, you have the choice of using Instagram partners. You’re working with proven experts with Instagram partners, who are vetted by Instagram. They’ll help you purchase ads and deliver valuable creative results. For companies that don’t have the experience, it is a perfect alternative.

Check out our list of Killer Instagram Ad Examples of 2020 for some inspiration and more tips for your future ad campaigns. We’ve spilled tons of secrets that are sure to help you up your Instagram ads game.

If you’re ready to begin earning more valuable leads with your Instagram ad campaign and maximize your Instagram advertising costs, don’t hesitate to reach out to our Instagram ad agency.

Are Instagram ads worth it in 2021?

Instagram ads are definitely worth it if you’re a brand selling physical products that are visually appealing. In the context, most people go to Instagram to buy fashion items. It has become a marketplace for inspiration.

It’s why we don’t recommend Instagram ads for every brand but as a rule of thumb, if you are selling to consumers then you should advertise on Instagram. From Internet service providers to camping equipment, Instagram is the ads platform to be if you want to gain more visibility and sales.

Is paying for ads on Instagram worth it? Yes, we truly believe so. After having helped hundreds of brands grow with Instagram ads, we’ve seen its potential. It’s a very competitive market. You might do it yourself and be highly unprofitable.

Don’t hesitate to reach out if you need consulting advice or someone to take care of your Instagram ads campaign. It’s what we love the most!

Complete Guide To Facebook And Instagram Advertising Cost

When you think of display advertising costs on the social network generally, There is a lot to think of and to examine carefully before jumping to a conclusion.

The reason is that you need to be careful and take some time trying to understand advertising costs before creating your Ad campaigns.

There are cost variations on each of the advertising platforms and it all depends on which of the platforms you choose to use for your advertising campaign.

Also, the type of ad campaigns such as carousel ads, video views you run on a social network such as PPC and CPM, target location, niche, and time may also in different ways have some impact on your Facebook ad campaign and Instagram advertising cost.

Have in mind that the automatic bidding system, CTR, engagement, and relevance score may also significantly determine your Instagram campaign ad cost.

We understand the confusion and tend to address all those in this post.

Table of Contents

Most asked questions concerning Display advertising cost

This post is focused on Facebook and Instagram advertising costs, here are some of the most asked questions relating to advertising costs on these platforms.

Read till the end so you won’t miss any valuable information.

#Q1. How much does it cost to advertise on Facebook?

#Q2. How much does it cost to advertise on Instagram?

Let’s just start by defining what advertising cost is before moving on.

What is the Cost of Display Advertising

This is simply the amount of money you pay for an advertising campaign. This cost can be sub-divided into Cost per Click (CPC), and Cost per 1000 Mille (CPM) which are all online advertising price models.

Now let’s look at the various cost of ads on different platforms.

How much do Facebook ads cost?

The cost of advertising on Facebook or Facebook ads cost per click entirely depends on the type of campaign.

Usually, the cost of promoting your Facebook page for likes and followers is different from the cost per app install, CPP costs, and cost-effective results.

Facebook advertising has a bidding system that takes factors such as the timing of your campaign, the bidding strategy of your campaign, your choice of placement, relevance score, and your target audience.

With these factors put together, your Facebook advertising cost or the average cost of Facebook ads will be determined.

However, Here is a great breakdown of cost per click by campaign objective by AdExpresso

Image source

As you can see in the above image, the average cost of Facebook ads or an average cost of CPC was on a rise throughout the year for clicks, impressions even the overall volume of ad spend rise towards the festive seasons.

On the other hand, ad performance for performance marketing such as clicks and lead prices went down as the year moves on.

In the first quarter of 2019, the cost of advertising on Facebook significantly from an average of $2.55 in Q1 2018 to just $0.55 in 2019. Marketers or brands doing performance marketing will tend to benefit from this price drop a lot.

Facebook ads pricing

An overview of Facebook ads pricing shows more detailed information about the price of ads considering various factors as discussed below.

Facebook Cost Per Click by days of the week

Image source

The cost is based on research carried out by Adespresso in Facebook cost summary of Facebook ads cost per click in 2018 and 2019.

To round up Facebook Ad cost, here is a video that helps explain how the bidding and other advertising cost is worked.

How much do Instagram ads cost?

Marketing strategy on a social media platform like Instagram and Facebook often involves setting a required daily budget, bid amount, and ad placements among many other ad strategies that may lead to highly relevant ad copies.

The Cost of advertising on Instagram is not also fixed but rather works on a bid system that allows the highest bidder to acquire the ad space.

Since Instagram ads are very competitive due to their numerous benefits to brands.

You should expect your Instagram ads price (cost of Instagram ads) to hover around $0.20 to $2.5 per click.

Instagram Cost Per Click (CPC) = $0.20 to $2.5

If you decide to run your Instagram ad campaigns per the CPM pricing model. You should expect to pay between $3.5 to $5.5 per 1000 views or visits.

Instagram CPM (Cost per 1000 views or visits = $3.5 to $5.5

Even though Instagram is part of the Facebook Ad system, research from various experts and companies shows that It is more profitable to advertise on Instagram.

Instagram ads price more than Facebook Ads which is one thing you must know.

You may also want to read: Facebook Ads Manager Ultimate guide

However, you will get a bit better results from your ads on Instagram compared to Facebook ads cost per click.

In a recent study, we found that demographics play a vital role in the cost of Instagram advertising. Generally, the average cost of CPC for all ages is between $0.55 cents to $0.85 cents

Engagement levels of these groups vary and so does the ad cost. For example, the average cost per click for a group of 25 to 34 years is between $0.95 cents to $1.50 dollars per click.

While targeting younger people aged between 13yrs to 17yrs costs on average $0.35 cents per click.

Another factor that influences your Instagram ad costs is festive periods when there is more competition.

Instagram ad campaigns’ cost increase during major holidays or events such as Christmas, Black Friday, Labor Day, and Cyber Monday.

It is also natural to understand that your target location also influences the cost of advertising.

For instance, you should expect to pay more when your target audience location is in California, USA, and pay far less when your Target audience location is in Lagos, Nigeria.

In any case, here is another video that explains how much it cost you on advertising on Instagram and possible things that influence your Instagram ad cost.

Comparing Facebook and Instagram advertising

When thinking of which the platform to advertise on between Facebook and Instagram ads. Well, there are both benefits and disadvantages of choosing to advertise only on one of the platforms.

Both are great platforms but depending on what you want to advertise and who your target audience is, Facebook might work better at times while on the other hand, while Instagram might work better for some ads.

Here is a great comparison of Facebook and Instagram advertising strategies.

Creating Effective Facebook and Instagram Ads

There are very important things you need to consider when creating ads on Facebook and Instagram.

Since these two work similar and use one platform. we are going to lay some tips to help you gain great results with your Ad campaign.

Define your audience

One of the top keys to getting a high ROI on your advertising is to figure out who your target audience is and that applies to Facebook and Instagram.

Since Facebook has a split test tool to enable you to test your ads, for several days before running ads or your Instagram campaign.

This tool can come in handy when you want to know which ad sets are performing the way you want.

For getting the right audience to target, the Facebook audience insight tool is of the best tools to figure out who to target.

Create attractive offers

Your offers need to be attractive. This means offering your potential customers offers they can’t afford to turndown.

This can be your service, product or price.

It must be attractive and should reflect in your Ad’s image and text. You will need to create very attractive images or videos that present your offer.

Split Test Your Ads

Slip testing on Facebook and Instagram Ads helps in many ways. First, it helps you determine which ad works for you.

You can split-test based on audience location, age, time and much other data sets.

Second, It prevents unnecessary ad spending meaning it will help you avoid spending your ad budget on an audience that doesn’t need your offer.

This means, saving your ad money and making it work more efficiently for a successful ad campaign.

Split testing is aimed at helping you determine what type of ad you should run and who, where and when to target your audience making your ads more profitable.

Use the Automatic bidding

Bid amount, as well as ad budget, play a crucial role when it comes to Facebook and Instagram advertising.

It is always better to use automatic bidding for better results especially when your ad placements are targeting the two social platforms (Facebook and Instagram)

Use Landing Pages

Landing pages are of great help when it comes to running a successful campaign.

Landing pages hold the key to making your audience directed to the right pages, links and call to action buttons.

Setting up the right landing pages helps improve your Facebook and Instagram ad relevance score.

The more time people spend on your landing page, the more it will positively impact your ads.

Click-through rate (CTR) and time spent on landing pages help increase your ad relevance score which in the long run will reduce your ad cost and increase your Ad ROI.

Retarget and scale

This is making sure you bring all those lost customers back to your page and make them your loyal customers.

There are a lot of people that may interact with your ads but won’t take any action, some may visit your page and go as far as check-out level but will leave without buying.

You don’t let those people go, you use the data provided to you by Facebook Pixel and get those people back to your landing pages and get them to do what you need them to do.

There is so much power in re-targeting that you can use to grow your business. Don’t let this go to waste. Re-Target those people that leave without converting or buying to become your loyal customers.

Conclusions

The key to getting very cheap but quality traffic on Facebook and Instagram is targeting the right audience.

As stated, you need to first define your audience based on their demographics, location, even income levels, their educational status, ethnicity etc.

Testing your defined audience will help a lot in scaling down your ad spend as you will focus only on the right audience.

With this, your relevance score will be improved as your CTR and engagement are improved.

running cost-effective ad campaigns requires determining the type of ad

Marketing strategy use on social networks is different which should be taken into account.

Factors such as bid amount, ad placements, and target audience among several factors should always be strategically evaluated to determine the goal of creating highly relevant ad copies to reach users.

Optimising your ad campaign periodically should be a priority. Never create ads and forget to optimise your campaigns.

You have to check on it periodically and remove what is not working and focus on what works best for your campaign.

Video showing how much are Instagram ads

analysis of more than 130 thousand paid posts - Marketing on vc.ru

We have prepared a translation of a large-scale study from Socialinsider. This article presents statistics that show the strengths and weaknesses of advertising on Facebook and Instagram. The experts analyzed 137 228 posts and found out what works more efficiently.

3188 views

#resume

1. Instagram Stories is the highest click-through ad placement; average CTR 0.76%

2. Instagram ads are more expensive than Facebook ads

3. Instagram focuses on feed ads - this placement has the highest CPC ($1.86) and CPM ($7.27)

4. The most expensive placement on Facebook is stories with a CPC of $0.55

5. The Facebook feed is the king of ad placement. Brands invest the most in it; Facebook feed has the highest CPM (5.18%) and the highest CTR (4.70%)

nine0024

Colleagues, we were also surprised that in South America they spend more on advertising than in North America, but we will trust our friends from Socialinsider

______

Average CPC: $0.49 on Facebook ads and $1.09 on Instagram on average

Instagram ad prices tend to increase gradually, in mid-2021, the average cost per click on Instagram is $1.09.

Instagram Stories is an ad placement where people interact with content more often; average CTR 0. 76%

And the Instagram feed, which many brands invest in the most, comes in second with a lower average CTR of 0.69%.

Facebook posting cost

The graph above shows that brands prefer the Facebook feed for ad placement and invest the most money in this placement.

Speaking of average CPC, some interesting discoveries can be made:

  • Facebook Stories is the ad slot with the highest CPC of $0.55. nine0053
  • In the right column of Facebook, CPC averages $0.38.
  • Facebook Feed reaches an average CPC of $0.26.
  • Facebook videos have an average CPC of $0.13.

When your primary goal is to increase brand awareness, an important metric you should look at is average CPM . Let's take a look at the numbers:

  • Facebook Feed: Average CPM is $5.18.
  • Facebook Video: Average CPM is $2. 48.
  • 90,052 Facebook stories: Average $1.08 per thousand impressions.
  • Facebook Right Column: Average CPM $0.38.

Cost of posting on Instagram

The most used ad placement on Instagram is the feed. Although it has both the highest average CPC of $1.86 and CPM of $7.27. nine0005

The Instagram feed has both the highest average CPC of $1.86 and CPM of $7.27. Other placements are almost half the price.

Facebook Feed has the highest average CTR of 4.70%, followed by Facebook Video with an average CTR of 2.05%

The ultimate goal of brands is to convert the audience into customers. Conversions make up almost a quarter of the main goals of an advertising campaign.

And if you look at the average CTR on Facebook, it's pretty clear why marketing budgets are divided the way they are. nine0005

The top two positions for the best ad placement on Facebook are the placements where brands spend most of their social media ad budgets:

  • Facebook Feed with an average CTR of 4. 70%.
  • Facebook video with an average CTR of 2.06%.

In terms of performance, these two types of Facebook ads are followed by:

  • Facebook Right Column: with an average CTR of 0.15%.
  • nine0052 Facebook stories: with an average CTR of 0.09%

Text reference:

❗Paid advertising on Instagram and how to use it effectively

Even though Facebook and Instagram ads are set up using the same Ads Manager control center, the advertising costs differ on these social networks. Because Facebook has been around longer, has more data and more ad space than its younger sibling, Instagram will indeed cost a bit more in some cases. But this fact should by no means be a reason to refuse to explore the possibilities of such an attractive and effective application that perfectly complements the Facebook ecosystem. Using Instagram may be slightly more costly due to fewer ad spaces and increased competition for impression share, but in terms of overall performance, it can also significantly outperform Facebook. nine0005

Paid advertising on Instagram is a powerful marketing tool that complements the ability of companies to fill the feed, stories and "Interesting" section.

As the platform matures and the need for more impressions arises, ads may well be added to the Reels and InstaGram TV services.

Advertising on Instagram, just like on Facebook, has flexible settings and advanced targeting functions, which makes it available for almost any business. If this visual platform is popular among a certain target audience, then you should think about placing ads there. To help guide you, the following questions will be discussed below:

  • How does Instagram advertising work?
  • Why is it worth the money?
  • Pricing factors
  • Average rates
  • How to get the most out of your ad budget

What follows is a quick overview of how Instagram advertising works, benefits and costs in 2021.

How does advertising work in Instagram ?

Depending on the purpose of the campaign, advertising on Instagram can:

  • have up to 18 call-to-action button options;
  • transfer the user to a specific site;
  • allow users to download applications or make purchases in online stores.

You don't even need an account. Since the service is owned by Facebook Inc, the only thing required is a Facebook business page. However, the benefit of having an Instagram account is still there: thanks to it, it will be possible to get acquainted with the content that best suits the preferences of the target audience, as well as complement and improve the marketing efforts undertaken. nine0005

Use the Ads Manager tool to configure your future ads. With it, you can set up advertising campaigns, ad groups, for which you can specify the size of the budget, select the target audience, ad placements, and optimization options.

As with Facebook, Instagram ads will perform according to your chosen time frame, budget, audience, and optimization goals.

Why advertising at Instagram worth the money?

Social media advertising is very useful, in particular the payment for advertising impressions on Instagram, which is especially beneficial compared to the usual running of campaigns or promotions directly from the organization's account.

Advanced targeting

Instagram, which has a monthly audience of over 1 billion users, is second only to Facebook in this indicator. Both platforms have an incredibly powerful arsenal of targeting data, and since Instagram is part of Facebook, Instagram ads take full advantage of a combined array of demographic and geographic statistics. Facebook ads are highly effective precisely because of advanced targeting, which provides the opportunity for fine-tuning when focusing on different consumer audiences. Whether used:

  • native Facebook customizations suggested based on interest, behavior, and other demographics,
  • or building your own custom audience using Facebook Pixel toolkit or SDK, email lists, other sources, it is possible to succeed in attracting the right people in the process of conducting retargeting campaigns and finding new customers.

Higher engagement rates

One of the factors behind Instagram's popularity is its high engagement rate, both organic and through paid advertising.

Images posted on Instagram get 23% more attention on average than on Facebook.

In terms of organic engagement, Facebook has almost no organic reach, while the content of large companies that are present on Instagram is regularly viewed by about 4% of followers. While it's better than nothing, it's a smart move to invest more in paid advertising to increase your visibility and reach. Decent results can be achieved using any form of visual content, but video advertising is more attractive in terms of engagement (by about 38%) for many businesses. Images and videos that form the visual basis of Instagram are much more effective in attracting attention compared to platforms degrees focused on textual representation of information. nine0005

External links

Instagram does not currently support hyperlinks in organic posts. You can include the link in the header or body of the message, but the recipient must manually copy and paste it into their browser or follow the link in the profile description. When you connect paid advertising, you can add external links, which allows you to specify a specific website or other external URL as the target address. To be able to better track conversions from Instagram ads, it is recommended that you use your own site with a pre-configured Facebook Pixel, as it may not be available on third-party sites. nine0005

Longer videos

Videos can be up to 60 seconds long in the feed and Explore tab, and up to 15 seconds in story mode. Accordingly, if advertising is launched in all these places at once, then in total you can get up to 2 minutes of video content. This gives more opportunities to present not only the brand itself, but the features and benefits of the offer through a visual presentation of products and / or services. nine0005

How much will advertising cost?

If there is a target URL, the cost per conversion for the Link Clicks metric will range from $0.50 to $0. 95. The CPC for the "Clicks (all)" metric is slightly lower, ranging from $0.40 to $0.70.

This metric takes into account all clicks on an advertisement, including not only clicks, but also likes, reactions, comments and reposts. In terms of cost per thousand impressions (CPM), starting January 1, 2021, you will need to spend at least $2.50 - $3.50 to run the most effective campaigns with eligible ad sets. Engagement costs will be $0.01 - $0.05. nine0005

The data also shows that CPMs on Facebook are almost 2 times higher than on Instagram, while CPCs are typically half as much.

Pricing Factors

Instagram ad pricing, like other platforms, depends on a number of variables. The costs can vary significantly depending on what is chosen as the goal of the advertising campaign, and how this goal correlates with the position that the target audience occupies in the sales funnel. If the goal of the campaign is to increase brand awareness, then it will cost less than the action located lower in the funnel and, accordingly, with more value (for example, conversions). Showing ads to a wide and cold audience to better educate them about the brand will be less valuable than when a certain number of potential customers familiar with the product and offers have already moved closer to the bottom of the funnel. These people are willing to shell out or take a higher value action in a retargeting-focused conversion campaign that can be optimized for purchases. nine0005

Other variables that play a role in determining advertising prices include audience size. Reaching a wider audience will generally be cheaper as there is less competition for groups of people. And vice versa, as the audience narrows, for example, due to the clarification of geotargeting parameters or age limits, the price will grow in parallel with the increase in competition for its representatives. Retargeting audiences are usually small too, which is why retargeting campaigns often come with higher costs. nine0005

Pricing is also affected by the size of the budget. If it is small, and the advertising campaign or ad set is launched from scratch, then the exit from the learning phase may be delayed. At first, until the system learns and understands the type of campaign, optimization goals, and how the audience reacts to advertising, the cost of advertising can be higher. If the ads are attractive enough, Facebook and Instagram will reward you with smaller ads over time.

Click-through rate (CTR) can be significant. If it is low, the cost may be higher because the system will assume that there is some mismatch between the content of the ads and the target audience. CTR is a reliable indicator of the extent to which an ad resonates with its target audience. nine0005

Approximately 2% is considered a normal CTR level, the achievement of which will allow counting on cost reduction.

How to save on advertising in Instagram

For the most efficient use of the budget, the first step is to determine the goals of the advertising campaign, which will be in line with the sales funnel. If the intent is to target a colder, broader audience, start with less expensive campaigns to provide more exposure to those potential customers who are already aware of or interested in the brand. Better yet, test your website traffic campaign to get those users to visit your site from Instagram and be registered with the Facebook Pixel tool. This will provide an opportunity for their subsequent retargeting if the conversion does not occur at the previous stage. More often than not, users need to make several interactions with products, perhaps buy something and compare with competitors' offerings, before they have enough trust in the brand. Subsequently, these people will come back to you through retargeting or other means to finally make a purchase. Impulse buying can be successful if you sell an inexpensive product that does not require much market research. nine0005

Another way to reduce costs is to use the automatic placement option in your Facebook and Instagram ad settings. With a wide margin for maneuver, the system can use its own algorithm to determine where it is best to place ads. The result is an increase in both the total number of options available across both platforms and the volume of ad impressions, reducing competition across three of Instagram's current ad placements (Feed, Stories, and Explore) and lowering costs.


Learn more