How to create an add on instagram

A 5-Step Guide to Using Instagram Ads

If you have a budget allocated for paid social, you should strongly consider running Instagram ads. Why?

27% of users say they find new products and brands through paid social ads, and Instagram ads can reach over 1.2 billion people, or 20% of the world’s population over age 13.

In this article, we’ll give you a comprehensive overview about how to advertise on Instagram, including an easy 5-step guide to create your first ad in just a few taps.

What are Instagram ads?

How much do Instagram ads cost?

Types of Instagram ads

How to choose the best Instagram ad type

How to advertise on Instagram

Best practices for Instagram ads

Bonus: Download a free pack of 8 eye-catching Instagram ad templates created by Hootsuite’s professional graphic designers. Start stopping thumbs and selling more today.

What are Instagram ads?

Instagram ads are posts for which businesses can pay to serve to Instagram users.

Source: Instagram (@oakodenmark, @elementor)

Similar to Facebook, Instagram ads appear throughout the app, including in users’ feeds, Stories, Explore, and more. They look similar to normal posts but always contain a “sponsored” label to indicate that they are an ad. They also often have more features than a normal post, such as links, CTA buttons, and product catalogs.

How much do Instagram ads cost?

The cost of Instagram ads is highly dependent on a variety of factors – there is no average or benchmark price. Some cost factors include:

Your targeting
Competitiveness of your industry
Time of year (costs often go up during holiday shopping periods in Q4 such as Black Friday)
Placement (costs can differ between ads shown on Facebook vs Instagram)

The best way to evaluate your budget is to set up a draft campaign in Ads Manager and look for the Audience Definition and Estimated Daily Results modules, which will tell you if your budget settings will be sufficient to reach your desired audience within your desired duration.

Note that there is no “best practice” for how much to spend. You can get started by spending just a few dollars a day, and scale up from there based on success.

In order to control the costs of your Instagram ads, you can set either daily budgets or lifetime spending limits. We’ll explain this in more detail in our 5-step guide below.

Types of Instagram ads

There are many different types of advertising formats on Instagram, including:

Image ads
Stories ads
Video ads
Carousel ads
Collection ads
Explore ads
IGTV ads
Shopping ads
Reels ads

The wide range means that you can choose the best ad type that matches your specific business goal. Each ad format has its own selection of call-to-action options, which are listed below.

Image ads

Image ads allow businesses to use single images to advertise their brand, products and services.

Source: Instagram (@veloretti)

Image ads are best suited for campaigns with compelling visual content that can be conveyed in a single image. These images can be created from high-quality photography or design and illustration.

It’s also possible to add text to images. However, Instagram recommends limiting overlaid text as much as possible for best results.

Instagram Stories Ads are full-screen image or video ads that appear between users’ Stories.

Instagram Stories are a well-used part of the app, with over 500 million Instagram users viewing Stories every day. Engagement is often higher with Stories ads, as the format covers the whole mobile screen and feels much more immersive than in-feed ads.

The best Instagram Stories ads are ones that look and feel like normal Stories and don’t stand out as ads. When designing Stories ads, businesses can use all organic Instagram Stories features like filters, text, GIFs, and interactive stickers.

Source: Instagram (@organicbasics)

Stories ads can use still photos, videos, and carousels. The call-to-action is presented as a swipe-up link at the bottom of the Story.

Video ads

Similar to image ads, video ads on Instagram allow businesses to give users a closer look at their brand, products, and services.

In-feed video ads can be up to 60 minutes long, but shorter videos are usually more effective. Read more best practices for designing Instagram video ads.

Source: Instagram (@popsocketsnl)

Carousel ads

Carousel ads feature a series of images or videos that users can swipe through. They can appear both in-feed and within Instagram Stories, with a call-to-action button or swipe up link that lead users directly to your website.

You can use carousel ads to:

Showcase a collection of related products
Tell a multi-part story
Share up to 10 images or videos

Source: Instagram (@sneakerdistrict)

Collection ads

Collection ads are a combination between carousel ads and shopping ads. Collection ads showcase products directly from your product catalog.

Collection ads are best suited for ecommerce brands, as they allow users to purchase products directly from the ad. When a user clicks on the ad, they’re directed to an Instagram Instant Experience Storefront where they can learn more about the product and proceed to purchase.

Source: Instagram (@flattered)

Explore ads

Explore ads appear within the Explore tab, an area of the platform where users discover new content and accounts that are tailored based on their Instagram usage habits. More than 50% of Instagram users access Explore every month, so it’s a great place to gain exposure.

Instagram Explore ads do not appear in the Explore grid or the topic channels, but rather are shown after someone clicks on a photo or video from Explore. As the content in users’ Explore tabs is constantly changing, Explore ads allow businesses to be shown alongside culturally relevant and trending content.

Explore ads can be both images and videos.

Pro Tip: No need to design brand new assets for Explore ads. You can simply re-use existing assets.

IGTV ads

IGTV ads are video ads that play after a user clicks to watch an IGTV video from their feed. Videos can be up to 15 seconds long, and should be designed for vertical full screen viewing (more IGTV ad specs).

They are shown midroll (in the middle of the video), potentially with the option to skip.

IGTV ads are currently available to users with Instagram Creator accounts in the US, UK, and Australia, with more countries rolling out soon. Creators can opt in to having ads shown in their IGTV videos, and receive 55% of the advertising revenue generated from each view.

Shopping ads

With 130 million users tapping on shopping posts every month, it’s no wonder Instagram has been heavily improving its ecommerce features over the last 1-2 years. With Instagram’s newest Shopping features, users can now view and purchase products without ever leaving the app (limited to businesses with Instagram Checkout enabled).

Instagram Shopping ads take users directly to a product description page within the Instagram app. They can then purchase through your mobile website.

In order to run Shopping ads, you need to set up your Instagram Shopping catalog.

Pro Tip: Take advantage of Hootsuite’s integration with Shopify to access your catalog right from your Hootsuite dashboard.

Source: Instagram

Reels ads

With the successful launch of Reels, Instagram recently announced the ability to advertise within Reels.

Ads are shown in between Reels, with similar specs to Stories ads (full screen vertical videos), and can be up to 30 seconds. They should include sound or music to be well-integrated with organic Reels.

How to choose the best Instagram ad type

With so many different ad types available, it can be overwhelming to select one to use for your campaign. The good news: Ads Manager is well set up for experimentation, which means you can test multiple formats and see which one performs best before running a full campaign.

To narrow down the formats, use these questions to guide you.

1. What is my goal?

With your social media marketing strategy in mind, identify the most important outcome for your Instagram ads campaign. Do you want to:

Drive traffic to your website?
Get video views for a new product?
Increase brand awareness for a new business?
Drive ecommerce purchases, app installs, or email signups?

After clarifying your goal, you can choose some potential formats based on the supported objectives and call-to-action options for each ad type. For example, Stories, IGTV and Reels ads are better for driving video views, while Shopping and Collection ads will be best for driving ecommerce purchases.

Bonus: Download a free pack of 8 eye-catching Instagram ad templates created by Hootsuite’s professional graphic designers. Start stopping thumbs and selling more today.

Download now

2.

Who is my target audience?

Depending on who you wish to target with your Instagram ads, some ad types may be better than others.

Think about your audience’s habits and behaviors. Do they like watching lots of videos? Are they avid online shoppers? Do they spend more time watching Stories and Reels instead of scrolling through their feed?

Choose ad types with objectives and call-to-actions that match your audience’s natural preferences.

3. What has performed best on organic?

Chances are that your organic followers have lots of similarities to the audience you’ll be targeting with your Instagram ads. So, look to your organic feed to see what types of content have performed well, and that can give you a good indication of what paid formats might resonate with your audience.

How to advertise on Instagram

There are two routes for creating Instagram ads campaigns: promoting a post and Ads Manager. Promoting an existing post only takes a few taps and can be done right from the Instagram app, but lacks the customization options available in Ads Manager.

Below, we’ll walk you through both methods.

Source: Instagram

Instagram advertising method 1: Promoting a post in-app

The easiest way to start advertising on Instagram is to promote one of your existing Instagram posts. This is similar to Facebook’s Boost Post option.

If you have a post that’s performing well in terms of engagement, promoting it within the app is a quick and easy method to scale up the post’s success—and show it to new people who aren’t following you yet.

You’ll need to have a business or creator account on Instagram to do this. You’ll also need to have a Facebook Business Page connected to your Instagram account (here’s how to connect your Facebook and Instagram accounts in Facebook Business Manager).

Then, it’s as simple as clicking Promote on the post you wish to turn into an ad.

You’ll be prompted to choose your preferred audience, destination, budget, and duration for your ad to run.

Finally, tap Create Promotion.

That’s it! Your ad will be reviewed and approved by Facebook. Once it goes live, be sure to monitor the results of your ad in the Promotions tab of your Instagram profile.

Instagram advertising method 2: Creating Instagram ads using Facebook Ads Manager (5-step guide)

In order to get the most out of Instagram’s extensive ad targeting, creative, and reporting abilities, you can use Facebook Ads Manager to create ad campaigns (remember that Facebook owns Instagram).

Although it requires a bit more work, our 5-step guide will guide you through the process.

Step 1: Choose your objective

To start, go to Ads Manager and click +Create.

First, you’ll need to choose your campaign objective from the list below.

Here’s a quick breakdown of what each of these objectives aims to achieve.

Brand awareness: Increase awareness of your business or products among users who haven’t heard of you yet.
Reach: Show your ad to as many people as possible in your target audience.
Traffic: Drive clicks to your website, app, or any other URL.
App installs: Get users to download your app.
Engagement: Increase comments, likes, shares, event responses, and offer claims on your ad.
Video views: Get video views from users most likely to watch it.
Lead generation: Gather personal info from interested users (i.e. email signups).
Messages: Get users to send a message to your brand account.
Conversions: Drive sales or sign-up conversions on your website or app.
Catalog sales: Promote sales from your online store catalog.
Store traffic: Direct users to your brick-and-mortar location.

This video can help identify your objective:

[Instagram Ad Options video]

After selecting your objective, you’ll be prompted to name your campaign. Tip: Give it a specific name based on the campaign objective to help you keep track of your campaigns.

Finally, you’ll have the option to turn on Campaign Budget Optimization. This option allows Facebook’s algorithm to determine how to spend your budget across ad sets. AdEpresso has a full guide about if you should use Campaign Budget Optimization.

Step 2: Choose your budget and schedule

In this step, you’ll choose how much you want to spend and how long your campaign will run.

For your budget, you’ll have two options:

Daily budget: Set a maximum daily spend, useful for always-on ads
Lifetime budget: Set a maximum spend for your whole campaign, useful for ads with a clear end date

Under Ad Scheduling you can choose to run ads continuously (most common), or only at certain times of day (for example, if you’re a food delivery company and only want to run ads in the evening when your audience is most likely to place delivery orders).

As you adjust these options, you’ll see the Audience Definition and Estimated Daily Results modules in the right-hand column which will give you an idea of expected reach for your chosen budget. Try to choose settings so that your ad set falls in the middle of the green range.

Step 3: Identify your audience

The next step is to define your audience targeting. In this step you can either Create a New Audience or use a Saved Audience.

Saved Audiences are useful if you have your own custom audience data (i.e. past website visitors) or past audiences from previous campaigns that performed well. If not, you can create a new audience based on demographics, interests, and behavioral targeting.

During this step, you can also select Dynamic Creative. If you choose this option, you can upload separate visual assets and headlines, and Facebook will automatically create combinations that are optimized for your target audience.

Step 4: Select your ad placements

In the Placements section, you can decide where your ads will appear.

There are two options:

Automatic Placements: Ads will be shown to your audience wherever they’re likely to perform best.
Manual Placements: You can choose specifically where your ad will appear (and not appear). If you want to limit your ads to show only on Instagram (not Facebook), you can choose this using Manual Placements.

Here’s where you can select your manual placements:

While previewing placements, Ads Manager will display the technical requirements for each one. To ensure your visual assets are optimized for each format, see our guide to social media image sizes.

Step 5: Create your ads

Now it’s time to create the actual ad. Start by choosing your Facebook Page and corresponding Instagram Account. Then you can select your preferred ad format.

Then, proceed to fill out the rest of the details under Ad Creative:

Choose your pictures or videos (unless you’re using an existing post)
Input your ad copy
Select a payment option
Review your ad
Click Confirm

At this step you will also choose the call-to-action button and enter the URL where you want to send people who click on your ad.

If you want to track conversions from your ad, it’s important to select the Facebook Pixel in the Tracking section. Once connected to your website or app, your Facebook pixel will allow you to see insights about how your audience interacts with your business after clicking on your ad.

When you’re ready, click Confirm to launch your Instagram ad.

Best practices for Instagram ads

Now you have everything you need to know about setting up and launching Instagram ads. The next step is designing effective visual assets for your ads.

Here are some tips for attention-grabbing Instagram ad design.

Design mobile-first ads

98.8% of users access social media via a mobile device, so it’s vital to design your creative for mobile viewing, not desktop.

Here are a few tips to design mobile-first ads:

When capturing video content, make sure to film in vertical (9×16) as this is easier to crop to 4×5 than from landscape
Minimize the amount of text in your ads
If you do add text, choose large font sizes that are easy to read on mobile screens
Add animations and motion graphics to videos to quickly engage viewers
Keep videos short (15 seconds or less)

Keep branding and messaging upfront

The first few seconds of your ad will determine whether a viewer will stop scrolling and watch the whole thing. That’s why it’s important to start your ad with the key message and showcase your branding within the first 3 seconds.

Use sound to delight

40% of users consume social media with sound off. As such, it’s important to design your ads for sound-off consumption, and to use sound to delight users who do have sound on. Here’s how to do that:

Use visual elements to tell your story and deliver your key message without sound
Add captions for any voiceover or scripted audio
Use text overlay to deliver your key message without sound

Pitch, play, plunge

Facebook recommends designing a combination of creative types that work together to grab attention and reward interest:

Pitch: Short assets that get the campaign idea across immediately and grab attention
Play: Assets that allow light exploration and interactivity for interested audiences
Plunge: Immersive assets that allow people to go in-depth into your campaign idea

Looking for more inspiration? Here are 53 examples of amazing Instagram ads.

Get the most out of your Instagram advertising budget with AdEspresso by Hootsuite. Easily create, manage, and optimize all your Instagram ad campaigns in one place. Try it free today.

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Bonus: Get the Instagram advertising cheat sheet for 2022. The free resource includes key audience insights, recommended ad types, and tips for success.

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How to Create Instagram Ads In 2023

I’m sure you’ve heard stories about entrepreneurs running Instagram ads and having massive success.

And they probably make you think about integrating ads into your own Instagram marketing strategy.

But just how much do Instagram ads cost, and how do you go about setting up an Instagram advertising campaign? These are a few important questions that I aim to answer.

In this guide, I’ll walk you through everything you need to know about Instagram ads, including how to set up your first ad campaign on this social network.

Post Contents

What Are Instagram Ads?
Types of Instagram Ads
- Stories ads
- Explore ads
- Collection ads
- Shopping ads
Benefits of Instagram Ads
How Much Do Instagram Ads Cost?
How to Create Instagram Ads
- How to run Instagram ads within the app
- How to create Instagram ads using Facebook Ads Manager
  - 1. Pick an objective
  - 2. Name your campaign
  - 3. Set your budget and schedule
  - 4. Choose your target audience
  - 5. Select your ad placements
  - 6. Create your first Instagram ad
Conclusion
Want to Learn More?

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What Are Instagram Ads?

Instagram ads are posts that pop up on a user’s Instagram feed.

The business or person advertising pays to display the content across Instagram, which is often accompanied by a “Sponsored” label.

Post ads typically appear in the form of a carousel, still image, video, or slideshow.

They can also feature a call-to-action button like “Shop Now” or “Learn More”. This depends on the campaign’s objective, i.e. whether you want to get traffic or conversions.

Types of Instagram Ads

Instagram also has many other ad types. The most interesting ones include:

Stories Ads
Explore Ads
Collection Ads
Shopping Ads

Here’s some information about each type:

Stories ads

Instagram Stories Ads appear between people’s Stories in full screen.

The call-to-action in Stories Ads encourages the audience to “swipe up” from the bottom of the story to shop or learn more.

Plus, the ads allow you to utilize all capabilities of Instagram Stories, like adding video effects, face filters, and stickers to grab the attention of your audience.

Explore ads

Instagram has an “Explore” section that allows people to discover content linked to their interests.

But Instagram Explore ads don’t appear in that section. Instead, they only display after a user opens an image or video from Explore.

Source

The best thing about Explore ads is that you can run them alongside post ads by choosing Explore as an additional ad placement (I’ll talk more about ad placements later in the article).

Collection ads

Instagram collection ads enable audiences to view and purchase your products.

When users click on an item within a collection, the platform redirects them to Instant Experience, a type of an ecommerce storefront within Instagram.

Source

These creative Instagram ads typically include a collection of product images or videos.

Shopping ads

Instagram also lets you promote shoppable posts as ads.

Users who tap on these ads are redirected to a product description page within Instagram. They can then buy the featured item from your mobile shop.

If you have an Instagram Shop for your business, you can create these ads on the fly. (To set one up, check out our post: The Ultimate Guide to Setting Up an Instagram Shop).

Benefits of Instagram Ads

At its most basic level, running Instagram ads is an effective way to get your products in front of a vast audience.

In fact, around 500 million people log into Instagram daily, so you have a large consumer base to target.

Also, Instagram’s engagement is on the rise, meaning you can get a better response rate on Instagram compared to other social media platforms. Businesses using Instagram can generate 4x more interactions on the platform compared to Facebook.

What’s more, 80 percent of Instagrammers report making a buying decision based on something they discovered while using the app.

This means you have an opportunity to drive sales by putting your business front and center of people’s feeds – courtesy of Instagram ads.

That’s not all.

On Instagram, you’re able to set up advertising using Facebook’s Ads Manager. If you’re already running Facebook ads for your business, the steps to create Instagram paid ads should come easy. As an icing on the cake, Facebook’s superior targeting and budgeting options are available to you.

How Much Do Instagram Ads Cost?

Honestly, there’s no real answer to the question of how much Instagram ads cost. I, however, know from experience that costs tend to vary between target locations, days of the week, chosen demographics, ad placements, and other factors.

For example, it costs more to deliver Instagram ads to millennials than to adults, as 25 to 34 years old users are one of the most coveted audience groups on social networks.

Likewise, Instagram ads price increases on weekdays since the platform gets higher levels of engagement during this time.

When it comes to ad placements, running Instagram feed ads costs more than other options. That said, AdEspresso reported that the average CPC for more ad placements is $1.20.

So how much budget should you set aside for Instagram advertising? Think how much a conversion is worth to you and spend $20-$50 at first. Then test everything and double down on the campaigns that work best. Use Instagram Insights to measure your performance and dedicate some extra money to ads that help boost your engagement and sales.

How to Create Instagram Ads

Instagram doesn’t have an ad creation tool of its own, but there are two ways to place ads on Instagram:

Promote an existing post within the app
Create ads via Facebook Ads Manager

Let’s begin with the easiest way.

How to run Instagram ads within the app

The simplest way to start advertising on Instagram is to promote a post that you’ve already created.

Choose one that has generated the most engagement and tap “promote” in the lower right corner to run it as an ad.

You’ll need to set up an Instagram business profile before you’re able to see the promote option. If you’re currently using a personal profile, here’s how to convert it into a professional one.

Previously, Instagram also required that you connect a Facebook Business Page to your Instagram account.

But a few weeks ago, the company announced that it would allow new advertisers in some countries to create ads without having to link to a Facebook Page.

So if you’re promoting an Instagram post for the first time, you’ll be able to track and manage campaigns right inside Instagram.

How to create Instagram ads using Facebook Ads Manager

Since Instagram and Facebook are tightly integrated, you can also use Facebook Ads Manager to create ads for Instagram.

For those unfamiliar with it, Facebook Ads Manager is an incredibly powerful tool that lets you customize and pinpoint audiences. And you can also use it to define a campaign objective and track the performance of your ads.

To access Facebook Ads Manager, you’ll need a Facebook account with access to a Facebook Business Page.

Plus, you’ll need to link your Instagram account to your Facebook Business Page. Here are the steps:

1) Open your Facebook Business Page.

2) Go to Page Settings > Instagram.

3) Click the blue “Connect Account” button.

4) Add details of your Instagram account.

5) Click “Save”.

Once done, Facebook will let you create and run Instagram ads using Facebook Ads Manager.

Assuming you’re a complete beginner who’s never run Facebook or Instagram ads, here are the steps to create your first Instagram ad campaign.

1. Pick an objective

To start, open your Facebook Ads Manager and click the green “+ Create” button in the Campaigns tab.

Choose between Guided Creation and Quick Creation. If you want step-by-step instructions on how to set up an Instagram ads campaign, choose Guided Creation.

Facebook Ads Manager will then present you with list of objectives across three categories:

Before you choose an objective, give some thought to what you want to achieve with Instagram advertising. Do you want sales? Customer data? Increased brand awareness? Think about your goal and then pick an objective that best matches your desired outcome.

Picking the right objective is crucial, as Facebook uses your selection to determine which ad objectives, bidding types, and ad placements will be suitable for you.

If you’re running an online store, you will most likely be looking to increase sales. In this case, “Conversions” would be the most suitable objective for your Instagram campaign.

But using Instagram ads for conversions requires you to take an extra step: you have to create and install a Facebook pixel. This is a tiny code that you can place on your website to track conversions and sales.

If your online store’s site is hosted on Shopify, you just have to copy the pixel code from your Facebook Ads Manager and paste it in the Pixel ID field in Shopify Preferences.

To learn more about the Facebook Pixel and its benefits, read our post: The Facebook Pixel, Explained.

Facebook Ads Manager also lets you decide where you want to send the people who click on your ads.

You can send them to your store’s website, an app, Messenger, or WhatsApp.

2. Name your campaign

After choosing your objective, Facebook Ads Manager will let you give a name to your campaign.

While you can use a generic name like “Campaign 1”, it’s best to include certain elements in your campaign name – for example, target location, creative type, etc.

Doing so makes it easy to identify different campaigns as well as measure their performance.

Next, decide whether you want to test campaigns against each other to determine which strategies work best.

Through an A/B test, Instagram will test different campaign variations and allot the biggest budget to the one that performs best.

3. Set your budget and schedule

This part lets you define how much you want to spend on your ad campaign and for how long.

Here, you can choose between Campaign Budget Optimization and manual set up.

Campaign Budget Optimization is a new feature that identifies the ads that perform better and then allocates your budget to those. It does that while aligning with your spend limits and bid caps for each ad.

If you’re new to Instagram advertising, I highly recommend using Campaign Budget Optimization as it helps ensure you pay the lowest amount per conversion.

Facebook Ads Manager also lets you choose between a daily and lifetime budget. Here’s what you get with each option:

A daily budget makes your ads run continuously throughout the day while spending up to your allotted budget each day.
A lifetime budget allows your ads to run for a specified period while pacing your budget over that timeframe.

If you set a lifetime budget, you can also define a specific schedule for your campaign.

For example, you can configure your Instagram ads to run only on weekends or when your audience is the most active.

To get an idea of what days and time are best to advertise on Instagram, check out our infographic: The Best Time to Post on Social Media.

4. Choose your target audience

Here’s where the fun begins.

Through audience targeting, you can set up your Instagram Ads to reach certain demographics, interests, and behaviors.

For example, you might be selling a gadget and interested in targeting millennials in Australia. In audience targeting, you can enter “Australia” as the location and enter “gadget” and “technology” as interests under Detailed Targeting.

You also get the option to target Custom Audiences. These typically include people who have visited your website but can also refer to past customers whose information is saved in your contact list.

With that covered, let’s move onto placements (aka. where you want your ads to display).

5. Select your ad placements

Facebook Ads Manager gives you two options for ad placements:

Automatic placements: This feature displays your ads across multiple properties based on where they’re likely to work best.
Manual placements: Selecting this option allows you to handpick the properties where you want your ads to appear.

For Instagram ads, choose manual placements and then check the boxes for Instagram-only properties.

6. Create your first Instagram ad

The last step is where you pick a specific ad format, upload a creative and write your ad copy.

The following ad formats are available:

Choose a format that makes the most sense for your Instagram ads campaign.

Next, upload a relevant creative for your ad and write a text description to go along with it.

On a side note, make sure to pick the right Instagram ad size because the Ads Manager rejects inappropriate sizes for creatives. If you’re looking to run ads on Stories, this is a good time to check out our Instagram Stories dimensions guide.

Pro tip: Instagram offers a range of apps you can use to enhance your ad creatives. Layout is one good option for combining multiple images into a single photo. For Instagram video ads, check out Hyperlapse for creating time lapse videos while in motion.

If you choose “Conversions” as the campaign objective, you’ll also get the opportunity to pick from a variety of call-to-action texts. Select the one that’s relevant to your campaign and target audience.

Once you’re satisfied with everything, hit the green “Publish” button to start running Instagram ads for your business.

Conclusion

Okay, that’s all about Instagram ads.

Now you know what Instagram ads are, the benefits they bring, how much they cost, and how to set them up for your business.

Before signing off, I encourage you to do one thing after you create your ads: measure their performance.

No matter how well-structured your campaign, evaluate the ads to check where you could improve and save money.

You might find that one ad creative is driving five times more conversions. Or one specific ad placement is resulting in lower costs.

The easiest way to measure your ads performance is to use the built-in analytics inside Facebook Ads Manager.

By tracking and learning from the reports this tool provides, you’ll be able to find the best ad sets to run for a given campaign.

Are you using Instagram ads for your business? Let us know by leaving a comment below.

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How to advertise on Instagram for free ✋ step by step instructions

Learn how to set up free advertising on Instagram and order professional placement of targeted advertising on this social network.

Content

How to run ads on Instagram for free
The effectiveness of free advertising on Instagram

Free advertising on Instagram is gaining popularity rapidly. Now it is one of the most popular social networks for commercial activities, so many are looking for ways to promote their goods, services and brands on its platform. Official advertising on Instagram became available not so long ago, and you can even do without a profile on this social network to place it. This type of promotion became possible thanks to the launch of official advertising in social media jointly with AiTarget. networks. nine0003

How to place ads on Instagram for free

First, the user needs to make sure that there are no ad blockers installed in the browser, such as AdBlock, as well as antivirus program extensions. The AirTarget service is engaged in the creation of advertising, and such extensions block it and make it impossible. The user needs to register in the service through Facebook and give the application access to the advertising cabinets of your profile. After that, an Instagram account is linked to the advertising account. This will require:

Link your Instagram channel address to your Facebook account;
On the left side, click the "Instagram Ads" button and then "Add Account";
In the "Advertising Manager" create an ad, remembering to specify the promotion tasks;
In the free column, a link to the promoted page, then click the "Next" button;
Specify the target audience for showing your advertisement;
Select the advertising campaign budget; nine0008
Customize the appearance of the ad by specifying the landing page;
Check the design of the ad using the preview button;
Click Place Order.

Using the presented action algorithm, you will be able to place free advertising on Instagram yourself, but in order for it to be really effective, the following aspects must be taken into account.

The effectiveness of free advertising on Instagram

In order for free advertising on Instagram to have an effect and attract new visitors to your resource, you need to take into account the design of the advertising message. It is not customary to use long descriptions here. The image should grab attention so that the user wants to open it and see the information underneath. The text under the photo should be catchy and simple so that everyone can understand the unique selling proposition and be interested in it. nine0003

Read also: « Where can I order ads on Instagram? »

Hashtags are considered to be a powerful engine of free advertising on Instagram, the use of which allows users to find posts of interest to them in given categories. So, using popular tags in advertising posts, you can attract a large audience in a short period of time. You can independently make a free target on Instagram, the price is set only for the number of planned transitions or clicks. nine0003

In order for advertising in your profile to be as effective as possible, in addition to it, the page must also contain other high-quality content: original photos that catch the eye in the feed (we recommend reading the article “ Setting up ads in the Instagram feed “) and encouraging you to open the page, as well as informational messages, thematic facts and humor - all this will help to promote the profile to the top and promote advertising.

Our site offers to independently set up and place targeted advertising on social networks. Our employees, using an individual approach, will listen to your wishes and ideas, using them when creating an advertisement for your website, page, brand or service. Specialists will correctly set up advertising using the right tools, and you can check the result after a short period of time. nine0003

A step-by-step guide to launching advertising on Instagram for beginners

Meta Platforms Inc., which owns the social networks Facebook and Instagram, was recognized as an extremist organization by a court decision dated March 21, 2022, and its activities in Russia are prohibited.

Instagram is one of the most popular social networks. As of April 2020, Mediascope estimates its monthly audience in Russia at 61 million people, 28 million of which check the feed daily. This is the fourth most popular social network, users spend an average of 30 minutes a day on it. nine0003

72% of users have an average or higher income level, 10. 5% work in managerial positions. Instagram ads are the right tool to tell these people about your products and services.

WEB-Index Mediascope about the audience of Instagram

Instagram belongs to Facebook, so you can run ads here in two ways: through the Facebook advertising account and through the Instagram application itself. If you run ads through the Facebook advertising account, then you will have access to all the features of this tool: retargeting pixel, dynamic creatives, detailed statistics. When launched through the application, there are fewer opportunities, but the interface is simpler and it will be faster to launch ads. In this guide, we'll take a look at both tools. nine0045

Content:

Preparation
How advertising works on Instagram
Recording Account
We Connect the Business Profile
We execute the Account

Run the advertising through the Instagram
Weem, we will fasten the history
Moving the history of
Facebook
Creating a campaign and choosing a goal
Setting up an ad group
Making an ad

Subtleties of advertising on Instagram

We will summarize

Run ads through the Instagram app

If you have connected a business profile, you can run ads directly from the app on your smartphone. It’s convenient — it’s just a few clicks before the ad starts. On the other hand, there are fewer options available than when working with the Facebook account.

You can only promote posts and stories through the app that you already have in your account. So first post all the content you plan to promote. Please note that you can't promote IGTV posts right now. nine0003

Promoting the publication

Destination

Open the publication that we will use in advertising and click "Promote". If you are running ads for the first time, the application will tell you more about where you can send traffic: to your profile, to a website, or directly to direct. The first option is suitable if you want to attract new subscribers. The second is if you are promoting the site. The third is if you want to immediately engage the audience in communication, for example, so that they request a catalog. nine0003

Ivan's is an online course for students and recent graduates. On his Instagram account, he publishes useful materials on the subject of the course: potential students sign up, get acquainted with free materials, gain confidence and then pay for the course. The account has both native posts with tips and life hacks and commercial posts promoting products.

Ivan connected a business profile and filled out the feed:

On the one hand, advertising on Instagram for Ivan is an account development tool. So when promoting native publications, he specifies the profile as the destination: users see useful content and subscribe to the account. On the other hand, it is a source of traffic to the site. So in commercial publications, he sends customers to a landing page: users see an interesting offer and go to the site. nine0003

If you select a website as a destination, the application will pull up the address specified in the profile settings. Here you can also edit the call to action if you are sending traffic to the site. By default, it is "Details", you can choose another one, to do this, click on the small "Edit" link in the "Your site" item.

Select the appropriate text on the button and click Finish. Then - "Next" in the upper right corner on the screen for choosing a destination.

Room

Let's move on to setting up the audience that will see your ad. You can trust the algorithms and select the "Automatic" option, then the social network will look for users who are similar to the account's current subscribers. This is a convenient option if you have an organic and active base that is interested in your products and services - in this case, Instagram understands which users to look for.

If you don't have a lot of followers yet, or if they subscribed to you because of contests and not for your content, it's better to set up the audience yourself. To do this, select "Create your audience". Here you can specify the geography, interests, and demographics of your audience. nine0003

Specify the geography of potential customers in the "Locations" section. In the "Regional" tab, you can specify all the cities or countries that you plan to cover. In the "Local" tab, you can specify a specific address and the radius around it, from 1 to 30 kilometers. Convenient if you are looking for clients for a local business, such as a coffee shop or a beauty salon. Or if you have a limited delivery radius.

In the "Interests" section, in the free form, enter the interests for which you want to reach users. For example, "travelling", "cars", "raising children". Select the appropriate item, and the system will suggest similar interests. nine0045

Specify the age range and gender of the audience. For example, ads can be shown to women between 18 and 35 or men over 30.

Sometimes Ivan publishes entries that are aimed at readers from Moscow, and sometimes at those who live in the regions. When promoting different posts, it uses different geography settings. But interests usually do not change, its subscribers are actively interested in self-development, career, business.

"Places" is a mandatory section, "Interests" is an optional section. The application will tell you how many people match this set of descriptions. If the potential audience is small - usually less than 2500 users - the system will tell you that the potential reach is too narrow. Advertising in this case may be ineffective - few people will see it. To fix this, you can expand the geography and age range, or add additional interests. nine0003

Add a name and click "Finish" - the audience will be saved and you can use it for future campaigns.

Budget & Duration

Specify the daily budget for the campaign - from $80 to $20,000 - and the duration in days - from 1 to 30 days. low budget and short duration.

Ivan promotes each post from three to six days. He thinks so: less than three days is too short, the algorithm may not find the right audience. More than six days is a long time, the same people can come across the same post several times. And in the range from three to six, it is optimal: even if the algorithm shows campaigns to the same people, they will constantly see different content. nine0003

There are exceptions: if Ivan publishes a very important and viral post, or he announces a new product or event, then he runs the ad longer, up to 14 days. In this case, reach is important to him, and he does not worry about repeat impressions.

The campaign is ready to run. You can click "Promotion Preview" and see how users will see your ad in the feed, in stories, and in the "Interesting" section.

Add a PayPal card or account from which you will pay for advertising. Click "Payment", select a country and enter payment details. If you run ads from Russia, then keep in mind that the system will additionally charge VAT - 20% of advertising costs. That is, if the total campaign budget is 10,000 rubles, then in fact you will pay 12,000 rubles. nine0077
Click Create Promotion. The ad will go for moderation.

Promoting a story

Promoting a story works according to the same principle — choose one of the published stories, indicate the platform you want to lead clients to, describe the audience, set the budget, and send it for moderation.

You can promote a story that you have posted within the last 24 hours, that is saved in your Instagram Highlights or is archived. Open the story, click on the three dots in the bottom right corner and click Promote. nine0003

There are several restrictions when promoting a story:

You cannot promote stories with clickable elements: hashtags, polls, user marks.
Stories that may violate the rights of others, such as gifs or masks from the Instagram collection, cannot be promoted.
You can't promote stories that were published too long ago, the statute of limitations is about two years.

Tracking performance

You can track the results of your ads in the Promotions section of your profile page. For each promotion, the application will show the number of impressions, audience parameters, budget expenditure. nine0045

We launch advertising through the Facebook account

To launch advertising through the Facebook account, you need to set up a campaign, an ad group and the ad itself. At the same time, only Instagram must be specified in the placement settings of the ad group, then ads will not be shown on other sites. Let's go in order.

The subtleties of advertising on Instagram

Advertising on Instagram must comply with the same rules as on other Facebook sites. Here are a few more recommendations that the social network gives for setting up ads. nine0003

Use a separate image format for Stories ads

Don't use the same media for feed and story ads. Prepare a separate version of the creative with a 9:16 aspect ratio and use it for ads in stories. And for the ribbon, leave the standard rectangular or square image. Please note - if you promote the gallery through the Facebook interface, then the images in the feed can only be square.

Do not overuse text on creatives

Facebook has a negative attitude towards images, more than 20% of which are text. This can lead to the fact that ads will scroll more slowly and fewer users will see them. It is better to put the text in the description, and leave the image clean.

Consider the interface

If the image has text at the very bottom or top of the screen, the interface elements will overlap it: the profile icon on the top, the call to action on the bottom. To prevent this from happening, place them at a distance of 14-15% of the height from the top and bottom edges. If you are using an image that is 1600 pixels tall, back off 220-250 pixels. nine0003

Don't forget that the user can turn off the sound

If you decide to promote the video, don't forget that the user can view it without sound. If you plan to convey important thoughts with your voice, then duplicate them with subtitles so as not to lose such users.

Check your account statistics

See which of your posts get the most engagement: likes, comments, bookmarks. It is probably worth using such recordings for advertising - they resonate most with your audience. nine0003

Promote new products, services, and offers

Instagram promotion is a way to promote an upcoming sale, new product launch, or special offer. Advertising will help convey information about the new product to an audience that may be interested in it.

Don't delay when using video in Stories

A story is only 15 seconds long - don't put off showcasing your product or brand. If you use a long introduction, then some users may simply go to the next publications and not even figure out what you offer them. nine0003

Show, don't tell

Show users the product in action: how other people use it, what are the non-standard uses for it, tell how you work on it. Tell a story, not just describe the benefits of a product.

Let's summarize

Advertising on Instagram can be launched in two ways: through the Facebook advertising account and directly in the Instagram application.

Prepare your account for launching ads: add an avatar, description, website link, contacts. Post several posts that will help users get to know your offer better. nine0045

Switch your account to a business profile. To do this, you need to link your Instagram profile to a Facebook page. It will take just a few clicks, but additional features will open up: you can view statistics, add information about the company, and run ads through the application.

Only posts and stories that have already been published can be promoted through the app.

How to create an add on instagram

A 5-Step Guide to Using Instagram Ads

What are Instagram ads?

How much do Instagram ads cost?

Types of Instagram ads

Image ads

Video ads

Carousel ads

Collection ads

Explore ads

IGTV ads

Shopping ads

Reels ads

How to choose the best Instagram ad type

1. What is my goal?

2.

3. What has performed best on organic?

How to advertise on Instagram

Instagram advertising method 1: Promoting a post in-app

Instagram advertising method 2: Creating Instagram ads using Facebook Ads Manager (5-step guide)

Best practices for Instagram ads

Design mobile-first ads

Keep branding and messaging upfront

Use sound to delight

Pitch, play, plunge

How to Create Instagram Ads In 2023

Want to Learn More?

How to advertise on Instagram for free ✋ step by step instructions

Content

How to place ads on Instagram for free

The effectiveness of free advertising on Instagram

A step-by-step guide to launching advertising on Instagram for beginners

Run ads through the Instagram app

We launch advertising through the Facebook account

The subtleties of advertising on Instagram

Let's summarize

Learn more