How to pay publicity 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 how to design attention-grabbing creative for Instagram ads.
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.
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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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The Complete Guide to Advertising on Instagram
So you’re running paid search and display ads through Google, you’re advertising on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and even some niche industry-related social sites. Perhaps you’re even running some guerilla advertising campaigns, or commercials through NPR. But for some strange reason, you dismissed Instagram, unsure if it would yield ROI.
Well, I’m here to inform you that today is not the day to ignore Instagram! While Instagram may be younger, with fewer users, than its parent company Facebook, Instagram is the breakout star of the family who everyone wants to sit next to at the Thanksgiving table. Instagram provides a platform to tell visual stories through various ad formats, and many advertisers have seen this channel yielding higher ROI in comparison to their other advertising campaigns.
Today Instagram has 800 million active users, according to Statista, and the rate of rapid growth it has seen since 2013 is pretty astounding. Just check out the graph below.
But with so many active folks scrolling through their feeds at all hours of the day, how in the world can a little business like yours stand out?
This is where Instagram advertising comes into play. Similar to Facebook, with popularity comes clutter, and breaking through that clutter organically to make a real impact can feel nearly impossible.
To focus on the right people, at the right time, with the right message and imagery, Instagram ads are your powerful vehicle to do just that…
In this guide you’ll learn everything you need to know to get started with an Instagram advertising campaign.
<<Short on time? Get our free All-Star Playbook to Online Advertising, to read later.>>
What Is Instagram Advertising?
Instagram advertising is method of paying to post sponsored content on the Instagram platform to reach a larger and more targeted audience. While there are many reasons a business or individual may decide to advertise, Instagram advertising is often utilized to grow brand exposure, website traffic, generate new leads, and move current leads down the funnel (and hopefully towards converting).
Since Instagram is such a visual platform, text ads are not a thing here. Rather you need an image, set of images, or video (which can be accompanied by text) to reach your audience with Instagram ads.
The exciting part? Instagram advertising works! In March 2017, over 120 million Instagrammers visited a website, got directions, called, emailed, or direct messaged to learn about a business based on an Instagram ad. According to Instagram, 60% of people say they discover new products on the platform, and 75% of Instagrammers take action after being inspired by a post.
Similar to Facebook ads, throwing some money behind a post will lead to more exposure for your brand, as well as more control over who can see your post.
For more fun facts about Instagram, check out this post.
Is Instagram Advertising Right for Your Business?
This leads to the obvious question: Who is on Instagram? Is it just teenagers taking selfies? Or 20-somethings looking for recipes? What about older populations? Are they “gramming” their grandchildren?
Unfortunately for all you marketers targeting the grandparent demographic, Instagram does tend to skew towards a more youthful audience, with the largest percentage of users falling in the age range of 18-29 (55%), then between 30-49 years-old (28%).
Only 11% of Instagram users are between the ages of 50-64, and just 4% are adults over 65.
According to Hootsuite, the majority of Instagram users live in urban areas (32%), 28% of users live in the suburbs, and 18% of users in the country. While there are more women on Instagram than men, the gender gap is not as large as it once was.
If this doesn’t sound like the audience you’re targeting, you still should not dismiss the social network as a useless opportunity. Similar to what happened with Facebook, more and more adults over 34 will likely be hopping on the Instagram bandwagon as the platform continues to grow. Also, if you are working with the 4% of adults over 65, you can always target that demographic directly…
Via Jenn’s Trends
Similar to many other social advertising platforms, Instagram gives you the granular control to target specific genders, age ranges, locations, interests, behaviors, and more. You can even target a custom or lookalike audience so you’re showing ads only to your direct list of leads or those who have a similar makeup.
What advertisers should really latch onto is the fact that Instagram uses Facebook’s demographic data to serve up ads to the appropriate parties. This makes the tool super valuable for advertisers looking to target a niche audience, because Facebook already has a thorough history and thorough demographic targeting options.
Instagram advertising can be especially powerful if you’re in a visual or creative industry, such as the restaurant business or craft marketing.
How Much Do Instagram Ads Cost?
This is a tricky question to answer, as costs are based on a variety of factors, and as you may have suspected these factors are not all revealed to us by the platform. The model is based on CPC (cost-per-click) and CPM’s (cost per impressions), and prices are determined according to Instagram’s ad auction.
“The cost of Instagram ads are influenced by many factors — everything from your audience to your ad feedback,” says Andrew Tate from AdEspresso.
“There’s a lot that goes into understanding how to advertise on Instagram.”
AdEspresso recently dug into $100 million worth of Instagram ad spend in 2017, and found that the average cost per click (CPC) for Instagram ads in Q3 ranged between $0.70 and $0.80. While this is a helpful benchmark it will of course vary depending upon the auction, audience, competition, time of day, day of week, etc.
Some advertisers find that Instagram ads often have higher engagement, but this can cost them. According to Keith Baumwald, founder of Leverag Consulting, Instagram ads costs are slightly higher in cost than Facebook ads. Baumwald claims that since the ads are so highly targeted you could end up paying as high as $5 a CPM.
On the bright side, advertisers do have control over how their budgets are allocated. For instance, you can choose between a daily budget to limit the amount spend per day or a lifetime budget where you would set up your ads to run for a length of time until the budget is depleted.
Other ways to control your Instagram ad spend include setting your ad schedule (for instance, you can specify certain hours of the day you want your ads to run), setting your ad delivery method (there are three options: link clicks, impressions, and daily unique reach), as well as setting your bid amount (manual vs. automatic).
6 Easy Steps to Start Advertising on Instagram
Learning the ins and outs of a new advertising platform might seem overwhelming at first. The good news here is that if you’re advertising on Facebook, there isn’t much to learn. In fact, Instagram ads can be configured right through Facebook Ad Manager.
If you’re not advertising on Facebook, don’t fret. We’ll walk you through the process below, and there is also the option to create some simple ads directly within the Instagram app.
Advertisers who are more advanced or running a relatively large ad set can also chose to configure their ads through Power Editor or Facebook’s Marketing API.
Instagram Partners is also available for businesses who need to buy and manage multiple ads, manage a large community, and deliver content at scale.
For this post, we’ll focus on creating ads through Facebook Ad Manager, which is the most common method due to its ease-of-use and the ability to customize these ads to a higher degree than what is possible within the app itself. While configuring Instagram ads is not overly complex, there are quite a few steps to be aware of. Starting with…
1. Navigate to Facebook’s Ad Manager
To navigate to ad manager within Facebook, simply follow this link, assuming you’re logged in to the appropriate Facebook account.
Note: There is no specific Ad Manager for Instagram; Instagram ads are managed through the Facebook Ads UI.
2. Set Your Marketing Objective
Now for the fun part, choosing your campaign goal. Luckily, the goals are named in a self-explanatory manner. Need more traffic? Select the traffic goal.
Looking to increase brand awareness? Choose the brand awareness goal. You get the gist.
One thing to be aware of is that Instagram ads only work with the following goals:
- Brand awareness
- Reach
- Traffic (for clicks to your website or to the app store for your app)
- App installs
- Engagement (for post engagement only)
- Video views
- Conversions (for conversions on your website or app)
While these goals are intuitive, some come along with a few additional configuration steps, which I’ll run through for you.
Brand awareness: Take an extra-long lunch. No extra steps here! This is the most standard goal that will try to show your ads to more potential people likely to be interested. How does Instagram determine this? It’s a secret, but this goal will likely expose some new and relevant folks to your brand.
Reach: If reach is what you’re looking for (as in maximizing how many people see your ads) then you’ll just need to be sure to select your Instagram account when creating the ad itself.
It’s also worth noting that if you’re looking to run an Instagram Story ad “reach” is currently the only objective you can chose. The cool thing about this goal is that you can take advantage of Facebook’s split testing feature, which allows you to split test two ads to see which one yields more installs. NOTE: Split testing is also available for Traffic, App Installs, Video Views, Lead Generation, and Conversion goals.
Traffic: If you’re looking to send more people to your website or app store to download your app, this is the appropriate goal for you. The only additional steps you’ll need to take is choosing between those two options, then enter the URL of choice, and let the traffic jam in!
Engagement: Who doesn’t want more likes, shares, and overall engagement? If your goal is engagement, one thing to note is that you currently can only pay to play for “post engagement” on Instagram. Facebook will allow you to pay for “page engagement” and “event responses,” but this is not currently available to Instagram.
App Installs: If your main goal is app installs, you’ve come to the right place. To configure this you’ll need to choose your app from the app store during set-up.
Video Views: Videos are often an investment of time and money, so not promoting your video on Instagram would be like buying a plane ticket to Hawaii, and leaving it in your desk. Luckily, this goal is very straightforward, and doesn’t require additional setup steps.
Lead Generation: Who doesn’t want more leads? If that is your main goal this objective is for you. Just note that lead generation ads do not provide all of the same pre-filled fields as Facebook. Instagram currently only supports email, full name, phone number, and gender. These ads also have more of a barrier than Facebook lead generation ads, since when leads click to open the ad they’ll need to click through to fill out their information. On Facebook, leads can fill out their information without all the additional clicking.
The other set-up piece is that you’ll need to create a lead form when creating your ad. If you’re interested in learning more about lead ads check out this post.
Conversions: Last, but certainly not least, we have conversions. This goal allows you to drive your leads to take action and convert on your website or within your app. The additional set-up here requires you to configure either a Facebook pixel or app event based on the website or app you’re looking to promote; this will allow you to track conversions.
3. Configure Your Target Audience
Now that you’ve selected your objective, you need to target the appropriate audience to get your ads in front of the right people. This is the true beauty of Instagram ads since you’ll be using Facebook’s depth of demographic knowledge to reach the right people.
If you’ve done this for Facebook ads before you likely already have several audiences built, and are quite familiar with the process. If you’re new to this process here’s a run-down of your targeting options, which you can layer to get a precisely targeted audience.
(For instance if you want to target women, in New York, between the ages of 19 and 65, who are interested in yoga and health food, you can do just that!)
Location: Whether you want to target a country, region, state, city, zip code, exclude or include certain places, location targeting will allow you to do all of this and more.
Age: Allows you to target ranges from age 13 to 65+
Gender: Choose between all, men, or women
Languages: Facebook recommends leaving this blank unless the language you’re targeting is not common to the location your targeting.
Demographics: Under “Detailed Targeting” you’ll find demographics, which has several sub-categories with even more sub-categories under those. For instance, you can target “Demographics” > “Home” > “Home Ownership” > “Renters.”
Interests: Interests is also under “Detailed Targeting” with multiple sub-categories to dig into.
For instance, if you’re looking for people interested in distilled beverages, science fiction movies, and aviation, those options are available for you!
Behaviors: And yet another “Detailed Targeting” option with multiple sub-categories to explore. Whether it be purchasing behaviors, job roles, anniversaries, or other behaviors the options seem endless.
Connections: Here you’ll be able to target people connected to your page, app, or event.
Custom Audience: Custom audiences let you upload your own list of contacts allowing you to target leads already in your pipeline or customers who you’re looking to upsell.
Lookalike Audience: If your custom audience is tapped to their potential, create a lookalike audience. This will allow Instagram to find people who have similar traits to your other audiences.
Once you’ve configured your audience, Facebook will also provide you with a guide to how specific or broad your audience is (like the one below).
This is an important tool to pay attention to, because you want to strike a balance of your audience not being too huge (since it’s likely not targeted enough), but also not being too specific (in the red zone), since there may not be many people (if any) to reach with so many layered targets.
4. Choose Your Placements
Now that you’re targeting your ideal demographic, it’s time to choose your placements! This is critical if your goal for a campaign is to only show ads on Instagram. If you choose to ignore this step, Facebook will allow your ads to appear on both platforms.
This isn’t necessarily a negative thing, but if you have content that you’ve created specifically for Instagram, you should select “Edit Placements” here.
From here you can specify Instagram as a placement, as well as if you’d like these ads to appear in the feed and/or the stories section of the platform.
5. Set Your Budget and Ad Schedule
If you are familiar with how budgets work through Facebook, AdWords, and other digital advertising platforms, this step should not be overly challenging for you.
If not, then take a deep breath; while you might not know exactly where to set your daily or lifetime budget when running your first Instagram ad campaign, this comes with trial and error, as well as experience. And the good thing is you have the control to pause or stop your campaign at any time if you feel your budget is not being properly allocated.
So should you go daily or lifetime? While I typically lean towards daily budgets since it guarantees your budget won’t be spent too quickly, lifetime budgets allow you to schedule your ad delivery, so there are pluses and minuses to both options. I would also advise exploring the advanced options pictured below. For instance, if you bid manually you’ll have the control to decide how much each lead is worth to you.
As mentioned above, you can also run an ad schedule to target specific times of day and days of the week when you know your audience is most active on the platform. This is a super valuable way to optimize your budget.
As a reminder, this is only available for those using a lifetime budget.
6. Create Your Instagram Ad
Now it is time to create your Instagram ad!
Hopefully after taking the steps above you already have some content in mind for the ad you are looking to promote. This part of the set-up may look different depending upon your campaign objective, but you’ll always have a few ad format options to choose from. So as a next step, let’s discuss the various ad formats available.
Instagram Ad Formats
If you are a bad decision-maker, you may want to brace yourself. Instagram has six ad formats to choose from. (This is way fewer than Facebook!) Two of those are for Instagram stories, which appear at the top of the feed in a manner similar to Snapchats. The other four are formats designed for the Instagram feed, which are more commonly used by advertisers.
#1. Image Feed Ads
This is your most standard ad format, and likely the one you see most often scrolling through your own feed.
These ads are single images that will appear as a native experience as your target lead is scrolling through their feed. The lovely thing about these ads is that they don’t feel like ads, especially when done well.
Here are some additional details to be aware of:
Technical Requirements
- File type: jpg or png
- Maximum file size: 30MB
- Minimum Image Width: 600 pixels
- Image Ratio: 4:5 minimum, 16:9 maximum
- Text length: 2,200 maximum (*although Instagram recommends staying below 90 for optimal delivery)
- Hashtag Number: 30 maximum (*you can add additional in the comments)
Supported Objectives
- Reach
- Traffic
- Conversions
- App Installs
- Lead Generation
- Brand Awareness
- Post Engagement
- Product Catalog Sales
- Store Visits
Supported Call-to-Action Buttons
- Apply Now
- Book Now
- Call Now
- Contact Us
- Get Directions
- Learn More
- Get Showtimes
- Download
#2.
Image Story AdsSame concept as above, but these are for Instagram stories! Instagram Story ads details below:
Technical Requirements
- Image Ratio: 9:16 recommended
- Minimum Image Width: 600 pixels
Supported Objectives
- Reach
- Traffic
- Conversions
- App Installs
- Lead Generation
Supported Call-to-Action Buttons
- Apply Now
- Book Now
- Contact Us
- Download
3. Video Feed Ads
Bring your ad to life with a video! If you’ve put the time in to make a quality video, then you should absolutely be promoting it through your Instagram feed.
While most video files are supported by Instagram, they recommend using H.264 compression, square pixels, fixed frame rate, progressive scan, and stereo AAC audio compression at 128kbps+ (PRO TIP: if your video is not meeting these requirement you can always run it through the video transcoder, Handbrake, to make these adjustments).
Technical Requirements
- Video Resolution: 1080 x 1080 pixels (at least)
- Maximum file size: 4GB
- Video Ratio: 4:5 minimum,16:9 maximum
- Video Duration: 60 seconds maximum
- Video Captions: optional
- Image Ratio: 4:5 minimum, 16:9 maximum
- Text length: 125 characters maximum recommended
- Hashtag Number: 30 maximum (*you can add additional in the comments)
Supported Objectives
- Reach
- Traffic
- Conversions
- Lead Generation
- Brand Awareness
- Post Engagement
- Store Visits
Supported Call-to-Action Buttons
- Apply Now
- Book Now
- Call Now
- Contact Us
- Download
#4. Video Story Ads
This is another great place to run video ads, because stories are where users often expect to see videos, so the “selling” part of advertising doesn’t feel as forced.
The recommended video specs for uploading are the same as listed above, and here are some additional details to keep in mind!
Technical Requirements
- Video Resolution: 1080 x 1920 pixels (at least)
- Maximum file size: 4GB
- Video Ratio: 9:16 maximum
- Video Duration: 15 seconds maximum
- Video Captions: not available
Supported Objectives
- Reach
- Traffic
- Conversions
- Lead Generation
- App Installs
Supported Call-to-Action Buttons
- Apply Now
- Book Now
- Call Now
- Contact Us
- Download
#5. Carousel Feed Ads
Next we have carousel feed ads. How fun are these! This format allows you to show a series of scrollable images rather than just one single image.
This ad type is great for very visual brands, like those in the food industry, furniture sellers, clothing options, vacation destinations, car dealerships, etc.
But they’re not only for “sexy” businesses; they can also work to humanize your brand or show off your culture by showing the people behind your software or financial company.
The carousel format allows you to choose from up to 10 images within a single ad, each with its own link. Video is also an option for these ads.
Technical Requirements
- File type: jpg or png
- Maximum file size: 30MB
- Minimum Image Width: 600 pixels
- Image Ratio: 4:5 minimum, 16:9 maximum
- Text length: 2,200 maximum (*although Instagram recommends staying below 90 for optimal delivery)
- Video Duration: 60 seconds maximum
- Hashtag Number: 30 maximum (*you can add additional in the comments)
Supported Objectives
- Reach
- Traffic
- Conversions
- Brand Awareness
- Lead Generation
- Product Catalog Sales
Supported Call-to-Action Buttons
- Apply Now
- Book Now
- Contact Us
- Call Now
- Download
#6.
Canvas Story AdsAnd last, but definitely not least, we have the newest addition to the ad format family, Canvas ads. There ads are truly immersive, allowing advertising to create a 360 VR experience within their story. They’re only supported via mobile devices, and extremely customizable for the advertiser, but you will need some technical chops. These ads work with image, video, and carousel. Check out this guide to learn more about Canvas ads.
Technical Requirements
- Minimum Image Width: 400 pixels
- Minimum Image Height: 150 pixels
Supported Objectives
- Reach
- Brand Awareness
- Traffic
- Conversions
- Lead Generation
- Post Engagement
- Video Views
- Store Visits
Supported Call-to-Action Buttons
- Apply Now
- Book Now
- Contact Us
5 Instagram Advertising Best Practices
Now that you’ve got the basic principles of Instagram advertising down, it is time to get the highest ROI possible by following these Instagram best practices to create great Instagram ads.
#1. Instill Each Ad with Personality
Whether it be a funny goof, an emotional video, or just an intriguing image showing off your culture, if your Instagram post doesn’t feel humanized then you will not reach your engagement potential.
People use Instagram to be entertained, amused, or amazed. Whether it’s while you’re on the train to work or when you are unwinding after a long day of work, no one is looking to hop on Instagram to see a boring corporate advertisement. This is why appealing to emotions is always the way to go. Check out this fun post from Shape Magazine as a perfect example.
#2. Make Sure Your Ad Is Contextually Relevant
What works with one social media platform won’t necessarily work with another. For instance, your business likely wouldn’t promote the same content through LinkedIn as they would through Twitter, as the audience is typically in a different state of mind.
The same goes for Instagram. Put yourself in your target buyer’s shoes and be aware of where they are.
On Instagram, do you think your lead is likely to download and read your 40 page e-book? Probably not. Ensure your ads do not feel overly sales-driven because this isn’t typically what Instagram is used for.
#3. Use Hashtags…
But don’t just hashtag #food or #love. Get more creative, and do some user research to see which hashtags are more likely to be searched for by your audience. Also, don’t overdo it with hashtags. This can make your post look a bit sloppy and desperate.
The ideal number? TrackMaven analyzed 65,000 posts and found that 9 hashtags is the ideal number for highest post engagement. They also found that longer hashtags often perform better.
#4. Run a Contest
Promoting a contest or giveaway is by far one of the most effective ways to reach your goals faster with Instagram advertising. Why? Because people love competition and free stuff! What better way to get your audience excited about your brand?
If you need some help with how to go about this, check out this awesome post on how to run an Instagram giveaway from WordStream’s very own Dan Shewan.
#5. Post at Optimal Hours
I spoke a bit about this during the budgeting step of Instagram ad-set up, but using the ad-schedule feature (which is only available with lifetime budgeting) is a great way to get people at the right time.
Via CoSchedule
If you know your audience well, this shouldn’t be too hard to determine, but trial and error can also work here. Think about your vertical. If you’re an online retailer, when do people typically shop for clothing online? Or if you’re a car dealership, what days of the week do you see the highest spike in website traffic? Asking these questions is a good place to start.
Without further ado, set forth and advertise on Instagram! This is one platform you should not ignore, and this guide should provide you with enough resources to become insta-famous.
Looking for more help? Check out:
- 24 Instagram Marketing Tools for More Followers, Likes & Sales
- The 15 Best Instagram Marketing Campaigns of the Year
- 10 Killer Instagram Marketing Tips for Brands
- The Complete Guide to Instagram Analytics
- 7 Ways to Boost Holiday Instagram Sales
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Many do not know how to pay for advertising on Instagram. 
Simply put, the post is launched first, and then the money is debited. 
The card data (first and last name) must match the Facebook profile data, otherwise the blocking of Ads Manager is inevitable. 
After that, the payment details will be added to the FB advertising account for payment for displaying ads (at the end of each month). 
Instagram robots make a second attempt to collect money from the main payment system, and then from the additional account, if it was specified. If the funds are not credited to the balance, the advertising campaign is suspended. 
Calculate the limit so that the limit does not have to be changed often, but the promotion costs do not exceed the possibilities of your budget. 
How to pay for advertising on Instagram - step by step instructions
04/07/2021
Have you thought about your promotion on Instagram and started to study the materials? We read articles, watched videos - in theory, everything is very simple. In practice, beginners face a number of difficulties. There is help, but at first it is difficult to navigate it. The interface on your screen and in the tutorial videos is different. Can't find the section or button you need. Even a simple question - how to pay for advertising on Instagram is difficult.
If you spend a lot of time and nerves on such trifles, this article is for you.
Content
How to pay for Instagram ads on Facebook
Paying for ads on Instagram is easy. There are only two ways: through Facebook and a mobile application. What does Facebook have to do with it? The owners of the sites are common, hence their close interaction. Yes, and advertising tools are in the Facebook profile. I talk about this in detail in my course.
We go to the Ads Manager
- In the upper left corner, click on "Tools for business".
- In the window that opens, select "Billing".
- Go to "Payment settings".
- Click the "Add payment method" button.
- Select the appropriate method and click "next". The most common way is to pay by credit card.
- Fill in the details in a new window.
Important! Facebook monitors the security of payment data. Therefore, the account and bank card must be in the same name.
Otherwise, blocking is possible. This also applies to cases where the difference is in one letter. For example, the name on Facebook is Ivan Bytko, and on the map it says Ivan Butko.
Before linking a card for payment on Instagram, the system will check. To do this, write off $ 1. After authorization, the funds will be returned to the account.
How to pay for ads on Instagram through the application
You can pay for ads from your smartphone without going to the ad manager. To do this, you need to switch your Instagram page to a business account.
- We go to our Instagram page.
- Click on the three bars in the upper right corner.
- At the bottom, select "Settings".
- Go to the "Company" section.
- Payments for promotions.
- Add a payment method.
- Enter card or PayPal details.
Important! Money from the account will be debited automatically, but not immediately, but after your ads are displayed.
That is, Facebook provides advertising in advance for a certain amount, called the “billing threshold”. This is an individual indicator for each advertising account.
How to pay debt on Instagram for advertising
Since we are dealing with a postpaid system, debt may arise. For example, you've been billed for ad impressions, but you don't have enough credit on your card.
Sometimes advertisers try to cheat. Stop ad impressions before the billing threshold. But the amount spent will still be invoiced and debited. If a bank card is linked to an Instagram account, then simply replenish the balance to pay the debt. The money will be debited automatically.
However, this will not happen if the ad was run via Facebook. To pay, follow these steps:
- Go to the advertising manager, Billing section.
- In the upper right corner, click "Payment settings".
- In the window that opens, select "Pay invoice".
If you do not pay the debt, the advertising account will be blocked and in the future you will not be able to advance using advertising.
