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How to post sponsored ads 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:

  1. Choose your pictures or videos (unless you’re using an existing post)
  2. Input your ad copy
  3. Select a payment option
  4. Review your ad
  5. 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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How to Create Instagram Ads In 2022

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 in 2021.

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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Want to Learn More?

  • What is Self Employment: Everything You Need to Know
  • The Ultimate Guide to Instagram Video for Businesses
  • How to Make Money on Instagram in 2021
  • The Definitive Guide to Instagram Live Video for Businesses
  • 15 Best Instagram Analytics Tools for 2021

Advertising on Instagram beginner's guide / Sudo Null IT News

At the moment in Russia, Instagram as an advertising tool is still rarely used, so we couldn’t miss an interesting article on this topic in our periodic publications, I hope it will be useful to you.

Best regards, Yambox
fulfillment team (Yambox is all the logistics for your online store at a price that you offer yourself.)

At the moment, more than 400 million people use the Instagram social network, and this is really a huge audience. By comparison, Twitter has only 320 million active users. But it's not the sheer number of users that makes Instagram such a tempting marketing channel for retailers, it's the platform's ability to fully immerse yourself in a brand.
If you have ever posted information about a small brand in any social network, you have an idea that sometimes it feels like you are talking into the void. Not a single response! No likes, no comments, no retweets.
But on Instagram, things are completely different. No matter how small or large your audio trio is, your Instagram post will still get at least a small number of likes and comments - especially if you use relevant hashtags - the so-called tags, words or phrases that are preceded by the # symbol, and with which users can combine a group of messages on a common topic.
According to independent American research, Instagram stimulates and encourages the user to be more involved and interested than any other major social network, such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Google+ or Linkedin.
But this study makes you wonder why not all brands have moved to Instagram yet, right?

Link problem

Always a big problem with Instagram marketing has been the difficulty of getting followers to move from the app to your website. Since it is impossible to put clickable links in a post, brands are forced to direct subscribers to a link located in the so-called BIO - a space where each user can write very briefly about himself. And as soon as the brand publishes information about new products, you have to constantly change this link to keep it relevant.
While not ideal, Instagram is still a major source of traffic and sales for many businesses.
Now, here's some great news! Now you can post links to your website in Instagram posts if you are promoting something. In the example below, the “Learn More\ Read More” button immediately sends the reader directly to the webinar registration web page. This tool alone is a great reason to start advertising on Instagram!


Introduction to Instagram

Advertising on Instagram is still a completely new trend. But until recently, retailers had a workaround: sponsored posts.
In the past, if you wanted to advertise on Instagram, you had to work with other users to advertise your product on their profile. Although this was effective in attracting a lot of traffic and sales, it still had its drawbacks:
• Often this is an expensive pleasure, since for each post from a popular instagrammer you have to pay
• The need for negotiation and all sorts of compromises
• No punitive action if this user promised to advertise on their profile, but didn't, or violated other agreements
• Coverage of a limited part of the target audience
At the moment, sponsored posts have not completely disappeared from the Instagram window. By asking a popular user to promote your product, you get great benefits: often people trust famous bloggers and, of course, are more willing to buy something that their favorite bought and tried first, plus, as long as you do not have much control over the authoritative audience, you don't have to make any decisions about which part of it you should target.
Sponsored posts are still a great way to reach an audience, especially if you're selling a product. However, there is now a new way.

How advertising on Instagram works

Now anyone can create ads on Instagram through Facebook's self-service ad marketplace. With it, you have complete control over your ads, how they appear and who views them. And unlike sponsored posts, your ads are published directly from your account. Benefits of the new method include:
• Flexible pricing
• Self-service, instant publishing at your convenience
• Robust reporting system - you are in control
• Carefully selected target audience
Moreover, just recently, Instagram developers announced that they were going to move away from the chronological order of posting and introduce a new order in which publications would be arranged randomly. This means that there is no guarantee that users will see your posts in the future.

Instagram advertising tasks

Instagram ads offer several goals to achieve. These are the potential tasks that you can choose from the prepared list. Don't neglect this choice - it will affect how your ads are optimized and how much you pay for it. For example, if your goal is to get more subscribers, you probably don't care how and why people click on your link and land on your site as a result. The main thing here is for you to get as many people as possible to subscribe to your IG account.
You may already be familiar with similar tasks from FB lists, but not all of them are available on Facebook, unlike Instagram. On Instagram, you can choose from the following:

Go To Website

- Directs people to key pages on your site

Website Conversions

- Gets people to take certain actions on your site.

Installing a mobile app

- Gets subscribers to download your mobile app

6
Attraction and involvement in the mobile application

- forces users to show great activity in the mobile application

Video reviews

- a short video telling about your product

coverage and frequency

- achievement of predictable audience coverage and further control over it by tracking the frequency of comments left

Drawing attention to a published post

- makes subscribers dive into your ad

Let's look at a few scenarios:

1. If you have an ecommerce business and want to use Instagram to reach more customers, you can use the goal from the list called Website Conversions.

2. If you haven't started your own business yet but want to build your own community, you could use Goal Attract attention to the published post and attract a large number of users to your Instagram and future product.

3. If you have a product that needs an explanation, such as a service or a training course, you can create an explainer video and use video reviews to get people to watch your videos and your page.

Targeting Options

Instagram ads have the same targeting options as Facebook ads. These include targeting based on location, demographics, interests, behavior, and more.
Even better, if you already have your own target audience of users, in this case you can draw their attention to your Instagram page. Target audiences are groups of people who have already visited your site or have already shared their contact details with you - and advertisements targeted at these groups tend to get a good response.

How to create your first Instagram ad
Step 1 - Link your Instagram account to your Facebook Page

The first step to creating an Instagram ad is linking your account to your Facebook page. This needs to be done one single time. Let's dive into how you can create your first Instagram ad. Visit the settings for your Facebook page and click on the "Instagram Ads" button. Below is a print screen of the American version of the Facebook page:

Then click the "Add an Account" button and fill in the Instagram login credentials. If you don't have an Instagram account yet, you can create one right now. When you have entered all the data, click the "Confirm" button.

Step 2 - creating an advertising campaign

Now that you've linked your Instagram account to your Facebook page, it's time to go to the Ads Manager / Ads Management section of your Facebook page and create your first ad. If you prefer to use the Power Editor tool, also found on Facebook, you can also create ads in it. In the Ads Manager / Ad Management section, click on the "+ Create Campaign" button in the upper left corner of the screen.

Then select the purpose of your advertisement. Keep in mind that not all of the ad objectives listed are available on Instagram. If the target you are interested in is available, a pop-up window will appear when you hover over it.

The "Increase conversions on your website" goal is a great choice for ecommerce if you want to increase your sales. Please note that in order to use this goal, you need to have a conversion tracking pixel installed on your site. If it is not installed yet, you will receive a message notifying you of this.


Step 3 - Create your own ad set

Once you've chosen your target, it's time to create your own ad set. This is where you define who you want to show your ad to and how much money you want to spend on it. All of the same targeting options are available for Instagram ads as they are for Facebook ads.

How much do you want to spend? It is recommended to start with a smaller amount - you can always increase the budget later if you like how this mechanism works to promote your business.

When you're done with your target audience and budget, click the "Choose Ad Creative" button in the bottom right corner. On the next screen, you'll see options to choose from: whether you want to use one image or video in your ad, or multiple (so-called "carousel" ads). Decided? Scroll down to download a photo or video.

Once the visuals have loaded, scroll down and you'll see an option on the left to add text to your ad. On Instagram, this text will appear as a caption to the published post.
If you choose "Redirect to my website" or "Increase clicks to my website" as your goal, you will also have the option to make the text a clickable link.

number of clicks to my website" as your goal, you will also have the option to make the text a clickable link.

Finally, to the right of the text editor, you will be able to see how your ad will look on Instagram. Here's how how my ad will look like if i upload a photo of our dog, you can also see how your ad will look in other formats below.0006

You can run ads on both Facebook and Instagram, but if you only want to see them on Instagram, make sure the other distribution options have been removed.
Once all the desired options have been selected and the images have been uploaded, click the "Place Order" button. Otherwise, go back and make changes.

Step 4 - do it all over again! :-)

Creating your first ad is the hardest part, but once you've done it, it'll be much easier the second time around. In the meantime, don't forget to use "Manage Ads" to track how your first one is doing.

Subscribe to our blog, there will be many more interesting things. :-)
(“Yambox” is the first fulfillment operator that works with you at your price. )

Branded content on Instagram: what it is, how to do it or remove it

Everyone has long been accustomed to advertising on Instagram. There are targeted ads, and influencer ads, when a brand account is mentioned in a post or story. In order to regulate the market of collaboration between bloggers and brands and to distinguish advertising from ordinary publications, the developers have created a special tool - “branded content”.

In this article, we will analyze how branded content works, what advantages it gives advertisers, how to add branded content tag and monitor its statistics.

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Read also: How to order advertising from bloggers and how much it costs

What is branded content on Instagram?

Branded content is a post that mentions a brand and has a special mark “Post Sponsor”. I mean, it's paid advertising. The mark shows that there is a commercial relationship between the blogger and the company, although this does not always mean that the author receives a monetary fee - a post or story can be published on a barter basis.

The purpose of creating branded content is to create a positive brand image, increase loyalty and, in specific cases, sales.

The main feature of branded content on Instagram is not even a mark, but the ability to monitor post/story statistics and launch paid advertising with a posted post (that is, you can reach not only blogger’s subscribers, but also other Instagram users, although this works, only if the blogger has given permission for advertising). And it is also an opportunity to control which publications can be marked.

It is not necessary for a blogger to dedicate an entire post to a brand, it can be mentioned in passing, the main thing is that the publication can attract attention and retain the audience. So branded content can be collections, life hacks, stories about yourself, reviews, photos of attended events.

P.S. Interestingly, among Russian-speaking bloggers it is not so easy to find publications with a mark, even if the content is branded by all indications. Basically, they post standard advertising posts with mentions of the promoted account in the text of the post or in stories. The mark “Publication Sponsor” is more often found on the pages of foreign bloggers. An example is an Old Spice ad with Dzharakhov. There is a mention of the brand in the text, but there is no mark "Sponsor of the publication" above the post.

Interesting: How to use Brand Collabs Manager to advertise .

Instagram branded content tools

How to tag a blogger, approve it for a brand and monitor the effectiveness of publications:

How a blogger can access branded content tools

Not every account owner can indicate their partners in posts and stories. If, after reading the article, you find that you cannot specify the sponsor of the publication, then you have not received access to branded content tools.

The problem is solved in a couple of clicks - you need to go to the account settings, then to the "Account" section. We find the section “Tools for working with branded content”.

Under "Branded content tag" click on the blue line "Get access to tools".

Follow the instructions - for example, you may need to change the account type. When everything is ready, there will be a green checkmark next to the line "Branded content tag" and it will be written that you can use the tag.

How to add the "Sponsored Post" tag when posting content

For example post:

Step 1 . We add a post in the standard way (through the usual plus on the main page, through the + on the profile page in the upper right corner or through the camera tool). We put filters on the photo, edit it at our discretion and go to the settings where you can add a description, place, tag people.

Step 2 . Find the item "Advanced settings" at the very bottom.

Step 3 . We go down to the "Branded Content" section. There are 2 points here - mark a business partner and allow a business partner to promote content. First, we are interested in the first tab, click on it. We find the partner's account in the search and click.

Step 4 . Next, you need to send a request for approval - the partner will receive a notification, and if he approves the request, a mark will appear at the top of the post. In the drop-down window, click "Submit Request".

Step 5 . Let's go back to the "Branded Content" section. If we don't mind the brand using our post in their advertising campaigns, drag the slider to the ON position next to the "Allow business partner to promote content" item (this option is disabled by default).

Stories example:

Step 1 . We create a story in any convenient way (through the usual plus on the main page, through the + on the profile page in the upper right corner, through the camera tool in the messenger, by clicking on the circle in the list of stories or by swiping to the right).

Step 2 . When finished working with stories (editing, adding text and stickers), click on the link tool.

Step 3 . We find the already familiar section “Branded content”. We mark a business partner in it, as described in the previous paragraph, and give him permission to promote stories for a fee, if you don't mind.

How to tag an existing post

To a posted post:

Step 1 . Open the post in full screen and go to its menu (3 dots in the right corner above the post).

Step 2 . Click edit. A blue line “Add partner” appears above the post, you need to click on it.

Step 3 . Then everything is as in the previous paragraphs - we find the partner's account, make a request for a mark, if necessary, allow us to promote the post in advertising.

To placed story:

Step 1 . Open the story, click on the menu (3 dots in the lower right corner).

Step 2 . We find the item "Mark a business partner" and act by analogy.

How does a brand approve a post with a tag

When a blogger submits a tag request, the brand is notified. You can find tag requests in your profile settings under Campaign or Contributor (if you have an author account) - Branded Content.

Shows the number of requests in the Label Requests section.

Here's what the request looks like:

To approve the tag, simply click "Approve".

By default, the settings are set to manual approval of tags and it is better not to disable it, so as not to accidentally become a "Sponsor" of dubious content to which you are not related.

How to give permission to a blogger to mention a brand in posts and stories without asking

If you have worked with an influencer for a long time and trust him, you can add the author to the list of approved business partners. Then he will not have to send a request every time - the mark will be put down automatically immediately after the partner marks you as a publishing partner.

To add the content author to approved, go back to the settings - "Campaign" or "Author" - "Branded content" - "Approved business partners".

Find the required account in the list and click on the "Approve" button. You can always remove a partner from the list - you will need to click "Remove" opposite his name.

P.S. In the same section, you can specify advertising partners.

How to remove your brand tag from a post

If you don't want to be featured as a content sponsor, you can remove your tag from a post. This is done for various reasons, most often if the collaboration with the influencer has ended or its content threatens the brand's reputation.

To remove the mark, find the post in the blogger's account, click on it, go to the menu (3 dots) and click "Remove me from the post". You can also block a content creator's page and prevent them from tagging you in their posts in the future.

How to track statistics

Statistics can be tracked in Brand Collabs Manager. If your application as an advertiser has already been approved and you have received full access to the service, then you need to go to the "Statistics" section and find the necessary content in it.

You can view statistics on reach, impressions, engagement, and reach channels (ad or organic). Stories additionally show statistics on scrolling forward and backward, exiting stories, and replies.

P.S. Statistics on branded stories are stored for 14 days, statistics on posts - all the time.

How to launch an ad for branded content

If the blogger allowed the use of his content for advertising purposes when adding the tag, you can safely promote the publication.

This is done in Ads Manager. First you need to create an advertising campaign. The process of creating ads is described in detail in the article “How to set up ads on Instagram through Facebook”. At the stage of adding a creative, we select an existing publication from the section with branded content and launch it like a regular advertising campaign.

Benefits of branded content tags

What benefits do advertisers, content creators, and general users benefit from the "Publication Sponsor" tag?

More trust from subscribers. The blogger does not hide commercial relations with the advertiser and he does not have to pretend that he “accidentally” went to this cafe, “accidentally” bought the best vacuum cleaner in the world (which was actually donated by the sponsor), “accidentally” wears clothes with symbols brand.

The brand can track sponsored posts, approve or reject tags, and control the collaboration process with the blogger.

Branded content can be advertised in Ads Manager if the blogger has allowed its promotion, that is, you can reach not only the blogger's subscribers, but also a wider audience. While the publication is in the advertising account and is being promoted, the blogger will not be able to delete or edit it (only move it to the archive).

You can look at the statistics and understand the effectiveness of promotion , and not take the word of a blogger, that is, the risk of being deceived is reduced (although bloggers can still wind up views, so we advise you to study our material: how to check a blogger for cheating).

Learn more