How well does instagram promotion work

I Spent 50 Dollars on Instagram and This Is What Happened

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For those of us trying to expand our social media presence, Instagram has been the king for quite some time. So what happens when you put a little money into promoting yourself on Instagram? I tried it and here are the results.

There are tons of tips, tricks, and rules out there for people trying to up their follower count. You can even pay for followers, but by now you should know that doesn’t actually produce results and can even hurt your account. However, there are legitimate ways to promote yourself within the platform.

Some of you might be a little skeptical about spending money to advertise online, especially on social media. Honestly I am too, and I had no idea what the results of this experiment would be before trying it out. If you’re trying to brand yourself like a business than it is an completely justifiable expense, however it’s not that simple in my case. Unlike someone trying to sell a service such as shooting portraits, weddings, headshots, etc; as a landscape photographer in my current position im simply just trying to gain followers. The campaign or promotion that I created might not be exactly the same as yours, but it should still be a good indicator of what $50 can get you.

Choosing a Photo

A tree standing alone in Yosemite Valley

This was the image I chose to promote. A very simple image, certainly not one of the most eye-catching photos in my portfolio, but I wanted to use something that would be considered average (maybe a 3, using Fstoppers rating system). This seemed like the fairest way to go about running this test. That being said, if you were to promote your Instagram I do suggest choosing one of your best photos.

I chose to promote a newly-uploaded photo (less than 5 minutes old) and only run the promotion for 1 day. My thinking was that the first day you post a photo is its most important and likely to be when it gets seen. Instagram prioritizes photos that have a lot of engagement early on. Also, the predicted amount of people reached doesn’t seem to change if you spread out the promotion over more days, so why not skyrocket the engagement right when the photo is fresh.

Manual audience created for promotion

I created my own target audience: all ages, located in US/Europe, with interest in landscape photography, Photoshop, Lightroom, REI, and a few others. You can set this up however you like for whatever you think would be your best demographic. My estimated reach was listed at 41k-110k.

Results

The Numbers

These are the results of the campaign. 6700 likes to the photo, 4 comments, and I gained 40 followers. Followers are the main goal for me, specifically real and active followers. This is one of the benefits of paying to boost a photo, rather than paying a service to find followers.The followers you gain through a photo campaign are much more likely be active humans. That said, this was likely still not worth it for me. My follower acquisition cost was a little over $1.00 which might be affordable to some, but since I am not selling any services, it is financially unsustainable for me.

There are other factors to keep in mind when running a campaign like this. The quality of your content is important. Your profile feed needs to be appealing as well. Mine certainly isn’t the creme de la creme but it’s decent. I did run this exact same campaign a few weeks prior using a photo that stands out more, the one I wrote about in a recent article.

Exact same campaign a few weeks earlier using a different photo

The results from that campaign were even less impressive. I wanted to try again just in case the first time was a fluke. This also gave me two trials to report using different types of photos. The results for both promotions were less than I expected. If I wanted to gain 20,000 followers it would cost roughly $25,000. Obviously this stat is a bit misleading considering I would hopefully continue to grow and produce without any campaigning, but strictly looking at the data it puts the cost per follower into perspective.

Conclusion

This type of promotion was likely not worth it for what I’m trying to accomplish which is to gain followers. For someone that might simply want more eyes on their services, this might be great. If a campaign like this is reaching 32,000+ people and you book 2-3 shoots from those views, that result is likely well worth the cost. Once again, because my goal is to gain followers it’s not sustainable.

I’m planning to do a follow up to this trial by spending $50 on influencer marketing so look for that article in the coming future. For now I’d love to hear what you think about my little experiment. Have you paid to boost a photo on Instagram? Did I waste $100? If you could quantify it, how much would you pay per “real” follower?

If you're passionate about taking your photography to the next level but aren't sure where to dive in, check out the Well-Rounded Photographer tutorial where you can learn eight different genres of photography in one place. If you purchase it now, or any of our other tutorials, you can save a 15% by using "ARTICLE" at checkout.

Topics:

Business

Fstoppers Originals

Landscapes

Social Media

Alex Armitage has traveled the world to photograph and film some of the most beautiful places it has to offer. No matter the location, perfecting it's presentation to those absent in the moment is always the goal; hopefully to transmute the feeling of being there into a visual medium.

How Do Instagram Promotions Work & How Do They Help?

So if you’re a business that has a conscious social media marketing strategy, you may have found yourself asking, how do Instagram promotions work?

Let’s start with a bit of background on Instagram promotions and the features open to businesses on Instagram.

Takeaways

By boosting a post, you can kickstart the snowball effect and get posts the traction they deserve.
Instagram promotions are to convert quality posts into the mainstream, targeted to be able to share with people beyond your normal audience.
Instagram gives you a loose estimation of your reach depending on your daily budget and how long you would like to run your promotion.

What is an Instagram Promotion?

An Instagram promotion is similar to any other ad you may see online.

It allows increased exposure to your brand’s content by targeting desired users that may be interested in your brand’s products or services.

In the last couple of years, Instagram has been rolling out bundles of features to help businesses utilize the massive reach on their social media platform.

These include a plethora of new promotional ad features, analytics, and quality of life improvements.

This is especially helpful for businesses when you take into account what separates Instagram from other social media platforms.

As you can tell from this study done on user engagement with brands, Instagram blows other platforms out of the water when it comes to…

…getting to know your audience.

With a more attentive group of followers, you are much more likely to drive conversions on Instagram vs. other social media.

The first major change they rolled out was in 2016 with the addition of business profiles.

Instead of having to brand personal accounts, businesses that operate a Facebook page can now operate commercial accounts equipped with…

…tools that go beyond your personal profile.

Instagram even gives you the ability to switch back to a personal account if you so desire.

Some people claim that Facebook and subsequently Instagram’s algorithm ranks personal accounts higher than brands.

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But that has not been found to be the case while Instagram pushes businesses to convert.

Some of these include:

A dedicated contact button instead of having to bury the information in your bio.
Being able to designate a category/industry for your business
Access to Instagram Insights. This a huge one.

Instead of relying on likes/comments, you can see deeper analytics on your engagement, reach demographics, and impressions.
The ability to post ads vs. simply ad style posts.

These appear as sponsored posts in a feed/story and come with countless targeting specifications, ad styles, goals, and payment types.
Influencer marketing integration. Since the FTC cracked down, influencers are required to disclose earnings from promotions they push.

Business accounts can tie themselves to their paid posts with the ‘Paid Partnership’ tag so that…

…they can remain compliant as well as get analytics on the content they didn’t post themselves.

One of the features that we are going to dive into, that came alongside all of Instagram’s improvements, is the ability to promote your posts as well.

How do Instagram promotions work to make my business grow?

Have you ever heard of social proof?

It’s the concept that higher engagement through reviews, testimonials, shares, and other popularity metrics contribute to your credibility as a business.

This seems obvious, but it is the game that surrounds social media.

People look towards other people not only for validation but also for the next big thing.

And that’s not a bad thing.

In the fast-paced, high-information world we live in today, how likely is it that quality content is going to…

…get passed up by everybody unless technical execution is the pain point?

If you can get your post to receive traction through engagement, it turns into a snowball effect where…

…more people are willing to like, comment, and convert if they see others are doing the same.

So how do Instagram promotions work on my social proof?

Instagram promotions’ biggest use case is creating brand awareness.

By boosting a post, you can kickstart the snowball effect and get posts the traction they deserve.

This helps skyrocket reach and is very effective if your primary goal is high visibility.

Instagram’s algorithms, much like other social media platforms, operates off of an acceleration/virality factor.

This means that the quicker your posts get off to the right start, the higher the ranking algorithms will put you in the feed.

And how could you blame them? There are more than 800 posts made per second on Instagram across over 1 billion monthly active users as of 2018.

People have their work cut out for them to get visibility, but it has been done time and time again.

Instagram is one of the fastest growing social media platforms.

And since they launched business accounts in 2016, it has come to be expected for your business to have its own profile.

Instagram has found that 60% of users say they learn about new products or services on their platform.

What’s even more astonishing is that 75% say that they will take action after seeing a post.

This includes visiting sites, purchasing products, or even sharing posts, what every business dreams of.

How do Instagram promotions work different than ads?

Instagram helps businesses get a little bit more juice out of their posts through their promotions feature.

Much like Google or Facebook Ads, you can accelerate your reach through a pay to play system.

How Much Does It Cost to Promote on Instagram?

Instagram operates their ad/promotion structure on a Cost-Per-1000 Impressions (CPM) basis.

This means that you pay the specified bid amount on your post for every 1,000 people that see it.

Other platforms like Google Ads operates on a Cost-Per-Click (CPC), where you receive free visibility and only pay for successful clicks.

Because Instagram values visibility you will have to put work in to optimize posts so that you reach your goals without wasting too much money.

However, there is a difference between ads made through the Facebook Ads manager and promotions (ads) made through the Instagram app.

That is an important distinction to make.

Before you can understand the answer to how do Instagram promotions work, you first have to understand what an Insta promo is.

Instagram Promotions are normal, non-advertisement posts that you would like to convert to a sponsored post with elevated reach.

They can appear in the same spot with the same ‘Sponsored’ tag, but Instagram treats them differently in their algorithm.

This is because there is a nuance in each of their purposes. While each are there to increase visibility and engagement.

An Ad has many more preferences for targeting and customization because the leading purpose is to convert.

Promotion serves to take a well-performing post to the next level in terms of profile views, likes, comments, and shares.

If visibility, reach, and engagement is your goals, then think about opting for the boosted promotion.

Take a look at the interfaces that Instagram provides for promotions (left) vs. ads (right).

You may be asking yourself, why would I use promotions over ads?

Remember, the purpose of boosting an Instagram post is to receive the maximum amount of visibility and reach as possible.

It is not always necessary to launch an entire ad campaign every time you want to spike brand awareness.

Instagram knows this, which is why they offer it as a feature.

Its purpose is to convert quality posts into mainstream, targeted ads so that you can share its value with people beyond your normal audience.

While sales and lead generation remain paramount, social media accounts require nurturing through a variety of posts.

Too much of the same is never good for anyone or any business.

An effective social media marketing strategy will incorporate a healthy mix of both promotions and ads.

Are Instagram Promotions More Expensive or Cheaper than Ads?

There actually isn’t any conclusive data that states that ads are cheaper than promotions.

However, AdEspresso reported that CPC values range between $.70 and $.80.

This figure was concluded based on two demographics. Users between the ages of 25-34 years can cost as much as $1.23 per click.

On the other hand, the younger group aged between 13-17 years, came in at $.47.

How Do Instagram Promotions Work and How Can I Start?

If you’re reading this, you are probably a business owner looking to jump-start your social media accounts.

Or, you want to know how to get more out of your posts by understanding how do Instagram promotions work.

Instagram promotions start with a business account.

You probably already have one, but if not, don’t worry. Any personal account can become a business in a few simple taps.

Go into your Instagram Settings and halfway down the page tap on Switch to Business Account.
If you do not already own a Facebook page tied to your business, it will make one for it.

If you don’t have one it would be in your best interest to make one first and populate it with company info.
Customize your profile with custom buttons, such as a contact button or a link to your website.

Be sure to put in all your contact information before finishing up.

Once you have transitioned to a business account, you are all set to promote your first post.

How To Start an Instagram Promotion

To get started, navigate to your profile and tap the Promotions button. You will then be prompted with a screen that looks like this.

Choose which post of yours you would like to convert into a promotion and proceed forward.

Next you will be prompted with a screen where you get to decide on your post’s Call to Action (CTA). These are your Call Now’s and Learn More’s.

This part is highly dependent on your goals with this promotion. So take the time to evaluate your options.

You opt for something simple like directing people towards your profile or direct messages.

Or you can redirect them to your website. If you choose storefront, you have the options to send them to a phone number or physical address.

If you choose your website, you have more flexibility because you can assign different CTA’s like Learn More, Contact Us, Book Now, and Sign Up.

After you decide on your CTA, Instagram asks you to select your target audience.

They give you the option to choose between Automatic or Create Your Own.

If you choose to manually define your audience, you will be presented with this screen.

This is where you get to define demographic presets to use in the future.

As you can see, Instagram provides basic parameters such as location, age, gender. But you also are given the ability to target certain interests.

Instagram allows you to choose up to 10 interests that you think accurately represents your intended audience.

This is where you can make the magic happen and really maximize your audience targeting capabilities.

Interests range anywhere from hobbies, movies, events, to people.

So after you have solidified age, gender, location, and interests, you now have a working demographic of people to promote to.

After everything is said in done, Instagram prompts you with one last page. This is where you get to decide on your budget, duration, and distribution.

Instagram gives you a loose estimation of your reach depending on your daily budget and how long you would like to run your promotion.

Instagram also decides if stories or the feed would be better for your selected audience.

Instagram’s maximum limits are set at $1,000 ad spend daily and up to 30 days in duration for a maximum possible reach of 400k-1 million people.

Of course, promotions come with diminishing returns, so you need to look towards your analytics to determine the worthwhile-ness.

Thankfully Instagram breaks down your promotion analytics in their Insights feature available to (as you’ve guessed it) only business accounts.

Instagram Insights

Instagram recommends spending at least $10 to promote your post.

But ultimately it is up to you to decide what the value of these promotions are for your business.

Instagram Insights lets you keep tabs on all types of engagement people are having with your profile, including those attributed to your promotions.

You can track anything like:

Impressions
Profile visits
Follows
Shares
Website clicks
Comments
Number of people who got directions
Number of people who contacted you
How many people discovered you

The list is very comprehensive and even breaks down the timeline and demographics on all of these types of engagements and impressions.

Nailing down your audience is where most of your market research is going to be directed towards outside of creating compelling content.

On the Insights screen, find where your posts are located.

You should be presented with a screen that shows all of them in a grid with numbers overlaid like the one above.

Here you can apply filters to segment the data for each of your posts for a specified time period.

This will give you the quick run down on your best and worst-performing types of content as well as the levels of engagement you are getting.

Filters include:

Comments
Likes
Reach
Impressions
Engagement

If you would like even more detailed analytics, find the View Insights button on the respective post and…

…you can find a breakdown of the actions taken from the post such as:

Profile Visits
Follows
Website Clicks

You can also get a similar breakdown of actions taken from Instagram stories such as:

Forward taps
Backward Taps
Replies
Swipes Away
Exits

Instagram also generates an in-depth report on the sources of impressions as well, like:

How many peoples’ feed you appeared on
People who found you through a hashtag search
Views from your profile page
People who discovered you on the explore feed or through organic keywords
Location Feed
People who found you through tags, shares, and mentions.

Putting It All to Use

While this is all helpful for analyzing your posts, lets focus on promotions.

When looking at insights for promotions, Instagram actually gives you a more stripped down overview where…

…visits, impressions, engagement, money spent, and audience demographics are the only factors they provide to you.

It is more or less up to you to decide whether or not the promotions are beneficial.

One of the ways you can accomplish this is to track the data yourself and generate cost breakdowns.

Some intrinsic metrics you should keep track of are:

The ratio of engagement to reach. This will let you know how compelling your content is and if it leads to conversions.
Your CPC. This isn’t directly provided by Instagram, but you should be conscious of how much is being spent on promotions and…

…specifically how much it costs per website visit, contact information shared, conversions, etc.

Although posts receive a bit more analysis, you can use them to your advantage when tuning your promotions.

After all, promotions are just boosted posts.

One of the first things you should analyze is your audience. Are you reaching your intended demographic?

Is there consistency in your demographics from post to post to promotion?

Next, you should consider what actions people are taking when they see your promotion. Does your promotion have the intended effect?

Much like a website, bounce rate is a key metric to determine your content effectiveness.

Low reach and low engagement would be indicative of ineffective content.

Decent reach with low engagement means that although you are reaching the…

…intended audience, your CTA’s are ineffective, or the content is not conducive to engagement.

Polishing Your Content

But how do Instagram promotions work using your content?

Instagram promotions are a great way to get that boost in reach that your posts need. But if the content is unrefined, its message will fall on deaf ears.

Insights and other forms of analytics will definitely help guide your content and highlight pain points.

However, creating content that will resonate with your audience is a different beast and will need a more holistic approach.

Effective content needs to be interesting, memorable, and actionable. To achieve this, you need to be mindful of commonalities in your consumer base.

One of the best ways to take the guesswork out of content creation is to employ social listening.

Social listening is putting your ear to the ground to hear what people are saying and finding what trends are hot in your industry.

There are countless software out there to help you keep track of the conversation.

In essence, you are trying to nail down consumer sentiment when it comes to your brand, certain types of products, and even your competition.

Social listening can aid your Instagram promotions by:

Trailing consumer sentiment following a new promotion campaign
Identify common consumer pain points to target
Discovering gaps in the services/products offered in your industry (not just your brand)
Finding demographics that have yet to be targeted in a smart fashion
Helping incorporate consumer lingo/buzzwords that speak to your audience
Weeding out ineffective content or mistakes in your strategy

Social listening has become an industry standard, and it helps seal the leaks in your marketing budget.

If you would like to learn how to go about incorporating social listening into your marketing strategy to create the most relevant content.

Think about it

So hopefully the question of how to do Instagram promotions work has been answered.

They can give you that boost in reach that you may be lacking. But promotions aren’t the only piece of the puzzle.

If you would like a higher-level overview of what you can do to promote your business on Instagram.

Learn how to promote your Instagram page for greater brand awareness of your business.

Successfully optimizing your Instagram promotion campaigns can be quite time-consuming.

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While Instagram provides its analytics on your content in an intuitive interface.

Getting the most out of your posts and ads isn’t as easy as it makes it out to be.

In fact, it’s not uncommon for businesses of all sizes to find a helping hand when managing their social media accounts and advertising.

Integrating a team of professionals insures that your marketing budget is not wasted and that you are receiving at minimum, the industry standard.

At LYFE Marketing we live and breathe social media management and marketing.

We have helped countless people realize their business goals by meticulously crafting impactful marketing campaigns through constant optimization.

If you’d like to get more exposure and conversions out of social media, contact us today.

We offer both social media management services and social media advertising services so that the full package is at your fingertips.

Our specialists have experience across dozens of industries so that we ensure the best quality.

If you are interested in taking your social media game to the next level or would like to discuss our suite of other services, schedule a free consultation.

Should I start advertising on Instagram?

The visual component drives brands to promote on Instagram. Instagram is one of the largest social networks in the world, with over 500 million users. And according to the latest research, Instagram ads are more engaging than facebook/twitter ads.

Instagram allows the user to learn the story of a brand or product, and not just see the sales component. Insta advertising is worth a try for at least a few reasons:

Easy to create

When you create an ad on Facebook, you automatically create it on Instagram in the placement section as well. No need to look for additional tabs and checkboxes.

Optimization

Depending on the purpose of the ad, targeting will be automatically optimized like in facebook. If the goal is “clicks to the site”, then your ad will show users the most suitable for this goal.

No Instagram account required

Many brands, and almost all products, do not have a dedicated Instagram account. And even if there is, then it is poorly promoted and there is no desire to show it yet. But that's not a problem, Instagram ads only require you to have a Facebook page. This is enough to get started.

Are Facebook and Instagram ads the same?

The unequivocal answer is no. These are still two different social networks, although the owner is the same. Instagram is a purely visual component, while in FB a photo is one of the opportunities for content. There are several types of ads on Instagram. nine0003

Ad photo

Through the ad photo, you can tell the story of your brand, engage the user in participation, and generally just take the first step and get to know him.

Ad Carousel

Here you can add some more pictures and back them up with a call to action, for example redirecting people to your website.

Video ads

Instagram, like Facebook, also supports video ads. Restriction - the video is not longer than 1 minute. nine0003

Should I mix Facebook/Instagram ads?

There is only one interface for creating ads, one analytics, so maybe it's worth creating one ad for both social networks? I would not advise you, as I have said in dozens of my articles, in advertising you need to create narrow audiences, and this rule also applies to the type of placement.

You probably have the same target audience for both social networks, but you also need to track ad performance, user interaction, pricing, engagement, and more, right? nine0003

Make the same targeting, similar texts, but choose different types of placement. It will take 2 minutes but will give a thousand times better statistics.

How you can effectively track Instagram ads

As I wrote just above, Instagram conversion tracking happens in the facebook ads panel.

Don't forget to use utm tags for ads on insta and fb to understand exactly where the lead comes from. For example, utm_source = Facebook and utm_source = Instagram. nine0003

So advertising on Instagram?

The unequivocal answer is yes. Visuals now make up more than 50% of the world's population and Instagram advertising is the best solution to attract these users.

But do not forget about a couple of important details that I personally checked:

— the audience on Instagram is younger and more careless, you won’t burst into uninteresting pictures and slogans, creativity is more serious than on FB,

— the cost per click is at least 1.5 times higher than on Facebook. But I will say this, for brands with visual content it pays off with a vengeance, fb with its cheap clicks is not suitable for them in terms of % of lead conversion. nine0003

- before launching ads on insta, you should understand ads on facebook. After all, there is only one analytics account, and if you don’t understand anything about Facebook advertising, it will be hard for you.

I remind you that advertising on Instagram can be done from a separate Instagram account, without linking to facebook. But it seems to me that the synergy of the two social networks is the most powerful tool, so I personally do everything through my facebook account.

It has been scientifically proven that the best promotion method is trial and error. So, just go ahead! nine0003 90,000 what works and what doesn't.

Susan Wenograd's article was translated by our partners - Workogram translation and localization agency.

Are you sure your Instagram Stories ad is working? Would you like to know which advertising performance metrics to monitor and where to find the data you need?

In this article, you'll learn how to analyze Instagram Stories ad data to understand what works and what doesn't.

To learn how to analyze ads in Instagram stories, read this article with easy and understandable instructions or watch the video:

Attention! This article assumes you know how to set up Instagram Stories ads. Read the article for step by step instructions.

Analyzing ads on Instagram Stories in Ads Manager

When you advertise on Instagram Stories, you might be surprised that you don't have access to the very data you see when you post regular Stories. Everything is displayed in Facebook's "Ads Manager" with some key information missing that you're used to seeing. nine0003

You might also be wondering if Facebook Ads can be used. Technically, yes, you can see some ad data in this app. But if you really want to get the maximum amount of information, you need to look at the desktop.

There are so many metrics in Ads Manager that you won't need most of them. But I want to show you the data that really matters for Instagram Stories ads. nine0003

When you first open Ad Manager, you'll see a default view that's likely not what you'd like to use to analyze Instagram Stories ad performance. To change this view, click the Categories drop-down list on the right side of the screen. Then you will see various pre-made reports from which you can select the ones you need.

Some reports overlap. For example, if you select Interest or Video Interest, you might find that some of the categories overlap. We'll take a look at those reports that are the most useful for analyzing ads on Instagram Stories. nine0003

Attention! The account used for the images in this article has many high scores. It's okay if your account is not so developed. Although I chose it for one important reason. We spend millions of dollars on Instagram Stories ads, and the examples you see apply to small accounts as well. The thing is, when an account is small, there isn't a lot of data, so it can be difficult to review all of these examples.

#1: View ad performance data for placement

If you're not only advertising on Instagram Stories, all data will be displayed as a single element, which will not allow you to understand how ads in your Stories work. Fortunately, you can view the data separately by their location.

On the right side of the screen, you will see a drop-down list called "Breakdown". Click on it to see different ways to break down data to analyze the performance of individual sources.

When you select the "Place" function, you can see each item from Facebook or Instagram separately, including stories. If you can't see your Instagram Stories, you may have chosen not to advertise there in the first place, or Facebook may have simply opted out of Stories. nine0003

One of the difficulties that arises with stories is that there is not enough accounting for advertising. When Facebook is optimizing, it may opt out of Stories if it is in doubt that you are going to advertise there. In cases where Facebook does not support such placement, you can choose to place ads in Stories separately to get more data.

When analyzing the effectiveness of your Instagram Stories ads, look at placement of Stories versus what other sources offer and how much it will cost you to reach your goal. For example, if your goal is to get people to watch or engage with your Instagram story, and not necessarily buy a product, you don't need to evaluate ads in terms of sales, because that wasn't your plan. nine0003

Now that you understand how to break down your ad data by placement, it's worth taking a look at some of the reports that can be important for analyzing Instagram Stories ads.

#2: Engagement analysis for Instagram Stories ad evaluation, with a link to the top of the marketing funnel

Let's say you analyze the performance of stories for ads below that you place for the top of the marketing funnel. Looking at the video engagement data, you can see that the stories received 45,827 impressions. nine0003

How much will it cost you to watch a story for 10 seconds? $0.19. How many people watch ads to the end? Just over 1000 people. How much does it cost to watch to the end? $0.25

These statistics will help you understand where the money goes if you don't look at conversions. Because you're advertising at the top of the marketing funnel, it's important to you how much it costs to get people to notice your business. In this case, it's $0.19.

If you're posting this video to a lot of other sources, you can say, "I know I have to pay $0.66 for someone to see my ad to the end on the Facebook News Feed, but on Instagram Stories it costs only $0.25". nine0003

This cost difference must be taken into account when creating a remarketing audience. It plays an important role because understanding how you are going to spend your budget, based on your goal, affects how you are going to earn. To learn more about creating effective Instagram ad funnels, check out this article.

Because there are so many different metrics in this interest report, you might think they all matter. But actually it is not. If you're looking at the performance of Instagram Stories ads and you know stories are 15 seconds long, would you care how much it would cost for someone to watch them for 3 seconds? If you see that the cost per 10-second view is $5, and in other sources it is a maximum of $2, this is a good indicator that people do not watch the video until 10 seconds, which means something went wrong. nine0003

Pro Tip: To get even more data for Instagram Stories ads, you can tailor reports. Select the "Customize Columns" feature from the "Columns" drop-down list and access a variety of other data that you can add or remove from your reports, depending on what interests you. Let's be honest, it's all a bit overkill. If you are a beginner, it might be worth holding off on this until you get the hang of it. nine0003

#3: View performance and clicks to analyze Instagram Stories ads for conversion targets

Let's say you're advertising on Instagram Stories and your goal is conversion. If you open your pre-made categories, one of them will be "Performance and Clicks". Select this option and you will see completely different data compared to Interest.

Now you can look at the data as a result depending on the purpose of this ad mix. nine0003

The purpose of the advertisement below is for shopping. Based on purchase conversions, you can see how many there were, the frequency with which people see ads for the period of time you selected, how much this purchase cost, what was the budget, etc.

If you scroll a little, you will see cost per click (CPC) and the number of purchases that these product categories led to.

Consider cost per click for Instagram Stories. In this case, you pay $1.27 for someone to click through to your site. It is actually very cheap when compared to other accommodation options. nine0003

When you look at the data on how many purchases, how much they cost you, and your ad spend recovery (ROAS), you can see how your ads in stories are performing compared to other placements. All these data must be taken into account.

When to create a separate advertising complex for Instagram Stories?

When people create their accounts, they are often interested in whether they need to create their own advertising complex in stories and keep it separate from the news feed on Instagram, or is it better to combine them. nine0003

During the first run, you will most likely want to merge them. This will give you space to start. Notice how often Facebook shows your ads and how effective your creative is. This will help you understand if your ad is performing well before you spend a huge budget on something that might not work.

If your advertising is performing well, you'll want to maximize your budget. Otherwise, you most likely need to work on the creative, and a separate advertising complex is not the best option for this. nine0003

As noted earlier, Facebook is not the most reliable source for getting your ads to appear frequently on Instagram Stories. They will show you a decent amount, but more often than not, they prefer the News Feed because they can get more data there. You may have to counter this by saying, “I only want to advertise in the stories in this ad mix,” and put the bulk of your budget into that.

Here's a prime example of what can happen when you decide to split an ad. One percentage campaign will only run on the Instagram News Feed, while the other will only run on Stories. But it was not always possible to separate them in this way. nine0003

They were previously associated with other accommodation options. Over time, we saw that Instagram began to function better, but we did not increase the budget to the maximum. Then the stories took the lead compared to the news feed, but we could no longer increase the budget there.

This example shows what happens when this approach actually works. Advertising in stories is obviously much cheaper than in the news feed. For the feed, we pay $15.20 for every thousand ad impressions. In stories, we pay only a third of this amount. nine0003

There is less competition in stories and advertising is much cheaper there. But it doesn’t mean anything at all if it’s not for sale, but it’s just interesting to look at.

Now look at the cost per click and click through rate (CTR). The cost per click on the Instagram feed is $3.89 with a click through rate of 0.39%. Stories cost per click is $1.27 with a click through rate of 0.46%. Stories statistics show the best results.

Although looking at the number of purchases on the website, it is higher for the Instagram feed. This is not surprising, because there are much more ads in the feed than in stories, so there is more opportunity to sell goods. nine0003

When looking at ad reimbursement, this brand gets approximately 24.5% from News Feed and 31% from Stories. Again, the numbers don't have to be exactly that. These are the examples we get when we look at spending on the required scale.

When you take the time to make your Stories ads effective and maximize your budget - no matter how big or small - Stories will perform better than Feed anyway. This is exactly the case where I strongly recommend separating them, because this is the only way for you to get all the promotional tools that have been removed from ads in stories. When it is better to do this is a personal choice for everyone. nine0003

Conclusion

Chances are you're familiar with Facebook ads and maybe even the data you can get from them. But with Instagram it's different. If you look at story ads, it's sort of like placing ads on the platform, which is completely different from all other options.

Instagram Stories advertising is one of the most profitable opportunities for online advertisers. Understanding how to make Stories advertising effective is what will set you apart from your competitors. But to make a successful ad, you need to understand how to analyze data. nine0003

What do you think about this? What ad performance metrics do you track for your Instagram Stories ads? We are waiting for your answers in the comments.

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