Instagram Advertising Strategy | Brand Marketers Best Tools

In this guide to Instagram Advertising, I’ll take you through all of the reasons you should be on Instagram. Plus, give you some helpful hints for building your Instagram advertising strategy. As well as, setting objectives, and delivering results. Eventually, Instagram hosts dozens of original filters that users can add to their photos. Not to mention, you can do even more!

For instance, these preset filters make various changes to photos. Including adding light, giving the image a warm or cool tone, increasing or decreasing saturation, and much more. Additionally, users can edit images directly on the platform, as opposed to using a third-party photo editor. And if they don’t like one particular filter, they can use its editing features.

Whereby, they can individually change the way their photos will showcase on the platform. Including but not limited to making changes to the contrast, brightness, structure, warmth, saturation, sharpness, and much more… What about it’s famously known engagement rate? Well, the Insta ads campaign generates an average Click-Through-Rate (CTR) of 0.58%.

Meaning, that as a digital online brand or web business owner, spending a single dollar on Instagram advertising campaigns is worth more clicks than anywhere else. In other words, this is your cue to boost user-generated content, and hashtags for your overall digital online web business. As well as encourage more social media shares, likes, and comments from followers.

Defining The Instagram Application Basics

For beginners, Instagram is a photo and video-sharing social networking platform originally created for smartphones. And since its inception in 2010, the platform has soared in popularity, especially among millennials. By all means, Instagram has taken the world by storm. And it seems like everyone — and their cats, dogs, wealth, name them— is on the platform.

On the other hand, you may have also noticed the increase in brands that’ve developed a presence on the platform. In other words, it’s now a global platform that allows brands to humanize their content, recruit new talent, showcase products, and inspire their audience. Furthermore, Instagram users aren’t just active — they’re engaged.

But, is Instagram worth their time, and should your business also be on the platform? Of course, Yes! And there are some tangible reasons why Instagram is a great advertising platform for businesses, brands, as well as products. Consider the following key reasons: Instagram sees over one billion active monthly users and 500 million daily Instagram Stories.

While, in the same fashion, 60% of adults online use Instagram, including 35% of adults in the United States. However, 80% of the application users reside outside the United States. Similarly, there are 25 million business profiles on Instagram — coupled with 80% of Instagram users who follow at least one business, and 72% of users saying they’ve purchased a product here.

What Instagram Advertising Marketplace Entails

Instagram Advertising or Lead Marketing is the way that brands use Instagram to connect with their target audiences and market their offerings. Recently, it’s gained popularity as an exciting method for brands to utilize in various forms. For instance, to show off their cultures, recruit new employees, engage with customers, and show off products in a new light.

Just like Facebook and Twitter, everybody who creates an Instagram account has a profile and newsfeed. Where users can interact with one another by following, being followed, private messaging, and commenting on or liking photos or videos. Basically, the in-app filters and editing options Instagram offers make the app unique — unlike its competitors.

And, it’s obviously because it was the first app to offer in-app editing to this extent. Another important point is that Instagram allows users to upload photos and videos to their profile and edit them with various options. As a matter of fact, through Instagram advertising, you can greatly grow your brand awareness and introduce new products.

Related Resource:  10 Things You Need to Do When Getting Started on Instagram

What’s more, Instagram allows you to promote your brand and product in a friendly, authentic way without hard selling to your customers. But, even with all these Instagram statistics, you may still be unsure of how to get started. Personally, I know the platform can be a little bit intimidating at first, and that’s why I’ve created this guide.

Before we begin, it’s important to note that Instagram is intended for in-the-moment content. So, to stay relevant amongst your audience you’ll need to invest the resources required to post regularly. And the best way to keep your followers engaged is to keep your Instagram profile up-to-date.

Below, I’ll dive right into how to build and maintain a successful brand through Instagram marketing. But, if you don’t have it already, download the Instagram app from the App Store or Google Play Store. You can view content on Instagram’s website, but you can’t upload it via your desktop. You’ll need the app for that.

Why You Should Invest In Instagram Ads

According to YellowHead, with over 2 billion active users, Instagram has established itself as one of the leading social media platforms out there today. And as such, Instagram has a huge, diverse online community and marketing potential at your disposal. With a younger, more engaging audience, this platform could make a difference in your brand products’ awareness.

As well as all those marketing ad campaigns, brand following, engagement rate, and ultimately, your return on ad spends (ROAS). In fact, as of February 2019, Instagram boasts over 1 billion active users, 500 million of whom use Stories every day to quickly update their followers.

To emphasize, according to Instagram, 60% of people say they discover new products on the Instagram platform. While, at the same time, 20% of the social media giant users visit at least one business profile every single day. Plus, 33% of the most popular Instagram Stories are shared by businesses like yours.

Similar to Facebook ads, throwing some money behind a post will lead to more exposure for your brand, as well as more control over who can see your post. However, what advertisers should really latch onto is the fact that Instagram uses Facebook’s demographic data to serve up ads to the appropriate parties.

For this reason, it makes the tool super valuable for all digital online web advertisers than other media by far. Especially, those marketers looking to target a niche audience. Simply, because both Instagram and Facebook (Meta Business) already have a decent history and thorough demographic targeting options. There are key valuable stats for businesses and brands.

Consider the following proven facts:

• 17.6% of people in the world use Instagram
• 87% of users reside outside of the United States
• 31% of IG users are between the ages of 18 and 24
• It’s estimated that 71% of businesses in the US use IG for business
• Over 200 million businesses use Instagram for advertising
• 60% of people say they discover new products on Instagram
• 31.2% of Instagram users are between the ages of 25 and 34
• One-third of the most viewed stories are from businesses
• Users spend an average of 30 minutes daily on Instagram, according to 2021 data
• 73% of US teenagers say IG is the best tool to outreach them about brand promotions and products
• 200 million Instagram users view one business profile or more daily
• 70% of shopping lovers find new products on Instagram

As can be seen, it’s clear that Instagram isn’t just for personal use anymore — whether for you or your assets. With more than half of the platform’s active users visiting the site daily. Keep in mind, 70% of Instagram users have spent time searching for a brand on the platform. Whilst, according to another study, 35% of them said that they check it multiple times a day.

Chiefly, if you’ll need more convincing, feel free to check out Instagram’s success stories page where you can sort by industry, goal, product, region, and business size. To find stories about how similar businesses are seeing success with ads.

How A Strategic Instagram Advertising Plan Works

Surprisingly, it’s hard to believe that Instagram used to be the younger, immature sister of Facebook where people would filter pictures of their ramen. Now businesses have adopted Instagram as one of their main revenue-generating tools. As of today, Instagram has over 2 million advertisers and 25 million business profiles!

Technically, the Instagram advertising model used is based on a strategic cost-per-million impressions (CPM) marketing plan. While Instagram ads on average receive much higher engagement than Facebook ads, it does come at a price. According to Keith Baumwald, founder of leverag.com, Instagram ads costs are slightly higher in cost than Facebook ads.

Additionally, Baumwald claims that since the ads are so highly targeted you could end up paying as high as $5 a CPM. According to CPC Strategy, the average Instagram CPC is $0.70 (compared to an average of $0.35 on Facebook). That figure tends to be higher for Instagram users between the ages of 18 and 44, for women, and for Apple device users.

Related Resource: 7 Marketing Tips To Help Grow Your Brand On Instagram

On the bright side, advertisers do have control over how their budgets are allocated. For example, you can choose between a daily budget to limit the amount spend per day. Or a lifetime budget where you would set up your ads.

And then, run for a length of time until the budget is depleted. Other ways to control your Instagram ad spending include setting your ad schedule. For instance, you can specify certain hours of the day you want your ads to run. While at the same time, setting your ad delivery method. There are three options involved— à link clicks, impressions, and daily unique reach.

As well as setting your bid amount (manual vs. automatic). Having said that, below are the main features of Instagram Advertising that you are more likely to find quite resourceful as a brand, a business, or even a product marketer.

1. Ads in Explore

Explore is where people go to serendipitously discover content, watch, shop, and connect with creators and businesses. Every person’s Explore page is unique, featuring curated content that’s personalized based on each individual’s interests. Now, businesses have the ability to reach people in this discovery mindset with Ads in Explore.

Using Ads In Explore, reach people in a discovery mindset! By extending your feed ads to audiences who are looking to expand their interests beyond the accounts they follow. Simply put, Ads in Explore give advertisers an opportunity to extend their campaign to additional audiences. Becoming part of what is culturally relevant and trending.

As you can see, above is an illustration screenshot of Ads in Explore at work. The first image represents Instagram Explore (a grid of photos and videos). Followed by an Ad in Explore Feed Ad (a scrollable feed of photos and videos). And lastly, the image represents the Ad In Explore Video (a scrollable feed of videos).

Note: Ads will not appear on the Explore page itself, in the topic channels, or in IGTV, Shopping, or Stories destinations.

From the Instagram Explore grid, clicking on a small media leads to the Explore feed (middle image). Where both photo and video ads will show up as they would appear in an Instagram feed. Clicking into a larger media leads to the Explore Video experience (right image), which will only show video ads.

2. Story Ads, Photo Ads, And Video Ads

Complement your feed content with story ads through your Instagram Stories. Connect with over 500 million accounts using stories daily.¹ Learn more about Story Ads and specs. Tell your story through a clean, simple, and beautiful creative canvas. Photo Ads can be in a square or landscape format. Get the same visually immersive quality Video Ads as the photo.

Perse, with the added power of sight, sound, or motion. At all costs, may it be Instagram story ads, photo ads, or even video ads, they are all great tools for a strong and fruitful Instagram Ad Design Strategy that will bear the intended results. Generally, this is quite true since you can easily share videos up to 120 seconds long in landscape or square format.

Carousel Ads And Collection Ads

Through Carousel Ads, add another layer of depth to campaigns, where people can swipe to view additional photos or videos in a single ad. You can use Collection Ads to visually inspire and help your audience discover, browse, and purchase products. Tell an integrated story with a product or lifestyle focus, through video, images, or both.

Above all, before you get started with Instagram marketing, you need an Instagram For Business account or an Instagram Creator account. With this in mind, before you read on, have a look at other Instagram Marketing Tips from other marketing professionals — that you can’t afford to ignore — a full guideline for Insta marketers that is also in full and elaborate detail.

A Quick Walk On How To Design Great Ads

It’s no secret that your business needs to be active on Instagram. With more than 500 million users, it’s a social network that provides a great marketing platform. Allowing you to reach potential customers from every corner of the world. Let’s now learn more about Advertising On Instagram in detail. Particularly, in Instagram For Business terms for that matter.

While reaching people who are looking to discover something new. Leverage existing feed assets in this new placement to reach more people in more places. You can learn more about how Ads in Explore works, or get started straight away when you create your own ad to see everything in action. Overall, Instagram ads should be a part of your marketing strategy.

In order to improve your Instagram advertising, you need to increase your following on a steady and consistent basis. After all, the more people that come in contact with your brand and follow you on Instagram, the larger your audience is that you can potentially reach every time you post.

What we can say is that Instagram can be an incredibly powerful platform for marketers. With such a huge population now using it, there is no better platform for marketers who want to promote visual content. While the app alone may be enough to get you started, using the right marketing tools can really ramp up your results.

How To Create Instagram Ads Using Its Ads Manager

It’s, important to realize, both Instagram and Facebook ads are fully integrated — making campaign creation, creative iterations, and audience targeting easier to maneuver. On one side, brand marketers get the best of Instagram’s high rate of engagement. On the other side, Facebook allows campaign creation, optimization options, and audience targeting variations.

When you’re ready to run Instagram ads, start in Ads Manager, and select Instagram as a placement. You don’t need an Instagram account to run ads on Instagram. Equally important, you can use your Facebook Page or a connected Instagram account (if you have one). But, before you begin, there are a few things that you’ll need to consider if you are just starting.

First, if you’d like to connect to your Instagram account, you can add it to your Business Manager or connect through your Page’s settings. Secondly, prepare images or videos that you’d like to include in your ad. And then, determine which Facebook advertising objective aligns with your marketing goal. Next, you can now select Instagram as a placement for your ads.

To get started:

1. Go to Instagram Ads Manager to get started
2. And then, select the Create option while there
3. Choose an Objective that supports Instagram as an Ad Placement to continue
4. Fill in the Ad Set details to continue.
   • In the placements section, you can select Edit Placements and
5. Select Instagram to have your ads appear effectively on the Instagram network
6. If you select Automatic Placements, the ad will run across some Facebook Placements too
   • The key Placements need is to give you the best value for your ad campaigns
7. Hit the Continue option and you are done
8. You can start Tracking the performance results after a day or two
9. And, as for a Repeat Campaign, you can consider repeating the best-performing ads

You have now selected Instagram as a placement. And in that case, you can complete your ad by adding details for your ad’s identity, and format, as well as related links. Once you have filled in these details, you will be able to preview your ad before submitting it for review. Your ad will appear on Instagram soon after its approval.

Tips For A Successful Instagram Advertising Campaign 

As you can see, so far, we can clearly say that Advertising on Instagram offers opportunities for your business on any ad budget. Whereby, all you’ll need to do is choose a business objective and create an ad campaign to help reach your goals. Furthermore, Instagram can integrate with Shopify, WooCommerce, etc. Making shopping campaigns all the more practical.

Clearly, as it continues to grow, Instagram has become one of the leading advertising platforms out there, attracting new businesses and users every day. Facebook and Instagram continue to improve their platforms and help marketers maximize their efforts while minimizing their costs. Whether you’re a small business owner or a multi-conglomerate, it’s a must.

That said, besides this guideline, there are also other massive resources (both from other experts, Facebook, and Instagram teams). In particular, with detailed topics for you to gather adequate information and learn quite a lot. So that you can easily build engaging Ads. Grow Online Sales Today. Target The Right Audience. Generate Leads. Below are a few more tips.

1. Keep Your Adverts Simple

As for this one, you should, always remember, that most Instagram app users engage with entertaining and inspirational content more than lectures or click-bait titles. Therefore, try to focus your message around the user’s mind, be more informative than your competitors, be quick to learn and adapt to critical changes, and also keep everything fun.

2. Focus On Audience Targeting

By the same token, more advertising channels mean more visibility, which later turns into more awareness, and ultimately, more conversions (both paid and organic). Keep in mind, that a majority of Instagram users’ interests are abundant, and it is easy to get lost in a broad targeting strategy. Test your ads on different variations of audiences and interests, and gain insights about your most valuable users.

3. Do Quality Research

Doing some research before you roll out your marketing campaigns has been applicable since the era of traditional marketers. You’d want to know what your competitors are doing, what best interests your target audience, how to do it right, etc. Remember, nothing beats the odds for content marketers than being all-rounded in terms of new information and crucial updates gathering. And then, thereafter, take full-throttle advantage of these new elements in their strategic digital online marketing plans. As well as utilizing some if not all of these tools for their next Instagram ad campaigns rollout.

4. Seize New Opportunities

Is there anything else that can power up any given marketing plan than having that special feature only a few users know or even some free web tools in the marketplace that no one else knows about? As a marketer, all these hot, new, and trending web resources can come in as your savior. Moving on, with many Instagram users awaiting news from their favorite brands, announcing a new promotion, a winter sale or a holiday event could have positive campaign effects both online and offline.

5. User-Generated Content

In general, creatives showing people (especially people’s faces) tend to be the most engaging on Instagram – if you give UGC its proper slice of your marketing budget, it’ll surely pay you back with a good treat as well. Usually, you can achieve this by showcasing your users, their star ratings, and reviews. Likewise, don’t forget to look at organic posts for paid inspiration too. After all, native ads are key when advertising on Instagram, you want to blend in, not stick out. Study influencers and competitors’ organic posts to improve your creative ideation.

You can also learn more about:

• How to add an Instagram account to your Business Manager
• The readily available objectives for Instagram ad placements
• How to add an Instagram account to your Facebook Page
• Why You Shouldn’t Buy Instagram Followers (& What to Do Instead)

Be that as it may, before we forget, it’s also good to run both your Facebook and Instagram Ads simultaneously — to get even more rich results and better success conversion rates. Whilst, bearing in mind, that more advertising channels mean more visibility, which later turns into more awareness, and ultimately, more conversions (both paid and organic).

Summary Thoughts:

In nutshell, with over 200 million Instagram users visiting at least one business profile daily, Instagram allows for a unique opportunity to create, expand and maintain a valuable, high-intent user follower base. Instagram measures success based on awareness rather than likes or comments, which gives smaller businesses more of an opportunity to be seen.

Instagram doesn’t employ any complex creative features; designing and posting an ad could potentially be a matter of minutes, without any sort of technical or creative background. What’s more, according to a certain report by Yotpo, a majority of social users engage with branded content on Instagram 58 times more than on Facebook and 120 times more than on Twitter.

Not forgetting, as we aforementioned, Instagram ads generate an average click-through rate (CTR) of 0.58%. Ultimately, this means that as digital online marketers or even web-based business advertisers, you’ll be getting meaningful results for your marketing campaigns. Now that spending a single dollar on Instagram is worth more clicks than anywhere else.

More related resource references:

1. Social Media Is for More Than Just Marketing
2. Google Ads | Get More Customers With Online Advertising
3. Pinterest Ads | How to Promote your Pins Step-by-step
4. Facebook Promotion Campaign | Step-by-step Guidelines
5. 9 Tools to Improve Your Instagram Marketing

Finally, we hope that the above-revised guide on Instagram Advertising was helpful to you and your digital online marketing team or even to anyone else that you know. But, if you’ll need additional support, more elaborate guidelines, or question answers related to this or more of our blog topics, please feel free to Contact Us and let us know how we can sort you.

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