5 Elements For a Great Instagram Ad

Things I Learned – Social Media Series

Why should you be using Instagram Ads? According to SproutSocial: “While organic social media strategies might seem cost effective at first, they’re time consuming, rely on a lot of trial and error, and can only get you so far when you’re up against ever-changing social media algorithms. This is why it’s so important to focus on a social media strategy that incorporates both organic and paid tactics. This way you get the best of both worlds. You’re actively engaging with your audience and posting content to your Instagram feed, but you’re reaching out to an even larger audience who might not know about your brand yet with paid ads.” Need to know more of the basics of an Instagram Ad first?

Give Value

You are not going to get anything from anybody if you do not give value! Do something like daily, weekly or even a monthly special. Offer your viewers something. Don’t just give them information about you or your business. For your ad, you can choose to include a photo with your value offer or if you like making videos, do that instead! When coming up with your “value”, ask yourself – “Is this what people want?” and “Would I find value in this?”

The Structure of Your Ad

What problem are you solving for your audience? You want to make sure your ad is simple, streamlined and customer focused. Make it short and to the point. Your audience can get lost in too much verbiage and too much detail. Remember, you are giving value to your customer and you want to draw them in quickly – so be creative.

Facebook Ads Manager

Use Facebook’s ad manager, not Instagram’s. Don’t boost your ad through Instagram. Log into Facebook Ads Manager and boost it from there. You will get much cheaper rates and better targeting. SproutSocial tells us: On Facebook, the campaign manager has many options for objectives, ad sets and ads. You have a multitude of combinations to test out and plenty of ways to preview all the available ads. On Instagram, the ads manager went for the simple-is-best route. In just a few taps, you can have your ad set up with an existing post or story. If you don’t want the nitty-gritty data and you just want the big picture with an easy interface, Instagram is the best ads management platform for you.

Locate Your Ideal Demographic

If you want to target a global audience it will be super cheap to do. There will be lower conversion rates – both for following you and/or purchasing your product. If you wish to target a local audience it will be more moderately priced. There are higher conversion rates for the locally run ads. These are people that are already in your “area” and probably have more interest in your ad.

Every Ad Set is a Test

Nothing is final. Nothing is perfect. It is virtually impossible to know which ad is going to perform better for you. You don’t really know what your audience wants until they tell you, so their feedback to your ads is important. Try different things until you get that successful feedback. “Social media advertising success is a mix of planning, analysis and a little luck. The strategy you used a year ago might not work today and the same goes for the future. In addition, the networks are constantly adjusting their algorithms and advertising features.” (SproutSocial)

According to udemy.com, a good way to test is to create 5 ads and then focus each of those ads in 5 different demographics. This gives you a total of 25 ads. Then you just see which ones work and which ones don’t. Double down on the ones that do (duplicate it and increase the budget) and get rid of the ones that don’t (pause the campaign). Make sure NOT to increase your budget more than 20%. The highest should be 20% and if you want higher you need to duplicate the ad and increase the duplicated ad’s budget. Monitor and check in on your ads every 3-4 days.

When testing a new ad campaign, remember there are only two things you can change: 1) the creative (this is the ad); and 2) the audience (demographic). You can keep changing and changing these until you get the perfect combination. The important part is to keep measuring to see what is working and what is not. This is the only way you will know what your audience likes and what doesn’t interest them. Always keep your objective in mind – maximize Instagram followers and minimize ad-spend.