A Complete Guide to Instagram Ads

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Instagram gives businesses of all kinds a huge advantage in reaching their target audience. It may become increasingly difficult to stand out if more businesses join Instagram and the feed becomes much more crowded. Picture being capable of reaching the target groups of Instagram users to contact with, interact with, and turn into customers. Thanks to Instagram advertisements, this is achievable.

Instagram advertising was founded in late 2015. Many companies are now targeting any subset of the  600 million+ Instagram users utilizing the Facebook advertising system. Currently, Instagram advertisements are becoming an intriguing option for marketers wanting to enhance interaction, with 400 million people using the app every day (and profits, too). Here is our complete guide to Instagram ads.

What are Instagram ads?

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Instagram advertising is a means of paying for sponsored content to be posted on the Instagram platform in order to reach a larger, more targeted audience. While a business or individual may choose to advertise for a variety of reasons, Instagram advertising is frequently used to increase brand awareness, and website traffic, generate new leads and move current leads down the funnel (and hopefully towards converting).

Text advertising isn’t allowed on Instagram because it’s such a visual platform. To get in touch with your followers with Instagram advertisements, you’ll have to have a picture, a couple of photos, or a video (which can be followed by text). What’s the fun part? Instagram marketing is effective!

More than 120 million users who use Instagram accessed a website, got guidance, called, sent an email, or directly messaged a company after noticing an Instagram ad in the  March of 2017. According to Instagram, 60% of individuals claim the platform helps them discover new things, and 75% of Instagrammers do something after being motivated by a post.

Similar to Facebook ads, investing in a post will increase your brand’s exposure while also giving you greater control over who sees it.

Why should you use Instagram ads?

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Instagram ads have prompted over one billion user actions since the site introduced advertising in 2015. And in just six months the previous year, the advertiser base grew more than double to 500,000.

According to a 2016 poll conducted by Strata, 63% of US ad agency professionals planned to employ Instagram ads for their clients. This is a significant increase from 34% the previous year (when Instagram ads were still not widely available), making Instagram ads among the major social media advertising options. Here are some causes describing why you should use Instagram ads.

• Instagram has one of the fastest-growing audiences of any social media site. From 2015 to 2016, TrackMaven surveyed 26,965 companies across all industries and discovered that brands had a 100 percent increase in median follower growth. If you do not have a lot of followers then you can buy some on Buzzoid.
• Users spend 50 minutes every day on Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger on average. One out of every five minutes spent on mobile in the United States is spent on Instagram or Facebook.
• In accordance with an Instagram survey, 60% of Instagram account holders believe the platform helps them know about products and benefits, and 75% say they take any action after viewing an Instagram post, like visiting websites, Googling, or informing a friend.
• Instagram ads take advantage of Facebook’s ad system, which provides the most extensive targeting capabilities. You can specify the location, demographics, hobbies, and behaviors of your target audience, among other things. You can also target those who have purchased from you or interacted with you, as well as others who are similar to them.
• Ad recall from Instagram ads was 2.8 times higher than Nielsen’s averages for internet advertising, in accordance with Instagram, which examined more than 400 campaigns across the world.

Are Instagram ads right for your business?

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As a result, the logical question arises: Who is on Instagram? Is it only teens who like to take selfies? Or are you seeking recipes for 20-somethings? What about those who are older? Is it possible that they’re “gramming” their grandchildren?

Unfortunately for all of you advertisers targeting the grandparent population, Instagram tends to cater to a younger demographic, with the majority of users (55 percent) falling between the ages of 18 and 29, followed by 30-49. (28 percent ). Only 11% of Instagram users are between the ages of 50 and 64, while only 4% are over the age of 65.

According to Hootsuite, the bulk of Instagram users (32%) live in cities, while 28% live in the suburbs, and 18% live in rural areas. While women outnumber males on Instagram, the gender divide isn’t as wide as it once was.

Even though this isn’t the kind of crowd you’re looking for, you should not dismiss social media as a time-waster. As the platform continues to grow, more folks over 34 will certainly join the Instagram bandwagon, similar to what happened with Facebook. In addition, if you’re working with the 4% of adults over 65, you can always target them specifically.

Instagram, like many other social media advertising platforms, allows you to target certain genders, age groups, places, interests, habits, and more. You can also create a custom or lookalike audience to show ads solely to people who are similar to your direct list of prospects.

The fact that Instagram uses Facebook’s statistical data to target adverts to the correct individuals is something that advertisers should pay attention to. Because Facebook already has a long history and extensive demographic targeting possibilities, advertisers wishing to target a particular population may find the feature extremely useful. If you’re in a visual or creative industry, such as restaurant marketing or craft marketing, Instagram advertising can be very effective.

Types of Instagram ads

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If you think Instagram is the ideal social media channel for you to advertise your business, it’s time to think about what ad structure might work best for you. Each Instagram ad style has its own set of qualities and, as a result, serves its own set of advertising goals.

• Photo ads

Photo advertising is used to express a brand’s narrative via clear, eye-catching visuals. Photo advertising, unlike other forms, must rely on the boldness of a single image to communicate whatever the firm behind it wishes to convey.

• Carousel ads

Consider adopting the carousel ad type if you find photo advertisements to be restrictive and video ads to be counterproductive to your business’s goals. Users can swipe left or right to see more photos and add a call to action button with carousel ads. These ads are great for displaying a variety of product offerings to give users an idea of what you have to offer.

• Video ads

Video commercials, like photo ads, use visual elements to tell a brand’s story. However, with video, there are also sound and motion components to the advertisement. Video advertising may be better suited to your firm if your product or service benefits from a more immersive ad experience, such as displaying a car traveling down a street.

• Stories ads

Sometimes businesses advertise their brand by using the Instagram story feature.

How much do Instagram ads cost?

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This is a difficult topic to answer because costs are depending on a multitude of factors, and as you may have guessed, the platform does not reveal all of these aspects to us. The approach is based on cost-per-click (CPC) and cost-per-impression (CPM), with pricing established by Instagram’s ad auction.

On the plus side, advertisers have control over how their advertising dollars are spent. For example, you can set up a daily budget to limit how much you spend per day, or a lifetime budget to run your ads for a certain period of time until the budget is gone.

Establishing your ad schedule (for example, you may select specific hours of the day you might want your advertising to operate), setting your ad delivery strategy, and setting your bid amount are all ways to limit your Instagram ad expenditure (manual vs. automatic).

Conclusion

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Instagram isn’t tough to grasp, but if you want to advertise effectively on the network, you’ll need to pay attention. You must comprehend not only your own brand, offering, and target audience, but also your competitors’ brands, offerings, and target audiences. You should also be familiar with Instagram as a platform and how your firm can use it to advertise and contact customers.

Instagram, like so many other social media platforms for advertising, puts the user first, which is why its ads are becoming more engaging. Remember that, and you’ll have a lot better chance of running a successful campaign.