Advertising on Instagram brings visibility, attraction and recognition for your brand. Learn how to advertise with this guide and follow the best tips for a campaign that DOES generate results!
Today Instagram has one of the largest audiences on the Internet (more than 1,450 million users).
In Mexico, for example, Instagram has a significant presence, with more than 37.8 million users in 2022 .
These figures show that the network is an excellent investment opportunity.
That is why this post, we are going to give you a complete guide on how to advertise on Instagram through “ Instagram Ads” .
I welcome you!
What are Ads or Instagram Advertising?
Instagram ads are a way to show your content both in the feed, Stories, Reels, in the "Explore" tab, in the video platform (formerly IGTV), in collection ads and in the Shop tab.
All this to gain more and faster range.
These ads appear in photo, video, and carousel formats with photo or video sequences.
The tool can be used for the purpose of driving clicks , conversions, sales, app installs, and video views.
Another possibility is to directly advertise the products for sale in your brand's Instagram store.
Creating Instagram ads with short videos, photos, or carousel images are great for educating your audience about using your products and services.
How does advertising on Instagram work?
Instagram ads stand out because they offer advertisers great targeting power.
When you publish an ad on the network, you can target it with all the existing forms of targeting in Facebook ads .
Here are some examples:
- Age.
- Gender.
- Geographic location.
- General interests (music, sports, technology).
- The interests of consumers.
- Access devices and systems.
- Moments of life (graduated, married, working).
- And custom audiences (who accessed your site, contact list, etc.).
Instagram Ads Specifications
When producing an ad for Instagram, you must take into account certain details:
- Text on the image: It is no longer prohibited that text cannot occupy more than 20% of the used image/photo area, but it is still a non-recommended practice on the platform.
- Image size and format: square (most recommended), 1080x1080px, or rectangular, 1200 × 628. The file must not be larger than 30 MB. See this Meta guide for the full list of sizes.
- Video duration: 120 seconds (it is recommended not to exceed 15 seconds). The file cannot exceed 4 GB. The most recommended format is MP4 and the measurements are the same as those of the images.
- Carousel: Limit of 10 images, which must be square.
How is advertising done on Instagram?: tutorial
Now that you know the details of the ads, we are going to show you how to do it in practice.
In this tutorial on how to advertise on Instagram, we'll be using Ad Manager .
But remember that you must first create your account in Business Manager .
For those already familiar with Facebook Ads (Now Meta) , it's easier to do it on Instagram because it's the same process.
To get started, all you have to do is click the “+ Create” button.
Verb format and definitions
Now, choose the goal you want to achieve with your campaign.
It is worth mentioning that each type of campaign can have its particularities in terms of format and direction.
For the demonstration, we will use the Consideration/Traffic one:
It's important to name your campaign , ad set, and ads so you can easily find them later.
In a traffic advertisement, it is necessary to choose where the user should go. In addition, it is possible to create dynamic ads with offers.
How much does advertising on Instagram cost?
The time has come to talk about amounts: it is in this part where you can define how much you are willing to invest in your campaign and also define its duration:
It is recommended to always have an end date already set (unless it is not the strategy), so as not to generate additional charges for forgetting to pause the stream.
Here you can also set an average cost per click limit or let the tool control it.
It is important to comment that the platform is optimized to always achieve the lowest possible cost per result. But, to improve the performance of your campaigns and therefore the budget, use the eBook 25 practical optimizations in Facebook Ads .
Choice of public and exhibition venues
After that step, we move on to segmenting the audience.
This is when you will enter all the information of who should receive your campaign, such as location, gender, age, interests, etc.
Tip: configure this part well to reach people relevant to your business.
Notice that the right column shows the definition of the audience with an estimate of the potential reach:
This estimate will depend on how much you are going to invest and who your audience is.
Note that the estimated daily reach of people on Instagram is also listed.
Defined audience?
Now is the time to indicate to the platform the places of exhibition.
By default, campaigns are set up with automatic placements, and the platform itself distributes ads to the best performing placements.
To show the ad only on Instagram, it is necessary to uncheck other positions and leave only the corresponding to this social network active.
Ad creation time
Moving on to creativity, it's time to configure the appearance of the ad according to the specifications that we mentioned at the beginning of the post.
Choose the most appropriate format for your campaign (carousel, single image or video, and collection).
Choose the image or video you want to stream.
If you have more than one image, the platform gives you the option to transform that static content into a more striking video.
Do not forget to enter the text that will accompany the image and the destination URL.
On the right side of the screen, the platform shows an example of how your ad will appear.
Keep in mind that all the information is legible.
Finalize and prepare the ad for analysis
Do not forget to measure the results that Instagram will bring from the visits to your site. You can use a URL parameter to keep track of these numbers.
To learn more about how to do all of this, read the post UTM Parameters: Know your true impact in the digital world .
Is everything ready?
Just click "confirm" to publish the ad! You can also give it a final review by clicking “rate”.
Once the ad is published, try to always follow the results, monitor the comments and see if they are aligned with your objective.
10 Tips for Creating Instagram Ads That Stand Out
1. 
Make your goal very clear with Instagram Ads
The objective of the campaign should be your first focus: the social network optimizes (and charges) the results related to your objective (clicks, visits, conversions, etc.).
Do you want to promote a new product? Do you want to increase traffic to your ecommerce?
The question you must be asking yourself now is: "How to do it?" , or in other words, in which direction is my goal going?
These two questions are easy to solve.
Both site visits and reach are direct goals on Instagram. But what if your goal is not so intuitive?
For example, an IT management company wants to publicize its solution. It is a very specific niche, most of the target audience does not even know that they need such a solution.
The answer to "how to" in this case may be to educate the public, demonstrate how IT management can make the daily lives of technicians easier, how they can predict infrastructure problems and avoid high costs.
One way to do this is to use a video, such as a few minute demo of the software in action or an animation showing IT management solutions for businesses.
It may not be for businesses in general, but it may be a solution targeted at a specific area, such as retail.
In this case, the ad may be directed to watch the video. In this way, the company gains in brand image promotion, a cutting-edge strategy.
Another objective can be a conversion, that is, using the landing page of the video. Therefore, the user observes and is convinced to make a conversion for a test, a bottom-of-funnel strategy.
The line of reasoning, therefore, should be the following:
- Aim?
- How to do it?
- What media strategy offers this result?
2. Think about the theme of the ad
This advice is linked to the previous one, but it is important to highlight it. After defining the objective, or while defining it, think about what the theme of the ad will be.
Continuing with the IT management example, it was decided that we want to train a decision maker within a large retail company and transform that decision maker into a leader.
Well, that person is probably an IT analyst, maybe a manager, so:
What kind of topic are you interested in? Should I talk about LAN, WAN and HelpDesk networks or about time management?
Maybe team management, time management and optimization? What is the pain of this person? What problem do you have? How to attract your curiosity?
3. Use adaptable pages
If the objective is to take the user to a page, such as a Landing Page for example , check if that page is responsive, that is, if it also looks good on mobile devices.
To do this, reduce the size of the page on your desktop and verify that all the information remains visible on the screen.
Instagram is a mobile tool, so a misconfigured page for a small screen can destroy the result of the campaign.
Also, responsiveness is no longer a trend, it 's a reality today . Keep this in mind not only in your ads, but on your site as well.
4. Work with URL Builder
In relation to taking the user to another page, try to use UTM parameters in URLs , so that the visitor information for control is more accurate.
This also makes it easy to analyze traffic sources in analytics tools, like RD Station Marketing . Use the URL generator.
5. Create your audience
It is possible to target the audience for Instagram ads in the same way as with Facebook ads, since many accounts are linked.
There is also the proximity tool for ads focused on audiences close to where your business is located.
The segmentation possibilities are numerous. Almost any piece of information that the user places on Facebook can be segmented.
Some examples are gender, age, pages I like, interests by category, age, cities they frequent, mobile phones they use, languages they speak, and the company they work for.
Pro Tip: think outside the box, know the decision maker and influencer.
Who buys men's shampoo, for example, men? Or maybe it's a woman, to give her boyfriend a gift?
Ideally, do A/B tests to compare different ads and different audiences.
6. Plan the ad
The ad itself marks the dividing line between good and bad results, especially in Instagram ads, where the feed flicks through your fingers without the user's patience.
To attract attention, the ad must be impressive. The image must generate curiosity to drive the reading of the post.
This, in turn, should lead the user to the purpose of the campaign, eg the click. Instagram Ads also allows the use of calls to action, action buttons,
with the following options:
- No button.
- Apply now.
- Book now.
- Get in touch.
- Descargar.
- More information.
- Buy now.
- Subscribe.
- See more.
When choosing communication, the focus should once again be on the audience.
What interests my audience? What mental trigger generates interest: comfort, power, seduction, freedom?
Tip here: be careful with the number of characters, since Facebook and Instagram work with different numbers. Also, Instagram does not display the title of the ad, only the body of the text. Since the text is often linked to the headline, this can make the ad confusing for the user.
7. Be careful with the image in Instagram Ads
It's possible to run the same campaign on Facebook and Instagram, but the two platforms use very different image sizes, which can throw off your ad.
During the ad creation process, you can see how it will look on Instagram and Facebook.
If possible, one ad for both platforms makes everything much easier.
However, it is ideal to run separate campaigns as this will facilitate future analytics and metrics .
If you have an active management of social networks and have an image and a text adaptable to both platforms, the same ad is enough.
Another Pro Tip: it is recommended that the image also cannot have more than 20% text, just like on Facebook.
Use filters!
They can make your photo very professional.
Instagram is pure image, choose it very carefully, don't search in banks, don't copy from third parties and please don't use clip art!
8. Of course, don't forget the #hashtags
These keywords work like a hyperlink and are used by users and businesses to direct communication.
A good option is to create your own hashtag , something that reminds you of your brand, your business and your campaign. In this way, you gain notoriety and increase public interaction.
>>To define which numerals to use, read the Blog: 100 Hashtags on Instagram to get more Likes
9. Know your audience
More than immediate results, paid media is great for getting to know your audience.
Sometimes you didn't even know that a certain keyword had the highest monthly traffic and the least competition.
Or that the public in MedellÃn buys more on your online platform than the public in Cali.
Or that, for your business, women over 40 tend to convert more than men over 55.
Everyone needs the result for yesterday, but tomorrow's result comes to those who prepare.
That is, for those who build their Digital Marketing strategy in the long term, meet the needs of their audience and not just fill their bank account: money is the result of a job well done.
Social networks are there to separate yesterday from tomorrow, seize the opportunity and get ahead!
If you want to know more, access our material on Digital Marketing Strategies on Instagram . It teaches you to create content, engage, relate, sell and analyze, everything you need to boost your brand.
10. Install the Meta pixel
Previously known as a Facebook pixel , this is a piece of code that is placed on your site.
It allows you to measure the effectiveness of your ads by analyzing the actions people take on your Page.
Meta indicates that this is the best way to generate more sales by reaching the right people with your ads, and that you can analyze these numbers to confirm them.
You can see how to install it in the Pixel guide , but it's best to have someone who understands programming do it, just in case.
Advertising on Instagram in examples
Ad targeted to a landing page:
This type of advertisement is made for the purpose of generating leads for Marketing Week. This led to a registration page, where we collected the necessary information from the user.
Instagram ads for an event
This example, on the other hand, was intended to generate registrations for RD On The Road in Colombia, using a video of what the previous edition had been like. Instagram allows you to upload up to 2 minutes of video.
Also in this ad, we saw that many people made friends to attend the event, multiplying the results of the ad.
Ad with a photo of a real person
Announcement made on Instagram with the purpose of promoting the RD Summit Live Show, official coverage of the RD Summit. Using more humanized content with real photos is a good way to get noticed on social media.
Ad combining Instagram feed and stories
While this type of ad is widely used to build brand awareness, we have achieved excellent conversion numbers by distributing calls to action or calls to actions to drive enrollment throughout the ad.
This was published both to people interested in the event and to people similar to them through a Lookalike audience.
Instagram Ads for Video Stories
Betting on this format can help you expand the reach of your campaign and increase your conversions.
To advertise on Instagram, you need to create an account in Facebook Business Manager and then use Ad Manager .
What should you know before creating your first campaign?
Instagram Ads cannot be left out of your strategy , due to the volume of visits to the social network on weekends.
Advertising on Instagram can be a differential for your company and a way to better explore a channel to generate results, different from those you have already done.
If for some reason you don't get good results, just pause the ad. It is always good to try new channels and new touch points with our consumers to maintain a good relationship.
And if you want to delve a little deeper into the commercial part of Instagram, leave your information below to receive a complete eBook on the subject!
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Good practice!
Note: this Blog was created by the Digital Results Blog in Brazil and
adapted by Tefa Amortegui for the RD Station Blog in Spanish.
I appreciate how you simplified the complex world of SEO. Great read!
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