How to Grow Your Business with Instagram Ads

• Enhanced targeting
• Boost brand awareness
• Increased customer satisfaction
• Ease of tracking your campaign’s success
• Building an organic connection
• Ads can be designed suit your budget
• Ads are more likely to become memorable due to its visual format

The great thing about Instagram is that there are multiple ways to advertise on the platform which means you can create varied and highly engaging content.

1. Photo Ads: This is the classic and most straightforward way of advertising on Instagram. It’s a great way of organic advertising as photo ads show up in a user’s Instagram feed which they will scroll through to browse other content. By using a photo ad, it will look like any other post from someone you’re following, but will have a ‘sponsored’ sign in the corner to let people know it’s an ad. It will then allow a user to take action and press the photo to be directed to your Instagram page or website.
2. Carousel Ads: This allows you to create a series of up to 10 photos or videos in just one ad. It appears in the same way as a photo ad, but allows you to feature a collection of products or services that you might be trying to sell. Think of a carousel ad as a catalogue trying to sell a collection of items and a photo ad as a one-page ad in a magazine.
3. Video Ads: Again, they appear on your Instagram feed in the same way as a photo or carousel ad. A video ad can last between 3 to 60 seconds and is a good way to advertise your business, whilst being creative. You may choose to provide lots of information in a video or show your product being used, helping the end user to understand what your business does.
4. Instagram Shopping: Advertising this way allows interaction between you and the customer as it’s a way to show your products. This format of advertising appears either in the Instagram feed or explore section. You can add links and prices to your photo so users can click and find out more about the product and be taken to your website. A user can even purchase directly from the Instagram app!
5. Reels: This is one of the newer features introduced to Instagram last year in an attempt to compete with Tik Tok. Reels are short videos that last up to 15 seconds, and are useful if you want to create unique and eye-catching content that will easily engage users.
6. Stories: More than 500 million people use Instagram stories everyday so this is a great place to place an ad. Adverts appear in the same way they do with photo and carousel ads so your target audience is more likely to view your ad as they’re scrolling through the stories of accounts they follow.
7. IGTV (Instagram TV): Ads can be placed at the beginning of a video that a user clicks on and works in the same way as a YouTube ad.

With such a huge variety of ads available you may feel overwhelmed and find it difficult to decide what types to use. To help you narrow down what format you want to use, consider:

• Your end goal: What are you trying to achieve with your marketing strategies? Are you trying to increase brand awareness, drive traffic to your website, increase the number of views you’re getting or looking to drive e-commerce sales?
• Your target audience: Do your target audience shop online frequently? Are they the type to watch videos? How much time do they have on their hands? If you have a younger target audience, it may be better to place ads on reels as they want to consume short-length content.

Now that you know the types of ads available on Instagram, the next step is to learn how to advertise on Instagram. Before getting started it’s important that you switch your Instagram account to a business account so you can access built-in insights about your account and its performance. You will be able to view information such as your change in followers, website clicks, impressions, reach, profile views, and email clicks.

The best way to start advertising on Instagram, is by promoting one of your existing posts. It’s simple and doesn’t take long to do, especially if you have converted your account to a business account. All you have to do is click promote on the post you want to turn into an ad.

Top Tip: If you’re unsure about the design of the ad you want to use, use the Facebook Ad Library. This website allows you to search and look at existing ads that are on Facebook apps and services.

http://www.facebook.com/ads/library/