How to Advertise on Instagram
Instagram has an audience of above 928 million people and their ads are a primary tool for social media marketing. Instagram ads are stories or posts used on feeds on Instagram. The ads come in form of ‘Sponsored’ label and has a call to action for driving conversion or sales. This post tells you how you can advertise on Instagram. There are 2 ways that you can advertise on Instagram. One simple way to do this is to promote it with an existing post in a direct way inside the application. However the method with more customisation option is to make an Instagram ad with Facebook Ads Manager.
Advertising on the Instagram application
The simplest way to advertise on Instagram is to promote a post that is already existing on your profile on Instagram. This resembles the Boost Post option in Facebook ads.
If there is a post that performs well with lots of engagement, you can use an app to promote it to reach more people. Before doing this, you should have an account on Instagram. However if you don’t have an account on Instagram yet or a personal profile, then the procedure here will help. Navigate to a post and tap ‘Promote’ under the post. If you don’t have a Facebook Business Page already, you have to make one. Make a new page or select a Facebook page that is existing already. After this complete the form and select who sees the ad, how long the ad should run, how much you are spending, where you are sending them and who sees the ad. Then click ‘Create Promotion’. With this you have created an advert on Instagram.
Advertising with Facebook Ads Manager
There is a proper integration of the 2 social platforms since Facebook is the owner of Instagram. It means you can apply Facebook Ads Manager to make ads that run on Instagram. You can customise other properties and audiences and check out the performance of your ads. If you are yet to create a Facebook page, create one. However if you have a Facebook page, then connect to it. After this create your ad.
The steps below will help create an ad
One: Select an objective
To begin this, go to ‘Ads Manager’ and ‘+create’. You can select from 2 different workflow types to enable you manage and create your ad on Instagram. ‘Guided Creation’ takes you through the steps for making a typical ad campaign on Instagram. Using Quick Creation offers you more control in making your ad on Instagram. If you have more experience and have made ads on Facebook before, click on ‘Switch to Quick Creation’ for this workflow. However this procedure is for ‘Guided Creation’. First you have to select the objective of your ad. Facebook Ads Manager has a list of objectives. The objectives could be engagement, app installs, conversions, messages, lead generation, store traffic, catalog sales, video views, reach, and brand awareness. After picking your objective, you can then name the campaign.
Two: Audience identity
Choose your target audience like gender, location and age. This lets you get a messaging and craft copy applicable to potential customers.
Choose your ad placements
Choose where the ads will appear on Instagram and Facebook. You can use either manual placements and automatic placements. After selecting the ad placement, select a budget.
Select a schedule and budget
This section tells you the cost of promotion and how long it should be. You can select a daily budget with optimal lifetime budget or daily spending with a particular lifespan. The Ads manager includes options for bid strategy and optimisation which you can customise with your campaign goal.
Make your ads
Now you make the ads. Begin by selecting the format for this ad. Select videos or pictures, craft a copy of your ad, choose a payment option, review the ad and tap confirm.