Instagram Advertising 101 – answering the basics

In today’s world of marketing, it is next to impossible to gain substantial brand recognition without making an effort to promote your brand on social media. As of recently, Instagram is said to have gathered over one billion users worldwide, making it a virtually inevitable way of business promotion. Nevertheless, there are brands out there that still seem to neglect the vast potential of Instagram marketing – which is not the kind of mistake you ought to be making. Digital Dot – a New York digital marketing agency, is here today to point out the key steps of Instagram advertising and how to utilize this social network the right way and spread your brand awareness.

What makes Instagram advertising so relevant?

After being acquired by Facebook back in 2013, Instagram enabled its advertising possibilities to selected businesses, only to open this option to all brands two years later. Since its advertising options are managed inside Facebook Ads Manager, there is an abundance of available options for targeting. Furthermore, these options make it possible for ads to be created on both of these social media platforms simultaneously.

• If your choice is to create Instagram-only ads, they are available to appear in both the users’ feed and Story ads.

Social media marketing agencies can sometimes use strategies that might be targeted towards creating organic traffic only. However, paid tactics allow your brand to reach out to a far greater audience – those users who find out about its existence only via paid IG advertising efforts.

Since this social media network is based on the visual notion, it provides an extremely efficient way of presenting your line of business and allows potential customers to convert to actual buyers almost immediately.

Will Instagram marketing efforts benefit your brand

Although Instagram has been known as a social media network used primarily by the younger crowd, almost half of its users are over thirty years old, according to recent records. This does imply that if your target audience is among the teens and twentysomething-year-olds, Instagram ads are more likely to convert targeted users into customers. If, on the other hand, you wish to attract seniors, make sure you understand that only around 15% of Instagram accounts are used by people who are over 50 years old.

Nevertheless, do not dismiss this marketing option right off the bat should you feel your prospective clients are not as numerous on Instagram as they might be on other social media networks. The beauty of Instagram ads is the option of very specific targeting – and the network continues to grow day in and day out. You are able to focus on chosen genders, interests, ages, as well as locations. Being connected to Facebook, Instagram offers strong and reliable demographic data which enables targeting a specific niche audience.

What types of Instagram ads are there?

There are several options to choose from when it comes to Instagram ads:

• Photos
• Stories
• Video
• Carousel
• Collection
• IGTV
• Instagram Shopping
• Explore

There are benefits to be reaped from each of these types of ads, depending on the specifics of your brand and the line of business you are in. Each one has different CTA options.

How much does it cost to advertise your business on Instagram?

There are numerous factors that determine how much your Instagram ad campaign will end up costing. These factors include chosen demographics, time and day of the week, as well as which mobile device you are targeting. Bottom line – it all depends on the crowd you are trying to target and attract.

The placement of the ad itself is one more factor that contributes to the costs. You can count on the cost of Story and feed ads to be somewhere between $0.80 and $1.30 CPC. Posts that have already shown organic reach should be the firsts to get promoted through paid Instagram ads. By making an effort to take notes and measure how successful your ads are you will be able to take notice of both the positive and negative effects of your Instagram ad campaign.

Start advertising on Instagram in several steps

After navigating to Facebook ads manager (a necessary first step to take, since there are no direct options to start Instagram ads without Facebook), you will be asked to set your ad objective. Your potential marketing goals are broken into three different categories: Awareness, Consideration, and Conversion – and you will choose between the following goals:

• Brand awareness
• Reach
• Traffic
• Engagement
• App installs
• Video views
• Lead generation
• Messages
• Conversions
• Catalog sales
• Store traffic

Next, you will need to target your audience. Herein lies the real power of Instagram advertising. By carefully opting for a specific location, age, gender, interests, behavior, languages, and connections – Instagram ad placement becomes one of the most powerful marketing tools you can utilize nowadays.

After you choose appropriate ad placement and set the budget and schedule for your campaign, the only thing left to do is choose the ad format. You will be offered some of the following options:

• Feed ads, which include a single image.
• Stories ads – photos or videos that will show up in between Stories as users tap through this section of Instagram.
• Carousel ads, which allow people to scroll through images or videos horizontally on their mobile devices.
• Collection ads that offer users the option of buying the product directly.
• Video ads, 3 to 60 seconds long.

Get acquainted with the power of social media advertising by consulting digital marketing professionals

The basics of diving into Instagram advertising are right here, but there is so much more to running a successful Instagram ad campaign and converting viewers into customers this way. By getting in touch with experienced digital marketing professionals, you will be able to fully take advantage of all the benefits of Instagram marketing. Grow your business and promote your brand in the most efficient manner!