Advertising on Instagram in 2024

Instagram, a vibrant and visually captivating social media platform, has revolutionized the digital landscape. Since its inception in 2010, it has transformed from a basic photo-sharing app into a diverse global community centered around visual narratives. With over a billion active Instagram users, Instagram stands as a platform for individual self-expression, brand visibility, and online engagement.

In this blog post, you can learn everything about Advertising on Instagram.

Introduction to Advertising on Instagram 

Overview of Instagram as an Advertising Platform

Shortly after Facebook purchased Instagram in 2013, it started offering ads to specific businesses. By 2015, it extended its advertising services to a broader audience, making them accessible to anyone interested.

Instagram, as a dynamic and visually focused advertising platform, stands out as a social media powerhouse, offering numerous opportunities for businesses and brands to engage with their target audiences. Since its launch in 2010, Instagram has transformed from a basic photo-sharing app into a versatile platform with over a billion active users.

Did you know?

According to DataPortal, there were 1.6 billion active Instagram users by April 2023. 

According to Hootsuite, Ads on Instagram reach 96.6% of Instagram’s active user base every month. That’s a total of almost 2 billion potential customers!

Source:DataPortal

Instagram’s unique appeal lies in its visual-centric approach. Users can go beyond sharing photos to include short video clips, fostering an immersive and captivating experience. With a range of features and tools, the platform emerges as an ideal space for effective brand promotion.

Advertising on Instagram is cost-effective compared to other platforms, and you can customize your campaign according to your budget. It’s important to note that your advertising expenses may fluctuate based on the specific age group you’re targeting and the time of the year. Typically, ads crafted in the fourth financial quarter of a year tend to be the most expensive.

How much is Instagram Advertising?

Factors Influencing Instagram Marketing Costs

Several factors can influence Instagram marketing costs, including:

Campaign Objectives:

Your campaign objective determines the cost of advertising on Instagram. Depending on your campaign’s goal and the marketing funnel stage, you may experience higher or lower advertising costs than initially expected.

Campaigns with high-value objectives, such as conversions, typically require higher costs than those aimed at lower-funnel goals, like increasing brand awareness.

Targeting users further down the funnel, who are already familiar with your brand and are ready to take higher-value actions, has more value than reaching larger but colder audiences only for brand awareness.

Audience Size:

The size of your audience significantly influences the cost-effectiveness of advertising on Instagram. Targeting a broad audience is more cost-effective, as there is less competition for each viewer. 

On the other hand, if you focus on a smaller geographic area or a younger age group, you might face more competition, leading to higher costs per view for Instagram ads.

Retargeting ads cost more because the audience is smaller, leading to a higher cost per view compared to ads targeting larger audiences.

Bid Amount and Strategy

Instagram ad cost relies on bidding. Use a bidding strategy to show your ad to more people. For example, if you set a $1000 budget and bid $1 per click, you can expect 1000 clicks. Observe competitors’ ads and adjust your bid to get the expected clicks.

Click-Through Rate

A low CTR can increase Instagram ad costs as it suggests your audience isn’t engaging. A good CTR, ideally 2%, helps lower marketing costs.

Estimated Action Rate

The action rate influences the cost of advertising on Instagram. This cost is calculated based on how likely people are to act after seeing your ad. Reducing pricing for engaging content can lead to more clicks and potential customers.

Competition and Timing

Competitors impact Instagram ad cost. A bidding war may increase costs. Consider when your audience is online, but be aware of competitors vying for the same times, potentially requiring a higher budget for busy periods.

Ad Placement

Ad placement impacts Instagram ad cost. Placing ads in stories costs less than on the home page or between posts.

Ad Relevance

Instagram considers ad relevancy crucial. A higher score, based on audience reactions, lowers ad costs. Hiding an ad may increase advertising costs on Instagram.

The benefits of advertising on Instagram

Advertising on Instagram provides numerous advantages for businesses and brands aiming to enhance their online presence and engage with their target audience.

1.Wide and diverse audience

Instagram has over a billion active users, providing businesses access to a broad and diverse audience. This user base includes diverse demographics and interests, helping brands to reach potential customers across different segments. 

DataPortal indicates that most Instagram users fall within the 18-24 and 25-34 age categories. The total ad reach on Instagram is reported to be 1.63 billion.

Source:DataPortal

2.Engagement and interaction

Instagram users are highly engaged, making it an excellent platform for building meaningful interactions between brands and their followers. Through likes, comments, direct messages, and sharing, businesses can create a sense of community and build strong relationships with their audience.

3.Visual impact

Instagram’s visual-first approach emphasizes high-quality images and videos. This visual appeal helps businesses showcase their products, services, and brands in a captivating and creative manner, leaving a lasting impression on viewers.

4.Storytelling opportunities

Instagram provides businesses with a platform to tell their brand story and convey their values through compelling visual content. This storytelling ability allows for a more personal and authentic connection with the audience.

5.Brand awareness

Instagram is an excellent tool for increasing brand awareness and visibility. Businesses can leverage visually appealing content and strategic use of hashtags to expand their reach and attract new followers.

6.Advertising options

Instagram offers a variety of advertising formats, including photo ads, video ads, carousel ads, and story ads. This diversity allows businesses to tailor content to specific marketing objectives and target audiences.

7.Precise targeting

The platform provides advanced targeting options, enabling advertisers to reach the right audience based on factors such as demographics, interests, and user behavior. This precision helps improve ad effectiveness and maximize return on investment.

8.Cross-promotion

As part of the Facebook family, Instagram seamlessly integrates with Facebook’s advertising tools and audience data. This integration extends the reach of advertising campaigns and allows businesses to tap into a wider user base.

9.Measurable results

Instagram offers insights and analytics that help businesses measure the performance of their advertising campaigns. Marketers can track metrics such as impressions, engagement, and conversions, enabling data-driven decision-making and continuous optimization.

10.Influencer partnerships

Instagram is a hub for influencer marketing, allowing brands to collaborate with influencers who have dedicated and engaged followers. This partnership can extend a brand’s reach and build credibility among the influencer’s audience.

Understanding the types of Instagram Ads

Instagram offers a variety of advertising formats, such as:

• Image ads         
• Story ads
• Video ads
• Carousel ads
• Collection ads
• Explore ads
• Shopping ads
• Reels ads

This diverse selection helps you select the type of ads that best aligns with your business objectives.

Image ads

Instagram image ads allow businesses to promote their brand, products, and services using single images. 

Instagram image ads work best for campaigns with eye-catching visuals that can be shown in a single image. You can add some text, but it’s better to keep it minimal for better results and accessibility.

These ads feature CTA buttons at the bottom, inspiring people to visit a specific URL or check out your Instagram account.

Video ads

Video Instagram ads, as the name suggests, appear in the Instagram feed similar to carousel and photo ads. These ads can range from as short as one second to as long as sixty minutes or any duration in between.

When creating Instagram ads in video form, it’s essential to consider your goals. You can either share lots of info in the video to entertain or educate or use it as a teaser to make people click and learn more about your brand.

In the news feed, you should decide what suits you best—whether it’s photos, videos, or carousels. Although videos offer more dynamic content, it’s vital to capture viewers’ attention quickly as they need to stop scrolling to watch the entire video.

Story ads

Every day, over 500 million people use Instagram Stories. 

Instagram Story Ads are full-screen image or video ads that immerse users, placed between their Stories. These ads reach a broad daily audience and seamlessly integrate into the Stories format.

This integration improves engagement and enables businesses to leverage organic Instagram Stories features such as filters, text, GIFs, and interactive stickers. The result is a natural and non-disruptive ad experience for users.

Stories provide a “swipe up” option for business accounts, enabling sharing a link with the viewer. Users can swipe up on their screen to navigate to their desired destination, be it a blog post, product page, or landing page.

Carousel ads

Carousel Instagram ads elevate photo ads by allowing you to create a series of up to 10 photos or videos within a single ad.

Like the photo ads, carousels appear in the Instagram news feed, but each photo or video can link to a different URL or location. This feature helps you to feature a collection or group of products effectively.

When choosing between photo ads and carousel ads, think about what you want to promote. Don’t see carousel ads as just a way to add more pictures; they should go together and make sense.

Photo ads are like a single-page ad in a magazine or newspaper, while carousel ads are like mini catalogs. They’re great for launching new product lines or seasonal collections.

Collection ads

Instagram introduced this feature in early 2018. Users can view the ad and tap on it. When they do, they can directly purchase specific products featured in the ad. Collection ads can include both photos and videos.

Instagram collection ads combine the characteristics of carousel ads and shopping ads, featuring products directly from your catalog.

These ads work well for e-commerce brands, allowing users to purchase directly through the ad. Clicking on the ad takes users to an Instagram Instant Experience Storefront, where they can explore product details and complete a purchase.

Explore ads

Explore ads are found within the Explore tab, where users discover new content and accounts based on their Instagram activity. These ads don’t show up in the Explore grid or topic channels. 

Instead, they appear after a user clicks on a photo or video in Explore. As the content in users’ Explore tabs changes regularly, Explore ads allow businesses to connect with culturally relevant and trending content. These ads can feature both images and videos.

Tip: You don’t have to create brand-new content for Explore ads; you can repurpose existing Instagram ad materials.

Reel ads

Instagram Reel ads are displayed between Reel videos and adopt the same format as an Instagram Reel video.

This design ensures that the ad seamlessly integrates into the Reel video feed, providing a natural viewing experience. Instagram Reel ads can last up to 30 seconds and play continuously on a full vertical screen, resembling the format seen on TikTok.

Consider using this Instagram ad format if you have visually appealing and captivating short video content that people are likely to interact with and share.

Shopping ads

According to HootSuite, 44% of Instagram users shop on Instagram every week. 

Through Instagram’s latest Shopping capabilities, users can conveniently browse and buy products without exiting the app (available for businesses with Instagram Checkout enabled).

Instagram Shopping ads guide users to a product description page within the Instagram app, enabling them to purchase through your mobile website.

You need to set up an Instagram Shopping catalog to run Shopping ads.

How to advertise on Instagram: Setting up an ad step-by-step

There are two routes for running Instagram ad campaign: 

• Boosting an existing post  
• Creating a new ad in the Meta Ads Manager (f.k.a. Facebook Ads Manager). 

Boosting an existing post is quick, and you can do it directly from the Instagram app with just a few taps. However, it offers fewer customization options compared to creating ads through the Instagram Ads Manager.

Boosting a post

The simplest way to start Instagram advertising is by promoting one of your existing Instagram posts. It is similar to Facebook’s “Boost Post” feature. 

If you have a post with good engagement, using this method within the app allows you to swiftly improve its success and expose it to new audiences who are not yet following you.

To get started, you need a business or creator account on Instagram and ensure it’s linked to a Facebook Business Page. After that, all it takes is a few clicks to select “Boost post” on the specific post you want to transform into an ad.

Next, select your goal for running the ads. It gives you three options: 

• More profile visits
• More website visits
• More messages

Next, specify your target audience. You can rely on Instagram’s automatic audience selection, which is based on your follower data, or manually input your targeting preferences to create a custom audience.

Additionally, you can choose to promote the post on Facebook if you wish to do so. Now, determine your daily budget and the duration of the ad. You can either set a specific number of days for the ad to run or allow it to run continuously until you manually pause it.

Finally, review your ad and click Boost post when you’re ready to go live.

Using Ads Manager

To get the maximum benefits from Instagram’s extensive ad targeting, creative, and reporting abilities, you can use the Meta Ads Manager to create ad campaigns. 

Step 01- Go to Meta Ads Manager & click + to create a campaign

Step 02- Select an objective for your ad campaign. There are six objectives to choose from: Awareness, Traffic, Engagement, Leads, and app promotion.

Choose the objective that best matches your goals, and click Continue.

Step 03- Name your campaign. Give a specific name based on the campaign objective to help you keep track of your campaigns.

Once you’ve given a name, click Next.

Step 04- Choose your budget and schedule. Click New [your ad goal here] Ad Set from the left-hand menu. Then, you can decide how much you want to spend and how long your campaign will run.

For the budget, you’ll have two options:

• Daily budget: Set a maximum daily spend.
• Lifetime budget: Set a maximum spend for your whole campaign.

Under Ad Scheduling you can choose to run ads continuously (most common), or only at certain times of day.

Step 05- Identify your audience. You can either use a previously saved audience or create a new audience. If you select to create a new audience, you can target by location, age range, gender, demographics, interests, behaviors, and languages.

Step 06- Choose your Instagram ad placements

In the Placements section, you can decide where your ads will appear.

There are two choices:

• Advantage+ Placements: Ads will be displayed to your audience wherever they’re likely to perform best.
• Manual Placements: You can choose where your ad will appear (and not appear). 

If you’re new to Instagram advertising, we recommend selecting Advantage+ placements.

Step 07- Create a new Instagram ad. Choose the New [your goal here] Ad from the left-hand menu. It will open up a screen where you can customize your new Instagram ad.

Here, you can edit your ad name, choose from different Instagram ad types, and add creative elements like images, videos, headlines, and CTAs. If you want to track conversions from your ad, it’s essential to select the Facebook Pixel in the Tracking section.

Step 08- Once you’ve filled out all the necessary fields, click Publish in the bottom right-hand corner of your screen.

Read our Guide to TikTok Ads from this link: Link

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