The number of active users on Instagram continues to grow, so we have prepared a selection of the best tips to increase the results of your advertising on Instagram.
If you have done an analysis of your audience and discovered that your target audience is concentrated on Instagram, the idea of exploring the advertising opportunities that this social network can offer you has surely crossed your mind.
Since the arrival of advertising on Instagram in 2015, the social network has not stopped adding new formats with which to achieve your goals. In this post, you will find a review of all of them, and the best recommendations to optimize your results in each one.
Before continuing, as we are going to talk about what types of campaigns each format is more interesting for, you may need to review the objectives that Facebook makes available to you and about which we talked about in the post “ How to set up ads in Facebook Ads from scratch ”.
Now yes, let's start:
Photo ads
The classics: image plus caption (the text that accompanies your photos).
It can be used for all purposes, and if you add a URL, Facebook will give you the option to choose from all of its available CTAs.
Important: If you plan to include text in the image, make sure that it does not exceed the ratio of text and image that the Facebook guidelines indicate (you can check it in the Creative Hub of Facebook )
.jpg "Photo ads On Instagram")
It is especially useful to attract traffic to your profile and get new followers from the content, as you will be showing them what they can find in your feed and that will help you build a stronger community. Top Secret: This goal is only available on the mobile version of Instagram. If you try to set up a campaign with this objective from the Business Manager you will not find it.
If your goal is to achieve notoriety, we recommend that you do not work on it from the objective of reaching but from brand awareness. At the rate we consume content on Instagram, it's easy to be smitten by an ad and barely pays attention to it, so you'll ensure that Facebook distributes it to those users most likely to remember it.
There are all kinds of theories about the description of the image: if it is shorter, greater conversion, then if it is longer, more engagement. We talked about this in «Writing for Instagram: what does the text paint in a visual network?»
Video ads
One more step in advertising on Instagram: instead of a photo we can use a video. It is especially useful for product demonstrations, concepts that are somewhat complicated to explain in a single photo, or stories.
Instagram allows you to advertise up to 60-second videos, but unless the story that is reflected is especially interesting, it is normal that more than 50% of those impacted do not consume even 25% of the video. Therefore, make sure you tell the most important thing in the first 3 seconds. You will be able to know the number of people who come to see part or all of the video in the Video Engagement view of your Business Manager campaign dashboard.
.jpg)
According to Facebook, it is the format that generates the most memories, which makes them ideal for Awareness objectives. They are also especially interesting for generating personalized audiences (you can do it from the Business Manager audience tool) based on the users who were impacted by your video campaign, a very useful resource if you are going to launch conversion campaigns later.
Carousel ads
Or as you are probably more familiar with: carousels. You can upload several contents in the same publication through which the user will navigate by sliding his finger over them.
As was the case with the video, they will be of great help if you want to show different uses of your product, models, collections, or tell stories. They usually achieve very good conversion results, since they offer more information to users about our product or service without leaving the application.
Another highly recommended use of this format is as a dynamic ad, but this option will only be available if you have a product catalog on Facebook.
Ads on Instagram Stories
Being so visual and full screen, they have proven to capture more attention and better optimize our investment. In fact, during the last year this has been the type of advertising on Instagram in which, on average, the cheapest prices have been achieved.
As for the possibilities of objectives and formats, it is very versatile: you can upload both videos and photos, and not just one of each, you can also mount successions of photos or videos as advertisements (carousel). If you bet on this last option, pay special attention to the ratio between the number of people who consume the first video and the last. In addition, it is also available in the Instant Experience format (in the past, canvas), in which you can create a landing page without leaving the social network.
Beware: Facebook will allow you to show the same ad on both Instagram and Instagram Stories. If you choose this option, you will not be able to choose a full-screen creative, but the tool will make a (quite regular) adaptation of the creative you have chosen for Instagram, in Instagram Stories. If what you want is to check the results in each of the channels, our tip is to create an ad hoc ad set for each one, with a piece that adapts to the specifications of the location to which it corresponds.
Within all the Instagram formats, we would dare to say that it is the most recommended for traffic. If you select this objective (or if you decide to add a URL in any other), it will include a CTA at the bottom of the campaign in order to encourage the user to swipe up and reach your page. This CTA is quite discreet, so we advise you to include your own CTA when designing your stories to achieve a greater effect.
As in the previous formats, you can use it to attract fans to your profile, but for now, only if you run the campaign from your mobile.
Collection ads
If you have a catalog on Facebook, you can also advertise on Instagram using this format. In this case, the creative will be the main photo or video, accompanied by the product photos that you have uploaded to configure your collection. This makes it quite useful for generating notoriety and giving context to a set of your brand's products.
And one last note: Stories aren't exempt from Facebook's text-to-image ratio restrictions either, so if you don't want Facebook to stop your ads, make sure you follow their rules.
Once the user clicks on the publication, they will access your catalog, and when they are inside, by selecting one of the products that make it up, Facebook will take them to your page. This means one more click than if you set up a dynamic carousel of products, so if you are looking for conversion, we advise you to use this format before the collection format, as it is more direct.
Before finishing, remember: this is just a presentation of advertising formats on Instagram. The best thing you can do to find out which are the perfect combinations to go further is to test, test and test.