Tutorial: Get Started with Instagram Ads

With over a billion users on Instagram, you might just hit the jackpot with your next ad campaign. But having the right pictures and videos isn’t all there is to it. You’d have to follow this step-by-step guide to Instagram ads. Get it right, and you’d see that increase in lead generation and conversions you’ve always wanted.

Create Instagram Ads: The Step-by-Step

You may create Instagram ads directly from the Facebook ads manager.
It makes it simple because you can manage your Facebook and Instagram advertising in one location.

Log into your Facebook account, go to your ads manager, and create a new campaign to begin designing your first Instagram ads.

Set a Goal

Like with every marketing campaign, always start with defining your goal. Do you wish to create awareness about your business? Are you looking for potential customers? Or do you plan to sell more of your product/services?

Deciding early what your goal is, helps in the remaining aspects of running your ads. First off, you know what content to prepare and who to target. Doing this ensures you only have to do so little to achieve what you want.

Define Your Audience

What comes next after goal setting is choosing the right audience. Note that it’s better to determine your core target avatar before starting the process. That way, you have a foundation you can build on as you move forward.

Indeed, you can’t identify all the characteristics of your audience. You can only know a bit at the beginning. Still, start with that bit. And as you move on, with the use of analytics and Instagram audience options, you should get a little more specific.

Besides, you can retarget your audience. These have engaged with your post before — if this isn’t your first. Whatever characters you come up with — ensure to save them. They will come in handy when preparing for your subsequent campaigns.

Finalize Your Content and Message

The next thing is to confirm that your content passes just the intended message. Your ad copy should resonate with the audience when it comes to marketing.

You achieve this by ensuring consistency in the tone, visuals, and content. It has to be relevant to your target audience. It also has to give your audience the connection they desire on the webspace.

Create a Hashtag

Hashtags! Now, this is how you improve your chance of getting discovered on Instagram. It could also provide a community — a movement of some sort, which, of course, relates to your brand.

However, creating a hashtag doesn’t readily make it what customers use and engage. There is still a lot of work to get it out there. But for publicity’s sake, ensure you keep it simple, short, and engaging — something we couldn’t forget even if we tried.

Pick the Placement

Okay! Now, you have your goals, audience, content, and hashtags sorted out. It’s time to create the main body of your ad.

To start with, you’d have to choose on what platforms you want your ad to show on the Ads Manager.

Ensure nothing else gets ticked apart from the Instagram feeds for Instagram ads. Sometimes, you could also have the Instagram stories marked — depending on your goal and content.

Set Your Budget

The next step is to define how much you’re ready to spend during the ad campaign. You could go for a daily rate or set a lifetime bid that runs for the extent of your campaign.

Once your budget is out of the way, there is also a Schedule to plan. When do you want the campaign to start and end? Also, will your ad delivery depend on link clicks, impressions, or unique reach? These are some sections you can’t leave blank. But they rely primarily on your set goal.

Setting your bid amount can be a manual process or automatic. The automatic works well for a broad market with little competition. But if you’ve got strong competitors, you might want to manually determine how much you’re willing to spend to top the chart.

Select Your Ad Format

Next is to select your format. There are a couple of options. It could be a single post, a video, a carousel, or an Instagram story. Whatever you go for largely depends on what content you have. Also, your marketing goal is vital during this selection process as the formats have their different strengths.

Set the Call-to-Action

Essentials at this stage would include your website URL, a call-to-action button, and sometimes, a headline. Your headline won’t always be visible, but it is still good to have it in place.

Once you have all these in place, cross-check all your inputs. Ensure these are in line with your goal. If perfect, go on to place your order. But it doesn’t end here.

Track Performance

You need to measure the performance of your ad to determine its success. Doing so gives you a chance and the data you need to tweak the content of your campaign.

Moreover, the Facebook Ads manager does an excellent job providing detailed reports. So, you’d have all you need to make better, informed decisions in your subsequent campaigns.

Keep these steps to heart. Ensure you don’t skip the goal and audience-setting steps. And you can be sure to hit the right target and number in your next marketing campaign.

To read more about how to grow your social media audience, check out How to grow your social media audience in 2022? article.