Instagram Ads offer you a quick and handy way to reach more audiences and increase your overall social media marketing campaigns. Just like any other strategy in marketing, it has to get done right, so it can bring you all the benefits you’ve been hoping for. That’s why Andre Oentoro, the founder of Breadnbeyond, listed some best practices you can use to get more out of your Instagram Ads. Let’s dive in!
- Tip #1. Create Visually Consistent Ads
- Tip #2. Take Full Advantage of User Generated Content (UGC)
- Tip #3. Make Sure It's Mobile-Friendly
- Tip #4. Test Different Ad Format
- Tip #5. Pay Attention to the Instagram Insights
- Tip #6. Enhance Your Profile
- Tip #7. Utilize Targeting Options
- Summary: Get the Most Out of Your Instagram Ads Today
With more than 100 million active users worldwide, Instagram has now become a potent marketing channel for savvy businesses where they capture their products and share them on the platform. And when they invest in paid advertising, they can target the right users with the right message at the right time — resulting in a more effective strategy and quicker visible results. Here are some quick tips for you to get the most out of Instagram ads.
Tip #1. Create Visually Consistent Ads
Remember that Instagram is a visual-first platform. This place is chock-a-block with photos and videos, so you need to make sure that your visuals stand out among the crowds. Your Instagram content — both photos or videos — for the ad should not only be able to grab users’ attention, but also be consistent. Showing your brand consistency can make your brand’s images more recognizable and make you stick in users’ heads.
Here are some best practices you should follow to create more consistent, recognizable Instagram Ads.
- Integrate brand colors; use the same color palette/scheme —– in your logo, in their text, even in their images.
- Keep the same theme
- Use consistent effects or filters. When you’ve settled on an effect/filter, use it to create a uniform look for your Instagram ads.
- Create a series of templates. It helps you to create new images for Instagram Ads quickly while maintaining your brand visual consistency and increasing brand recall.
Tip #2. Take Full Advantage of User Generated Content (UGC)
Providing a testimonial by your existing customer is a fantastic way to build trust with those potential ones. So, when your customers post a picture or video or even Instagram Stories of themselves using or recommending your product, this piece of content can turn into a priceless ad with word-of-the-mouth benefits. You can include their post on your Instagram ads to make the ad more human and less hard-selling.
- Follow your customers on Instagram closely to find these pieces of content.
- Create a hashtag campaign, so it makes it much easier for you to find UGC.
- Keep it raw, don’t do too much editing.
- If you find a UGC post, you might ask the owner for permission to repost this content on your page and mention them, so they feel that they’re credited for the post.
Tip #3. Make Sure It’s Mobile-Friendly
Most Instagram users access the platform using the app on their hand-held devices. So, you must design ads that are mobile-friendly, especially if you’re using Instagram ads for your mobile app.
So make sure the ad is big enough to accommodate larger smartphone screens and high enough in resolution so that it doesn’t look pixelated on smartphones. Meanwhile, you also need to ensure that all buttons are easy to tap when being viewed on smaller screen sizes.
- When capturing video content, make sure to film in vertical (9×16) as this is easier to crop to 4×5 than from landscape.
- When you use Instagram for your video marketing, it’s crucial to add closed captions. Instagram ads play automatically without sound, so closed captions are a necessity to ensure high viewer retention rates.
- Minimize the amount of text in your ads.
- Keep videos short — 15 seconds or less.
Tip #4. Test Different Ad Format
There’s no such thing as a one-size-fits-all Instagram Ad format. One format might do well for a business, but not for others. Also, you can try a combination of formats to see what works best for your business and the audience that you’re trying to reach out to.
While choosing your Instagram format, you may as well learn what type of popular Instagram ads you should go for.
- Instagram Stories ads are ideal for scrappy production — those videos or images that are captured using your smartphone camera.
- Instagram carousel ads are the best go-to if you want to showcase multiple images or videos in one single ad.
- Instagram feed ads are great to use when you want your ad to appear on users’ feeds while they’re scrolling.
Tip #5. Pay Attention to the Instagram Insights
If you’re planning to use Instagram for your newly formed LLC and marketing purposes, you should create a business account. And for business accounts, Instagram provides an analytic and report feature called Instagram Insights. Instagram Insights allow you to see a basic overview of your audience and content performance. What’s even better is that it also gives you a precise breakdown of who’s consuming your content. Therefore, you can use this feature to see how well your ads are performing.
This will help you better understand the type of content that resonates with your audience and get the most engagement — and what doesn’t. Thus, pay close attention to the posts with the highest engagement and see how they can be used as a model or inspiration for future ad posts.
A sneak peek into the Instagram Insight feature
Tip #6. Enhance Your Profile
When a user finds your ads, and they’re interested in what you offer, they can do one of the two options: one is to click on the CTA button right away and the other is to visit your profile to learn more about your brand and decide whether they can trust you or not.
This is why it’s crucial for you to strengthen your Instagram profile in the first place, so you can gain more trust and appear as a credible brand:
- use your business profile picture;
- include your website in your bio.
- write concise bio — max. 150 characters;
- pick the category your business belongs to;
- include your contact information; your address, phone number, and email;
- add call-to-action buttons.
Tip #7. Utilize Targeting Options
When you create an ad in Ads Manager, Power Editor, or directly from your business’ Instagram account or Facebook Page, you have the opportunity to create targeted ads for reaching out to a specific audience.
The segmented lists allow you to select the exact people who have an interest in your products, what they purchase, and how often they buy them.
It would make it much easier for you to craft laser-sharp messaging that you know will resonate with them. You can create up to five different custom audiences for every Instagram ad campaign, so make sure to use them wisely.
Summary: Get the Most Out of Your Instagram Ads Today
Instagram Ads is a great way for a business that aims to reach a specific audience to do so. Not only can you use the ads for your business promotion, but you can also develop some smart strategies that allow you to target certain audiences even more specifically. Here are some points you may need to pay attention to while planning to run an ad on the platform:
- focus on the visual;
- get creative;
- make it mobile-first;
- test different ad formats;
- pay attention to analytics;
- strengthen your profile;
- utilise targeting options.
