A Complete Guide to Instagram Ads

There are a few ways you can elevate and boost your content through Instagram Ads – no matter what your budget. Instagram Ads drive traffic, create engagement, and get your brand in front of the right audience."By recognizing where Instagram ads can excel with the digital marketing mix and tailoring campaign strategies to match, advertisers can make the most of the unique opportunity presented by the visual social network." - AdWeek

With over a billion active Instagram accounts per month and 500+ accounts using IG Stories every day, now is a better time than ever to begin incorporating paid social into your strategy to boost reach, expand revenue, and drive engagement with your audience.

The Benefits of Using Instagram Ads

1. Get more reach with your content by ad boosting specials, partnerships, and influencer content
2. Increase your following by targeting new audiences who aren't familiar with your brand
3. Drive awareness by using call-to-actions (CTA's) to view or learn more about specific products

"As a visual social network, Instagram's unique offering to advertisers is all about inspiration, discovery, branding and the continuation of customer journeys." - AdWeek

Billie creates engaging and thoughtful imagery and videos for their ads. Keep your message simple and your ad's visual compelling to lead followers to your website to shop the product.

Instagram Ad Considerations:

• Integrate Ads That Are Relevant To Your Specific Target Audience:

Create ads that you feel your audience will fully resonate with by understanding what they're gravitating towards the most. Are they currently hooked on a specific product? What are industry trends you can get ahead of? Try boosting a post or story of that product during certain holidays.

• Choose the Type of Ads you Create Based on Engagement:

Take a look at your insights on your Instagram account to determine your audience's interests and top-performing posts. If you're getting more activity on IG Stories compared to in-feed posts, try tailoring and optimizing your Instagram Ads for Stories instead of posts.

• Use Hi-Resolution Imagery Throughout Ads:

Create an immersive experience for your customers by using hi-res imagery and videos. Ensure your imagery matches the tone of the ad. For example, playful products should be accompanied by fun colors in the ad with clever captions. Always match your feed aesthetic and your feed visuals to your Instagram ads to create cohesive symmetry within your content. Your audience should be able to recognize your content overtime with consistent messaging and posts.

J.Crew keeps the focus on the product by sharing quick in-feed posts that take you directly from the product's image to shop the product online. Our sellit feature makes it easy to create a similar and clean visual catalog for your followers to shop your products. When you add sellit to your PLANOLY account, you can use one universal link to create an image gallery of *shoppable* Instagram posts. You can then link out to products within your feed for followers to shop your services + offerings, and additionally provide them with the universal link in your Instagram bio for access to your full gallery. Get started here.

The Six Types of Instagram Ads:

• Stories Ads. You can complement your feed with ads on Instagram Stories. Add a little extra boost by taking your content to another level with your audience and showcasing or highlighting specific products that you want to share with your followers.

• Photo Ads. Photo Ads are among the most popular way to share ad content on Instagram. The key to creating these are making sure that your imagery and aesthetic cohesively flow with your content. (Your photo ads can be in either square or landscape format.)

• Videos Ads. Video is an amazing way to draw your audience in by creating an immersive experience packed with motion and sounds. The benefit to video is that it has the ability to further tell a story and hit specific senses that other ads might not.

• Carousel Ads. This type of ad is great to create whenever you're wanting to highlight a specific product or group of products with several images on the same sponsored in-feed post. It's beneficial when you're planning to show different aspects of the product and how it can be used.

• Collection Ads. You can use collection ads when you're trying to draw your audience into specific products through a collection based theme. Here, you can highlight a full range of products instead of focusing only on one. This helps boost browsing, product discovery, and product purchase with your audience.

• Ads in Explore. With several accounts tuning into the Explore feature on Instagram each month, it's a great way to further engage with your audience through the use of Ads. Here, you can reach users in a discovery mindset and capture them by 'helping' them to expand their interests and boosting the discovery of your account and what it has to offer them.

Ways to Buy Ads:

• In the App

• Ads Manager

• Instagram Partners

To learn more about the ways you can buy ads on Instagram, head to this link here. For additional avenues to boost revenue and engagement with the use of Instagram Ads, check out some of the articles listed below. Further, to view and examine your Instagram advanced metrics, be sure to utilize our Analyze Web Dashboard. Head to the Instagram for Business 'Advertising' tab to get a more in-depth look at Ads.

Additional Resources:

Best Practices for Advertising on Instagram - AdWeek

The Complete Guide to Instagram Advertising - WordStream

Instagram Ads: Best Practices for Beginners - Business 2 Community

The PLANOLY app and web platform simplifies social media marketing by allowing you to visually plan, schedule, and analyze your Instagram and Pinterest content.