So, you decided to use Instagram for business? It’s a solid choice. Instagram has nearly 2 billion active monthly users. Whatever your service or product is, you’ll find potential customers there.
However, Instagram advertising may take some time to learn and get used to. That’s probably why you’re here, right? Overwhelmed with all those technical explanations and business-to-business professional articles you keep finding.
You are in the right place now. This guide will show you the ins and outs of Instagram advertising.
We’ll show you how to get your brand known through Instagram, key statistics and metrics to prioritize and track, and ways to triangulate the demographics of your target audience.
Setting Up Your Instagram Advertising Account
Let’s start by setting up your account for advertising. Open the Instagram app on your phone and follow these steps:
Step 1: Locating the “Professionals” Tab
Once again, go to your profile settings and tap the three horizontal lines in the upper right corner of your phone screen to open the available options, then scroll down to an option that says For Professionals.
After that, click the Account Type and Tools from the drop-down menu.
Step 2: Switch Your Account
Clicking on Account type and tools will allow you to create a new professional account or switch your current account(s) into business account(s).
Choose the switch option. It’ll take Instagram a few seconds to finalize the account switching, then choose your niche.
Step 3: Finalizing and Connecting
Instagram will now ask you to add your business information, like email, address, phone number, etc.
Once you do that, Instagram will ask if you’d like to connect your Facebook page to your Instagram. That’s it.
I wrote another article that dives deep into the process of switching from a personal Instagram account to a business account.
Identifying Your Target Audience
Your target audience is the group of people or customers that you want to reach with your Instagram marketing campaign.
Here’s how you can properly identify your target audience:
1. Create a Buyer Persona
A buyer persona is a detailed description of a fictional character representing a typical customer in your target market. It’s created based on the market research conducted by your team.
To create a buyer persona, you must gather information on demographics, behaviors, and goals.
Conduct surveys, interview your customers, and involve sales and marketing teams to speed it up the research.
The data you gather from these processes will help you understand your audience more and create the persona accordingly.
2. Analyze Your Existing Data
Instagram’s native analysis tool can aid your marketing efforts. As such, you should constantly consult the Help Center to ensure that your marketing efforts are moving in the right direction.
For example, checking your audience’s demographics and age groups can help you isolate their common traits that you can capitalize on. We’ll assume that we discovered a common trait: Location.
Let’s say that you discovered that many of your chocolate fans are from a different country. So, to sell more, you should know the peak hours of social media usage in that country. That way, you’ll post in those times, gain more audience, and sell more chocolate.
You should also identify the most common age of your followers, which can help you tailor your ads and mold them into whatever seems to be the trend for that age group at that specific time frame.
3. Use Social Listening
We’ve advanced enough to “eavesdrop” on our customers using social listening. Don’t worry because it doesn’t involve any privacy issues.
Social listening tools gather data from major online platforms like Facebook, X (Twitter), and Instagram. You feed the tool with keywords or key phrases associated with your brand for the listening process to begin.
The tools filter and analyze the data based on the keywords and present the information clearly and organized. It could be dashboards with charts and graphs or reports summarizing the key findings.
My highly recommended social listening tools include Sprout Social, BuzzSumo, and Crowdfire.
Crafting Effective Ads
A core part of your Instagram-sponsored ads is their quality and efficacy. Here are five Instagram advertising for small business ideas that you can try:
Stories
Stories are ideal for behind-the-scenes glimpses, quick announcements, and real-time updates.
Since stories disappear after 24 hours, create a sense of urgency to drive engagement. Use interactive elements like polls, quizzes, or questions to spark reactions.
Photos
Photos are the bread and butter of Instagram. As such, you can use them for virtually everything. Use photos to showcase products, share eye-catching visuals, and promote events.
Videos
Much like photos, you can also use videos to show products. They’re also ideal for sharing tutorials and showcasing the story-telling aspect of your brand.People love stories, especially if you can spark their attention early on with a detail that requires watching the full video to get the full context.
Carousels
Simply put, an Instagram carousel is a post that contains multiple photos, videos, or both (up to 10). Users can swap between these photos and videos by swiping left and right on their phone screens.
Carousels are perfect for displaying multiple products, presenting a step-by-step process, or telling a longer story with various visuals.
Collections
Collections are a way to organize and categorize your saved posts from your feed or other accounts. They are suitable for simplifying product discovery and purchase.
Creating collections may be the most difficult of the five for an Instagram account manager. However, they provide far fewer clicks for the customer, and fewer clicks mean more purchases.
Note: After any ad posting, you should always provide your customer with a CTA (call to action) to act as a next step. CTAs can be in the form of links to your products, your Facebook page, or your official website.
Budgeting for Your Campaigns
Instagram ads will always cost you. It always comes down to how much you need vs how much your budget currently allows you to spend. Here are some budget considerations to keep in mind:
Bidding Strategy
Similar businesses to yours will be competing over the same target audience you’re attracting. As such, you should consider the maximum limit you want to spend on CPS and CPMs.
- Cost-per-click (CPC): You set the maximum amount you want to pay each time someone clicks your ad. Higher bids increase your chances of appearing in top ad spots but cost more per click.
- Cost-per-Thousand Impressions (CPM): You pay a set amount for every 1,000 times your ad is shown. This strategy can be a good option for brand awareness campaigns but doesn’t guarantee clicks.
Bulky technical terms? Don’t panic. You can easily estimate your costs before spending a dime by using an Instagram ad cost calculator. Here’s one for you to try.
Note: If you’re looking for website traffic or conversions, prioritize CPC. Conversely, Invest more in CPM if you are looking for brand awareness.
Ad Format
The format you choose for your audience can significantly impact your budget. For example, video ads are generally more expensive compared to photos. However, they often have better engagement.
Story ads are also cost-effective and can help you reach younger audiences, but they disappear after 24 hours.
Targeting
Businesses can rely on broad or narrow targeting, both of which have their benefits. Broad targeting involves spreading the message as much as possible without targeting a specific audience, while narrow targeting focuses on the target audience.
Businesses that utilize broad targeting may get more brand recognition, but they may not get the performance and ROI (return on investment) that narrow-targeted ads provide.
Competition
Multiple businesses with the same product/service as you or targeting the same audience base translates into competition. In other words, the popularity of your niche can affect your ad costs. Here’s how:
- Less Competition: Lower CPCs and CPMs as fewer advertisers are vying for the same audience.
- High Competition: Expect to pay more for ad placement as you compete with other businesses targeting the same audience.
Measuring and Analyzing Ad Performance
Once your Instagram ad campaign begins, you must track these crucial metrics to optimize and change your strategy accordingly.
The most important metrics to track are:
- Reaches and Impressions: How many people saw your ad (reach) and total views (impressions)?
- Engagements: Likes, comments, shares. These let you see if your ad resonated.
- Clicks and Conversions: Website visits and desired actions taken (e.g., purchases).
- Cost Performance: CPC (cost per click), CPM (cost per 1,000 impressions), ROAS (return on ad spend, which is similar to ROI but taking only the money spent on ads into consideration). These let you understand efficiency and profitability.
Once you track these insights, use them to:
- See what works: Identify winning ad formats, targeting, and creative elements.
- Optimize your campaigns: Refine bids, targeting, and ad content based on data.
- Boost ROI: Focus budget on high-performing strategies.
Closing Thoughts
That’s how you can start Instagram advertising from scratch. Remember that, no matter how much effort you put into the planning process, you will spend some time in the trial-and-error phase.
Don’t think of it as downfalls; it’s more like room for improvement or to refine your strategy as you move forward.
