Best Practices for Successful Instagram Ads
Now that you know about the different types of Instagram Ads and how to set them up we want to
provide you with these 7 best practices that will help you to obtain the highest possible return on
investment (ROI).
1. Add Personality into your Ads
What are you planning for your next ad? A video that appeals to people’s emotions? An intriguing image that builds curiosity? It is very important that all of your ads have the “human touch”. If this is lacking in your ad then you will not get the engagement that you are looking for. Instagram users always want to be entertained. They like humor and posts that have an amazing factor. What they don’t want to see is some boring ad that just talks about a product. You always need to appeal to the user’s emotions in your ads. Don’t just publish bland and boring stuff or you will be wasting your money.
2. Keep your Ads Relevant
Always keep in mind that all of the social media platforms are different. As an example you would not post the same ad on Twitter as you would on LinkedIn because the audience will have a very different state of mind. This is true for Instagram as well. You need to put yourself in the shoes of your potential customer and about where they are. For example a 40 page eBook download may work on LinkedIn but it is very unlikely to appeal to an Instagram user. Don’t make your ads too sales orientated on Instagram either. Users of the platform are not looking for that.
3. Hashtags
We have talked about hashtags a lot in this guide because they are very important. A lot of advertisers on Instagram will just go for very common hashtags such as #love or #food. You need to be more creative than this. Do some research to identify the hashtags that users are the most likely to search for when trying to find the content you are providing. Some people really overdo it with hashtags. They see that they can add 30 so they have to add 30! If you do this then users will probably think that your ad looks really desperate which is not a good thing.
So what is the ideal number of hashtags for an ad or a post? Well a study of 65,000 posts found that 9 hashtags was the ideal number to generate the highest level of engagement. Also revealed in this study was that longer hashtags are often better performers than shorter ones.
4. Contests
If you really want to achieve your goals for your Instagram Ads campaigns as quickly as possible then running a contest or a giveaway is really one of the best ways to achieve this. People just love free stuff and competitions. When you run a contest associated with your brand you will excite your audience. A successful contest or giveaway will help you to grow your follower base and you can really generate a buzz on the platform if you do this right.
Be prepared to give away prizes of value. You can use your own products (which is the best way to go) or something else that you can use to brand your business. There are companies that sell branded giveaways such as USB sticks and you can get a good deal on these if you buy in bulk.
5. Post at the right times
You want to give your ads every chance of being seen by the most people in your target audience and making your posts at the right time is the best way to achieve this. If you sign up to lifetime budgeting you can use Instagram’s “ad-schedule” feature where you can specify on which days and at what times you want your ads to run.
Do you know when your audience is around on Instagram? If you don’t then you need to find this out. You can experiment with different days and time and work out optimum times with trial and error.
Think about your niche here. If you run an online store what days and times do shoppers typically browse and make purchases? Look at your own website stats to see when you have traffic spikes and use these as the basis for your posting schedule.
6. Test with a Couple of Campaigns
Unless you are a seasoned Instagram advertiser and know your audience on the platform inside out it is best to set up a couple of ad campaigns so that you can learn more about your audience. You want to find out the following:
• What kind of images will they respond to?
• What call to action buttons get the best response?
• What kind of messages are most likely to be shared, liked or commented on?
You can run campaigns on a small scale to find the answers to these questions. Don’t measure these campaigns in terms of sales. This is a test of your audience so that you can plan a full scale campaign that you are confident will deliver great results.
7. Split Testing
One of the great things about Instagram is that you have the opportunity to test a number of different visuals to see how well they connect with your audience. The best way to determine which works the best is to set up some split testing.
For example you could create a Photo Ad, create a Video Ad or include around 4 images in a Carousel Ad. You could also incorporate user generated content and see which variant provides the best results. You don’t have to stop with split testing your visuals. Try split testing different calls to action and different posting schedules as well. The more that you test your Instagram Ads the more success you will have overall.
Conclusion
You now have everything that you need to plan for and implement successful Instagram Ads. We recommend that you plan each ad campaign properly and set goals for each one. The more effort that you put in at the setup stage the more likely you are to experience success.
There are very few businesses which cannot benefit from the power of Instagram Ads. Don’t believe others who tell you that they don’t work – they were probably approaching Instagram Ads wrong. You can use Instagram Ads to generate leads and sales. You can also use them to increase your following on Instagram and improve your engagement levels. Think long term when you are planning to use Instagram Ads. Always be consistent with your content posting whether they are ads or standard posts.
You should use the same voice and tone for your business every time. It is vital that you build trust with your audience on Instagram. So now it is over to you. You need to take action and follow the advice in this guide. Don’t skip any steps in the process.. Plan all of your ads and make sure that you split test everything. You can then build on the best performing ads.
We hope that you found Instagram Ads Success informative and helpful. Get started today with your Instagram Ads. We wish you every success with your advertising on the Instagram platform!