A successful business is a promoted business. Nowadays, crises and economic fluctuations are no longer a nightmare for deft and artful entrepreneurs mastering online techniques. One of the platforms where your affiliate aspirations may be realized is Instagram, popular in all countries of the world and highly appreciated by people of all social groups. Entrepreneurs also relish it, but mostly for the options it provides: Instagram is abrim with active users who are perceived by affiliates as buyers. The more people use the platform, the higher the possibility to attract these potential buyers to your products.
However, the question how still remains. If you are curious as to what you can do to stick out from the crowd and what techniques will make you the head honcho of Instagram traffic, keep on reading the article!
Ad Targeting on Instagram
Targeted advertising is a powerful method of promoting a product on the newsfeed or stories of the target audience. Ad targeting on Instagram can be set up through the Instagram advertising account or the Facebook Ads service.
Targeting allows you to attract customers, increase brand awareness and sales, consequently improving profit. In certain cases, targeting can even save a business from bankruptcy.
Here are a few tasks targeting advertising can accomplish:
- Account promotion. Targeting on Instagram ads can increase recognition, make a profit, and serve as an advertisement for a personal brand;
- Retargeting. You can launch retarget the target audience or find a similar one;
- Engagement. On Instagram, users are more active than on other platforms, so you will quickly observe increasing user engagement;
- Demand. New products become eagerly sought in a matter of moments;
- Subscribers. The number of followers is steadily on the rise.
The main thing, though, is that targeting attracts public attention to improve business profitability and offer value. In the long run, this advertising approach can change the market.
Advantages
These are the benefits of Instagram targeting:
- Low entry threshold. You can start a campaign with a few cents in your pocket. In effect, there's no point in buying expensive advertising from bloggers: it does not always ensure you the desired outcome.
- Quick target audience formation. Targeting advertising, and targeting advertising only clearly defines the target audience according to the specified parameters. Moreover, when setting up advertising, the client can attract an audience similar to the target one;
- Immediate results. Targeting allows you to get the first results within half an hour after launch;
- Singularity. Being original is easy. If you want your potential clients to see the product in a new light, change the text or the picture;
- Custom scaling. The first few tests can be conducted on a minimal budget. In case of success, increase the budget.
- Connection. The audience and advertising correspond: the ads are shown to the target audience and no one else. Overpayment for impressions is not possible. Drops in coverage are not harmful;
- Analysis. You can always estimate your results by tracking interactions via UTMs.
Explaining the Profit
The audience of the social network is constantly growing. The most active users can be found in the age group from 18 to 34 years old. Over the past year, there has been a positive trend: age groups are expanding, presenting older people on the platform, so now you can encounter 40+ year-olds there as well. Bear in mind that this is the most financially stable audience.
As there are tons of users, you don't have to struggle trying to find your target audience. Just enter a few necessary parameters: for example, you can employ interest based targeting on Instagram, or you can opt for location targeting on Instagram. The audience there is quite loyal, so users willingly subscribe to externally aesthetic business accounts and buy products from them. There are practically no negative reviews about advertising on social networks.
Targeting Formats
Before you punch in the words ad targeting Instagram with a few keystrokes, stop here to breeze through the promotion format you may want to test in your campaign.
Photo
Photos are the basic element of Instagram. One or several pictures at once can be published on your feed or stories; a picture with a call to action is a classic format. If you venture to try this one out, make sure your post meets the requirements:
- The picture should not contain more than 20% of text;
- Photo format 1:1 from 600 to 1936px;
- Text posts do not contain more than 2200 characters;
- Title length: maximum 40 characters.
You can add a CTA element to the post and a View Shop button or a similar call to action to redirect the user to the selling profile.
Video
Dynamic, vibrant videos attract buyers. The video sides are 4:5, and the resolution is 600 by 650px. The length of the video must not exceed 59 seconds. If the video is published in IGTV format, the length can be extended, but the preview should not be longer than 15 seconds. Size: up to 4 GB. MP4, MOV, and GIF formats are accepted.
Stories
Stories Ads are a recent trend on the platform. Such videos take up the entire screen, engaging users with all their might. Video format – 9:16, file type – MP4, MOV; duration – 15 seconds tops. If you prefer posting pictures instead of videos, your go-to formats are JPEG and PNG. Order a dynamic video from a motion designer or try the carousel ad.
Carousel Ads
Carousel ads are a treasure for companies with a wide range of products to demonstrate. There are two possible options:
- Posts. The requirements are the same: no more than 20% of the text can occupy the visual element; up to 40 characters in the title; up to 2200 characters in the post. You can add up to 10 images or videos to the carousel. Photo: is 1:1, from 600x600 to 1080x1080px. Size: no more than 30 MB;
- Stories. Add no more than 3 videos or pictures.
Catalogs
This campaign implies posting a photo or a video showing the range of products below. This technique is usually used by clothing, cosmetics, and accessories stores. The photo requirements are the same.
Be Creative
Canva is a popular image editor with hundreds of templates for different needs. The user can make creatives and visuals for Instagram from scratch or change the final version. Canva is available on PCs and smartphones.
The template gallery regularly updates; users can remove or add any element.
Choose the template you like on the main page, and you're ready to go.
Once the template is chosen, all editor tools will become available. The user can change all kinds of shapes and colors, decorative elements, fonts and texts, literally everything that can appear in a picture. Additionally, you can select colors you consider appropriate for the creative: the program highlights the general shades of the image, which can be used, for example, for altering the text color. As a result, you can deal with a unified color scheme.
All created creatives can be saved and returned to change them later.
Canva has 2 modes: paid and free. The difference is in the number of available functions. After subscription, the user gets access to stock photos, decorative elements, and .png files without restrictions or limitations. In the free version, most elements are stained with a watermark.
Stay Creative
Creatives as a form of advertising on Instagram appeared in 2019 and has been in operation since then. Creatives normally imply a dynamic, fresh, vibrant visual ad that attracts a potential client at first sight. Creatives are supposed to increase engagement and conversion rates.
Here, the company offers customers a range of options to choose from, in this case, initiating a discussion on their favorite cheeseburger flavor, enticing people to express their opinions in the comment section. If there's a question in the picture, there's often the answer in the comments. Subscribers leave their replies, raising statistics.
Photos with a person, especially with a face clearly visible, are always more attractive. The frame seems to come to life and becomes dynamic. Engagement on such advertising posts is 38% higher than others.
This is a discount ad. The elements are a short, large inscription and a big picture of the product, exhibiting the nature of the offer. The creative has a minimum of distracting elements.
Targeting Rules
Audience targeting on Instagram cannot be flawlessly conducted without knowing the rules of the platform. The capital punishment here is a ban, and it won't be easy to appeal or lift it. More often than not, large companies prefer to set up new accounts instead of spending time on restoring the lost ones.
Before publishing, the ad post is checked by the administration. The selected publication topic must correspond to the text and picture, and the business profile must be active. The following themes cannot be used:
- products prohibited by law, as well as substances, drugs, and unsafe dietary supplements;
- prohibited services, including financial ones;
- advertising of firearms and related products;
- materials marked “18+”;
- copyright infringement;
- provocative content;
- discrimination;
- penny auctions, false information;
- controversial policy issues;
- sale of organs, human trafficking;
- alcohol and tobacco;
- microloans and microfinance organizations;
- network marketing, malware, deceptive business models;
- anti-vaccination ideas.
Posts containing obscene language are not allowed. If a user advertises a product, it is prohibited to attribute non-existent functions to it. In addition to prohibited content, there is also content with restrictions. For example, you need to take into account all of Instagram's demands regarding the publication of such advertising posts:
- dating sites and apps;
- gambling, casinos, bookmakers;
- online pharmacies, individual drugs;
- branded content;
- socially significant and sensitive topics;
- offers for treatment of any addiction and weight loss services.
One more restriction for you to reconsider: the ad cannot be edited. If the text or photo contains prohibited content, the service will send the user a reasoned refusal.
Parsing the Audience
Parsing is the collection of a target audience based on several criteria. This tool allows you to reduce your advertising budget without sacrificing profits, increasing the number of subscribers and conversion rates. For example, using parsing, you can collect subscribers from a competitor’s comments where they are interested in prices. You can also parse the following data:
- Profiles of potential clients. You can do this by adjusting geotargeting on Instagram posts, hashtag targeting Instagram is also an option. Other parameters are subscriptions and competitors’ subscribers;
- Contact information. Phone numbers, email addresses, links to websites, or information from the account description.
Parsing services also can:
- filter the available information by keywords, gender of users, posts, number of subscribers, presence of stories, geo data, or even interest targeting on Instagram can work. The function of filtering out commercial profiles and fakes is available;
- monitor competitors. Track comments, likes, the influx of subscribers, posts, and locations.
Setting Up Your Targeting
How to set up targeting on Instagram for maximum conversions and performance? Below are the main options for setting up advertising.
Instagram App
The easiest way to start advertising on Instagram from scratch is through the app. You can conveniently place posts and stories and track the like dynamics, subscribers, and comments.
The advantages are as follows:
- the easiest way. Even a beginner can handle it;
- targeting parameters can be configured in a few minutes;
- all you need is to create a business profile in your account settings;
- you can promote previously published posts and stories.
This method has some drawbacks:
- less choice of targeted advertising settings;
- fewer options for formatting an advertising post. For example, the carousel is not available.
Before submitting the ad for approval, make sure the text and visuals comply with Facebook requirements.
Facebook Ads Manager
Facebook Ads can help you set up advertising on Instagram through Facebook. This method is more complicated but has more settings and functions. For example, the user can create hidden advertising and select the target audience with more precision.
Ads Manager can:
- Promote publications to draw attention to a specific post;
- Increase the number of leads: make more targeted actions and sales;
- Get more messages. Such posts are equipped with a “Send Message” button with redirection to the messenger;
- Popularize the app. Applications from Google Play and AppStore are often advertised;
- Promote the profile. In the Facebook advertising account, you can set up an advertising campaign to promote your personal blog;
- Promote your company, an option relevant for offline stores that need targeted actions accomplished by actual buyers.
Measures of Effectiveness
To understand how effective your customized advertising is, you should pay attention to the following metrics:
- Reach. These are people who saw the advertising post once. By this piece of data, you can define the percentage of users who completed the target action relative to the total number of unique views;
- Impressions. The total number of views, including those who saw the post more than once. Impressions are used to calculate CTR – click-through rate. Costs also depend on impressions if payment is made via CPM;
- Frequency. This metric shows how many times a post was seen by the same user;
- Clicks. The number of clicks on an advertising post is needed to calculate CTR, the number of conversions. Affects advertising costs. However, the indicator itself does not demonstrate the effectiveness of the campaign;
- Cost per click – CPC. The cost per click on a post is crucial if the user pays for a CPC campaign. The more clicks per 1000 impressions, the cheaper the cost to click on a publication. That is, the higher the CTR, the lower the CPC.
- Targeted actions. These are the actions the user completed after visiting the advertiser's page through an advertising publication. You can see these actions yourself, for example, subscription, message, placing an order, etc.;
- Cost per action – CPA. The price of one target action;
- Conversion rate – CR. The ratio of clicks on an advertising post to conversions. The higher the coefficient, the more conversions you get;
- Leads. This indicator shows how many users visited the landing page after clicking the ad link. Demonstrates how smoothly the “creative > target audience > landing” system works;
- Cost per lead – CPL. It is impossible to derive a single correct indicator since it takes into account all the nuances of the campaign;
- Sales. This is the number of transactions completed after viewing the post. This is a vital indicator, as it demonstrates the effectiveness of the campaign. It often happens that there are a lot of conversions, but users, nevertheless, do not buy the product or service;
- Profit. Sales income excluding advertising costs.
Recommendations
Here are a few recommendations for managing your advertising account when setting up targeted advertising:
- Statistics take time. Analyze the results every 4-7 days after the launch. The system takes at least 3 days to set up the target audience;
- UTM is crucial. This is especially important if the target involves sending traffic to the site. UTM tags allow you to track the customer's journey from the first viewing to payment for the purchase. This is what makes it possible to evaluate which creatives are the most profitable;
- Compare in real time. It is appropriate to evaluate the effectiveness of advertising in comparison with similar campaigns in previous periods. This will give a complete picture of how the indicators are changing, which of them are working and which are not;
- Optimize. You need to evaluate the campaign's effectiveness to increase this effectiveness. For example, by reducing the cost of leads and clicks, you can increase the number of applications. The main rule of successful advertising campaigns is regular testing.
Wrapping Up
Targeted advertising is the most effective method of attracting new customers and increasing sales. The business practically cannot survive without this technique. As for the campaign launch on Instagram, this is fairly easy: the trickier thing is to navigate the metrics and analyze the results. This will require basic knowledge of business, marketing, statistics, and economics. Entrepreneurs often turn to targetologists to comprehensively assess the effectiveness of campaigns or to customize these campaigns.
FAQ
