Having passed the 1 billion monthly active users, Instagram has positioned itself as one of the essential social networks for the presence of large and small brands, even surpassing Twitter in volume. What’s more, they have become one of the favorite social networks of millennials and new generations, so it is especially important for the future. Given the potential it has, we are going to explain it to you below What kind of advertising on Instagram can you do and how to start it.
First of all, tell you that if you have already used Facebook Ads at some point, advertising on Instagram will be a breeze for you, since the system is very similar. Something that should not surprise us since precisely this social network was bought by Facebook a few years ago, that is, it has really been the Facebook team that has launched advertising on Instagram following a very similar logic to the one they have been using in your social network for years.
Advertising formats on Instagram
So, Instagram ad formats resemble those of Facebook, except for one, that of the ads in Instagram Stories. We will also have photo, video or sequence ads. What’s more, if you notice, when we advertise on Facebook there is a section where it asks us where we want to distribute it, a place where we can indicate several options, including Instagram. Let’s take a look at the different Instagram advertising formats one by one!
Photo Ads on Instagram
These are ads with photos in a square or landscape format that are very similar to any post a user might make except for two reasons:
- In the upper right corner there is an indication that it is advertising.
- At the bottom there is a horizontal bar that acts as a button to link the user to our landing page with more information about the campaign, company or product.
Video Ads on Instagram
Very similar to the previous format but with the peculiarity that the image is in motion, it can last up to 60 seconds and be accompanied by sound.
Carousel Ads on Instagram
This format is similar to the previous ones but with the addition that it allows the user to scroll with their finger to see various images or videos.
Ads in Instagram Stories
It is the newest advertising format. With it, we can advertise in the famous Instagram Stories. These are video and sound fragments with the advertising badge at the bottom and a link, which will be shown to the user when they are viewing the Stories of the users they follow.
How to advertise on Instagram?
Now that we know what we can do with the advertising formats on Instagram, we will see how to implement an Instagram campaign step by step. If you have used Facebook Ads before, you will have the first complete steps (skip until the necessary step), however, if you have never advertised on Facebook, don’t worry, here you will find all the steps to follow from the beginning.
- Create a Facebook page. If you don’t have one yet, here you will find all the steps to follow: facebook.com/business/learn/set-up-facebook-page
- Create a business profile on Instagram. If you don’t have an Instagram account, create one! And if you have it, but not as a company profile, make the change easily and for free. Just follow these steps: facebook.com/business/help/502981923235522
- The next step will be to enter the Facebook advertising platform, from where we can advertise on Instagram. To do this, follow our tutorial on: How to create a Facebook advertising account step by step?
- Now that we have everything ready, we have to start the specific campaign that we want to carry out, and for this:
- Enter the Ads Manager either PowerEditor.
- Create a campaign.
- select your advertising objective and name the campaign.
- Decide the characteristics of your ad set:
- Target audiences. Being able to segment the maximum thanks to the information that Facebook has about the users.
- locations. This is where you can leave the “automatic locations” by default or click “edit locations” to select only Instagram, and you can even select “news” or “stories” within this option. What’s more, in the advanced options you can select by type of mobile device (Android or iOS).
- establishes a budget and time duration of the campaign.
- Choose the ad format and complete the requested information (text, image, video, link…). Remember that a campaign only for Instagram exists in the previously described formats.
- And finally… check your ad and place the order.
How are new ads made in Instagram Stories?
IMPORTANT! When selecting the objectives and placements, Facebook will limit the advertising formats that we can use. If you want to make ads in Instagram Stories you will have to select as goal “reach” and as a location “Instagram” (and specifically, Stories). It is then when when arriving at formats you will be able to choose between an image or video in size 1080 x 1920 pixels, if possible with very little or no overlapping text.
I recommend that if you have any doubts, consult the Instagram Ads Stories Guide from Vilma Nuñez’s blog where, in addition to seeing the step by step, she shows you a practical case of how well a budget yields with this type of advertising.