The Benefits of Running Instagram Ads
If you aren’t currently on Instagram (IG) then it is time to create an account. Why?
IG is a rapidly evolving platform and is currently outperforming all other social apps, including Facebook. Instagram boasts 1 billion monthly active users, and 500 million daily active users for Stories alone. It is currently where the eyes and attention are highly focused.
If you are not already signed up to Instagram, you’re missing a big opportunity to be where your target audiences are.
Let’s Talk About The Two Different Ad Placements:
IG Stories
Instagram stories feature a full-screen 1080 x 1920 vertical image or video that uniquely takes over the entire screen on mobile. When each story ends, another automatically begins and Stories ads are seamlessly slotted between the stories. For advertisers, this means that 100% of the audience’s attention is on your ad. Nowhere else on any other platform is this possible.
Tip 1 – Remember that the more your ads look and feel like native content posted by regular users, the better they will perform.
Tip 2 – Post IG stories that are up to 15 seconds long. This allows them to be consistent with other content organically shared in stories.
Tip 3 – Use images and videos that are specifically sized and built for the Instagram Stories placement.
Tip 4 – Ad stories don’t apply by the same rule. This means that your ad can use the swipe up features to take a user straight to a page of your choice, without needing more than 10,000 followers.
IG Feed Ads
The IG feed caters to multiple image sizes: landscape, vertical, and square.
But when utilising IG stories, it is best to keep your ads as native as possible. Using a square image is beneficial because the more similar your ads are to organic posts from friends or regular users, the better they will perform.
Tip 1 – Images that are natural photos compared to professionally designed graphics with text and effects, perform effectively as Instagram feed ads.
Tip 2 – When writing copy for Instagram ads, keep in mind that users will only see a small amount of the text at the bottom of an image. You can have up to 2,000 characters of copy in the expanded caption on Instagram. However, if you don’t make the most of the first sentence, they won’t read the rest. That’s 10–15 words of copy! So get creative.
Tip 3 – Keep the Call To Action (CTA) in the caption or create them as buttons.
Tip 4 – When creating video content for the Instagram feed, opt for a square format and keep the video as short as possible.
Tip 5 – Add captions or subtitles to your videos because the sound does not autoplay in the Instagram feed. You can do this by uploading SRT files or integrating the words into your graphics. Alternatively, you can download tools such as Subly.
If 10 Tips Isn’t Enough, Then How About Another 5?
Repurpose your IG story by using video in your story ads, adding text overlays, GIFs, and other Instagram stickers. Publish it to the platform, then download it and upload it to Facebook. This approach effectively cuts down on editing and design time!
Ads with higher amounts of image text may not be shown, could be flagged, or could be charged more by Facebook and Instagram. However, when you upload a native video for use in an Instagram ad, create a thumbnail that’s just a clean photograph or a version of the lead image with less text. As long as the selected thumbnail is below the 20% text limit, your ad will pass Facebook’s and Instagram’s standards.
Always caption your video ads or indicate there’s sound by using the ‘Sound On’ sticker to let people know there’s more to experience.
Spark Camera is a cool free app that allows users to create multiple short snippets of video and stitch them together to create a post or ad.
Clipomatic is a smart video editing app that allows you to automatically caption as you record vertical videos. It turns everything you say into live captions.