Best Practices - Instagram Advertising

Instagram is a platform where users expect high quality visuals. People go to Instagram to be inspired and discover things they care about, which includes content from brands and businesses. That’s why the ad creative you choose for this platform significantly impacts the results of your campaign.

Even though there's no such thing as a 'one-size-fits-all approach' to Instagram, we've compiled a few tips that will improve your strategy significantly, regardless of your brand. Let's start with a few basic facts about the platform.

CHANNEL CONSIDERATION:

• 500m daily active users.
• 68% of Instagram users are female.
• 60% of users say they discover new products on Instagram.
• 80% increase in time spent watching videos on Instagram.
• Engagement is over 3x higher compared to Facebook.
  
  

TARGETING OPTIONS:

• Basics: Location, age, gender, language.
• Interest: apps they use, ads they click, accounts they follow.
• Behaviours: activities on and off.
• Others: retargeting, lookalikes, custom audiences.
  
  

START WITH GOALS:

• Awareness: Drive awareness of your business product, app or service with these objectives: reach, reach and frequency, brand awareness, local awareness.
• Consideration: Help potential customers understand your offering in more depth.
• Conversion: Increase product sales, mobile app downloads and even visitors to your shop with website conversions, Instagram dynamic ads, Mobile App Installs or Mobile App Engagement.
  
  
  

 INSTAGRAM’S GOLDEN RULES FOR WINNING MARKETERS 

• Prioritise the experience over your product.
  
  
• Draw attention to your business through eye-catching photographs by creating Instagram ad images with bright colours that spark positive emotions – doing so will grab people’s attention and encourage serial scrollers to stop and take action.
  
  
• Delving into colour psychology can also help you identify which colours appeal to specific audiences– something you can then use to inform the visual aspect of your calls-to-action. 
  
  
• Instagram can be best utilised for brand marketing – that is, building relationships with your audience, increasing loyalty, and raising brand awareness.
  
  
• More space, fewer distractions. Instagram Stories make full use of mobile screens, offering businesses a beautiful, distraction-free canvas.
  
  
• Use speed as a creative tool. Things move fast in stories; try and land your message and showcase your brand as quickly as possible. 
  
  
• Bookend with your brand. Land your product, brand or message at the beginning of your story and then use the end card to reinforce before viewers move on.
  
  
• Keep a balance between promotional and inspirational content.
  
  
• Longer captions are relatively common, but shorter descriptions get more engagement.
  
  
• The fewer hashtags the better.
  
  
• Weekends see high engagement.

Interested in learning more about Instagram ads? Check out our Digital Media Lab by clicking on the banner below. And if you'd like to book your free assessment today and discuss how Adglow can help you to craft a winning digital advertising strategy, contact us.