How to set up targeted advertising on Instagram yourself: step by step instructions
Methods for promoting a commercial profile on Instagram are divided into white, gray and black. Black is something that is prohibited and threatens to block your account. The gray methods have a half-status: not officially prohibited, but Instagram did not give permission either. But with white, everything is clear: use it, it’s safe.
Alas, the choice of white (safe) promotion methods is not that great. In fact, in addition to the little things like working with hashtags and geotags, only targeted advertising applies here. It is she who is able to bring coverage, and attract subscribers to the profile, and help get traffic to a third-party site. Of course, not for free: you have to pay for ad reach and other usefulness. And if you don’t want to set up advertising yourself or don’t know how, then you will have to pay for the work of the targetologist.
Those who are interested in saving the marketing budget strive to master the target on Instagram on their own in order to keep the costs of this promotion channel to a minimum. With this article, you will begin your journey in this direction, because here is a step-by-step guide to setting up targeted advertising on Instagram. 🙂
What targeted ads look like on Instagram
We are sure that you have already met with the target on Instagram. But just in case, we show you how advertisements on this social network look like. Ads are shown on all placements today. In your main news feed:
It will look exactly the same in the recommendation feed. Ads are also shown in stories:
And, of course, in trending Reels:
In all these cases, an advertisement can be easily distinguished from a regular post in two ways: the “Advertisement” mark at the bottom or top of the banner, and a button for the targeted action, for example, “Buy”, “Subscribe” or “More”. For the rest, Instagram advertising posts are trying to mimic the usual ones as much as possible, since, as is traditionally believed, in this case they cause more positive reactions from users of the social network.
What you need to run targeted ads on Instagram
In general, the targeted advertising tool is available to any Instagram user, but subject to certain conditions.
– Firstly, your account must be transferred from personal status to an author account or a business account (both the author account and the business account are equivalent in their capabilities in terms of launching a target). More details about these types of accounts, as well as how to make a transfer, were described in this video:
– Secondly, your company’s Facebook business page should be linked to your Instagram profile (already transferred to the author or business). We also have instructions for setting up this connection, you can find it here.
– Thirdly, the subject of your profile should not relate to what is prohibited to advertise on Instagram. Therefore, to begin with, we recommend that you familiarize yourself with the Rules of advertising in this social network.
All of these are prerequisites. We recommend that you pay special attention to linking Instagram to Facebook, in our experience, it is at this stage that the most difficulties arise.
And one more important point that should be decided at the start. The fact is that there are 2 ways to launch ads on Instagram:
Through the interface of the application itself;
Through the interface of the Ads Manager ad cabinet.
You need to decide how you will proceed, as the instructions are different in each case. For your convenience, we have made a comparison table:
Launching a target via the Instagram application Launching a target via Ads Manager
Pros This option is simpler, you can figure it out in just half an hour, the application interface is very clear. You can set up a target directly from your smartphone. You have a lot of possibilities in terms of setting up an audience for advertising and creating a creative, there is AB testing and algorithmic recommendations are available.
Cons The possibilities you have in this case will be limited. Fewer audience targeting and less segmentation opportunities. In addition, only a published post can be used as an ad; it will not work to make an ad from scratch. You can’t master the Ads Manager interface in half an hour, you have to sweat and waste time. His interface is not quite familiar to a Runet user, therefore it often causes difficulties during the first interaction.
Who is it for Ideal for those who are just learning to work with targeted advertising on Instagram and have not set up it before. You can also use this option for simple tasks like drawing attention to the most popular post. Since it is Ads Manager that provides more flexible audience settings, this option for launching a target is relevant for complex tasks. Setting up the target like this is more professional.
Choose the option that best suits your task and your current situation. We will give step-by-step instructions for both cases. 🙂
