How To Run Your Instagram Ads Easily And Effectively – Better Than Facebook Ads?

Are you pointing the finger at yourself?

 Well you should becuase you’re losing valuable real estate by not utilizing Instagram ads for BOOSTING engagement and the whirldwind of why we’re doing it to beging – to make Money, Dinero, Green, Mulah.

I’m literally sitting in my office staring at my internet tab as I’m thinkinh about how to explain this to you, but I’ll leave it like this….

One of my ads on Instagram is running two tabs to the right and I don’t have to touch a single thing. It’s not becuase I’m smarter, or an Instagram Whiz general, but becuase I have learned to fully run my Instagram ads on autopilot while being proactive in other areas of my business, and I’m going to show you what you’re missing out on, and how you can change your perspective on using Instagram ads so you can:

1. Safely

2. Effectiveily

3. and cost efficiently save money.

Why Instagram Ads?

I had an epiphany one day…

Around september of 2018, I was running an ad campaign on Facebook about a health product I was offering at the time called “Penetrex”. After running it for about 2 days with full engagement for about $20 or so, and then using a copy of this same add to run it in a traffic campaign, I was not seeing nearly enough interaction or the click through that I wanted to see.

And at the time, I was farely sleptical about Instagram ads working, thinking that it was on a such a micro scale level, that how can it be possible for me to gain better or at that, more thatn what Facebook offered me?

TADA! If you’ve ever played around Facebook Ads, there is this thing called “Add Placements” or as we come to know “Edit Placements” on the ad creative. Right at that moment, I flipped the switch off just running Facebook and Instagram Ads together, and Just turned on the “Instagram News Feed” Check.

BOOM! Within less than 17 hours, I was hit with my 2nd sale ever! And that’s how the story goes.

But enough about my story, Let’s talk about how it can work for you in the same exact way.

I’m not going to lie, setting up an Instagram takes A LOT of thought. So if this is your first rodio, prepare to sattle in and face forward with a strong grip on that buckle. HEY, and if you’re not a begginer, and you need to change your approach, you’ll want to hear, see, and follow what I’m about to show you, very closely.

Why not an Instagram Ad? Who’s to say your audience is not there? I’ve grown exhausted telling people how their dream customer(s) just one scroll away, one button away from reaching your bio, one button away from clicking on your content, and just one finger push to land on your Ad.

In My complete guide, I’m going to show you how your target audience should look like, what your ad copy needs to say, what your image needs to look like/say, how to keep your cost above waters, and much more of the tehcnical know hows to make your campiagn POP.

NOTE: Even though you can soley run what is called a “content campaign” on Instagram itself, much of what you’re goung to hear me refrence to are Facebook Ads, and that’s becuase most of the time, the work can be don through them.

So Let’s jump on in!

The 6 Most Fundamental Steps To Running Your Instagram Ad.

I know where you are right now, It’s dark, the door will not open, but somehow you’re phone or a lighting device is right there next to you. Go ahead, turn on your flashlight, and what do you see? Just a glimmer of light, you’re still cringing your eyes to see what’s in front of you, under you, and how to get from where you are to the light switch. 

That’s what running an Ad for many people seems to feel like, even just an ad in general. But let me reassure you, once you turn on that switch, the door is right in front of it. Are you ready to wipe that fear out the window?

KEY #1. Reasearch. You’ve probabbly adding value to your marketplace with content, whether that be your blog, a youtube video, your eccomer store, etc. But the very first thing you have to do is research what your audience wants and needs, but more so what they want. We’re emotional by nature, and people love emotional attachement, facts tell, stories sell.

More then just researching what your adueince craves for, you have to research what your competitotrs are doing in the same industry. I’m telling you to go find inspiration.

Is there someone in your insutry that you see, and there cotnent just looks amazing, and when they run an ad, the image, their copywrite, message just is UHH Flawless?

Go model that. 

Like for Example: Going back to running my Penetrex Pain relief cream, I knew that I needed to model someone who was into herbs and essential oils. So I did just that, I focused on research advertisements with natural remedies, and I thought I hit the jackpot once I learned how to do it right.

Here are places where you can start searching in right now:

KEY #2 Select A Campaign adjective.

Are you trying to run an ad to get engagement, traffic over to your blog, or for sales? Take note of what your goals are. Everytime I run a campaign, whether it be facebook, Snapchat, or Instagram, I always start with engagement. Engagement post leads to more interaction on the ad, and once you get enough likes, comments, and or shares on the ad, then you can run yourself a traffic campaign for more click through, and then focus on conversions.

All this is predicated on what you’re trying to show others. Is it an ad on getting them to read your blog post? Interact with the image/video/story, or if you have a product you’re ready to push out?

So If I were you, in 2019, the way an ad is supposed to run is from Engagement > traffic >Conversions. 

KEY #3: Targeting:

Now, you want to select what group of people you are trying to get attention from. Are they in the U.S, age 18-35, a household income of $120,000 a year, are they interested in sports, not, etc.

STEP 1: If you’re running a brand new never before seen ad, after selecting Engagment, you’ll then want to setup your targeting.

STEP 2: 

STEP 3:

KEY #4: The Creative

You’ve done your ressearch, selected a campaign objective, selected an audience, and now you have to create your ad. Do you want to have automatic Placements, do you want to edit the placements so they show up just on Instagram and not Facebook,etc?

 And you’ll also come up againast either using a video, a story, image, carousel.

Now this step can be tricky for most people, because they think they have to be on the Instagram Platfrom to run an Ad. Ther eis a way of doing so that I’ll go into and show you briefly, but first…

Do you ever notice like minutes after you post your picture on Instagram, and it begins to get likes, and you go back to look at it, there’s a message on top of your picture?

And it reads something like “this post can reach many more people”. Well if you haven’t, that’s about the right look of it. If you pressed share, it’ll take you to a page where you can set your budget, and press apply.

This is what is called a Photo Ad.

You know all that hard work content with an image you posted on Instagram? You can reach millions of people within a click of a button.

With a photo add, this allows you to share your story, showcase your blog post content, your products/services through inspiring images. Half the work of needing to go out and find an image to run a campaign has been done.

Here’s an exmaple of thow that will look like:

Video Ads: 

Are you kidding me? How is video becoming the #1 source of consumed content? Well it is, and you could be losing lots of attention and conversions if you’re not using video ads.

Time spent watching Instagram video goes up just about over 80% per year, EVERY year! What does that mean for you? People are ready to eat at your videos as they are scrolling through their news feeds.

Story Ads

We’re not even talking about Ads here when I say that if you’re not using Instagram stories in general, to promote your brand and bring value to your marketplace on a daily basis, you’re losing. You should be at least posting 6-10 times a day on Instagram stories, if not more.

But when It comes to ads, we are a little more limmited, because we’re dealing with our hard earned money, it’s a whole differnet number on ROI we’re talking about here, and not ROIC – Return On Invested Content.

How they work:
Imagine yourself clicking on one of your followers stories, Woah Alisha has a great point on Incresing your Real Estate value on your property, and then about a seconf after, you’re taken to an unfamiliar terriory…

You’ve just seen an ad apppear. After that ad ends, you’re onto your next followers story, and so forth.

As with the other Instagram Ad formats, you can select how often your audience will see your story ads.The awesome thing about running an Instagram ad is that you can have a higher success rate with your “limited time only” “act fast now” campaigns becuase Instagram is setup to show your stories for 24 hours. After that its gone.

And if you’ve checked out the instagram stories feature, you’d know that you can be as creative with your messagin as you want, so go ahead and add even more of your personal message to your promotional offers and or ad goal you’re trying to send across.

Carousel Ads

No I’m not talking about going to an actual physcial carousel, there is this feature that most people running ads tend to skip over called Carousel ads. With this style, it will allow you to add multiple images or videos to an ad, and your user can swipe across to see them all. The advantage of using this feature is that you can:

• Share a multi-part story
• Add more offers to your ad
• or to dive deeper into your prdocut/service

I’ve used carousel ads on multoiple occasions for promoting my own product, in the image format.

Great, But How Do I get Setup?

I wanted to share with you the body of running an ad on Instagram, but now let me share with you how to get the technical details setup.

To create Instagram Ads, you’ll need to be connected to a facebook business page account, which will allow you to use Facebook Ads Manager.

By doing this, you’ll get the best of both worlds, running ads on Facebook to Instagram, and Soley running ads on Instagram.

If you already have a facebook business account here is how to get it connected to your Facebook Manager:

1. Go to business.facebook.com
2. Click on Create Account
3. Enter your desired name for your Business, select the primary page, and now enter your name and work email address.
4. Enter the rest of the fields accurately
5. Authorize one or more of your ad accounts to use the Instagram account, check the box next to each and click Save changes.

That’s it! You’re ready to Rock and Roll!

How To Run An Instagram Aad From top to Finish From Facebook Ads Manager

There are two ways to run an Instagram Ad from Facebook when gettng stared, you can either select quick reation or Guided Creation.

Guided Creation is great for begginers and you need an easy to follow guide, which I will focus on moving forward.Once you have your experience and you know what’s working and what’s not, then quick creation can come in handy.

If you’re already familair with running ads on Facebook, this will be a complete breeze! I’m going to show you what you just learned up above, but I’m going to add more specific information from how I’ve been properly trained to run ads.

Step 1: Choosing Your Objective.

You’re going to be bombarded with so many campaighn Objectives, everything from:

• Brand awarenss
• Reach
• Engagement
• Traffic
• Conversions
• Video Views
• And then some

Hardly ever does the brand awareness, or reach gets used. I’ve used both but they are not really effective, and plus the other campaigns are just as and even more effective. But as a starter, go for the Engagement first. 

STEP 1: Select Campaign Objective

STEP 2: Name your campaign. After you’ve selected your campaign objective, just below that will have a default campaign name like “engagement”. Change that to your match what you’re running. Like for example:

Your Specific Product/service/blog & the date is sufficenet enough. Make sure its specific so you don’t have to crawl back through all your ads and get los finding it.

2. Identify Your Audience. After you click continue, you’ll be taken to the “Pot of Gold” page as I like to call it, or in other words, where you define your audience, ad placement, and budget. People can get this one part singly handly wrong and throw off their whole campaign, and I’ll show you how.

This is my mentor likes to call it “Where the profitable advertisers set themselves apart” – Kevin David. So are you ready to create some art or what?

You’ll be offered so many options at first, but that’s ok, since the more th ebetter, so you have a greater opportunity to narrow it down. More in this case is not overhwleming, but better(and most people get very overhwelmed by what to do).

As you’re selecting your location, I would target third world countries at first, becuase the whole point is to get engagement on your ad like comments, likes, and shares. You need to build what is called “social proof”, and I would try to target people who have liked my page or have come to it at least(check google analytics, or if you have your FB pixel, look at that).

They are more likely to engage with your post, and I’d use India as one of the destinations since it is SO much easier, and engaegemnt goes up the roof. Check out my ad:

STEP 2: Check Audience Insights Tool. Most people wil never even check what is called the Audience Insight tool Facebook has. Or some do, but never use that simoltuenesly with the Targeting from above. At this point if you haven’t already, go to your facebook ad business tab and select Audience Insights:

And on the next page you can select what I’ve shown you:

Now, you can select “People connected to your page” but most of the time you want everyone on Facebook, and since we are doing Engagement post you want everyone(and it applies to every other campaign objective as well)

STEP 3: Select your demographics, location, interest. Now I might make a video seperately that shows you how specifci you can get with this tool but for now we’ll continue one. Have this page open as well as the page from STEP 2 above that we selected India, Canada and Croatia on. If you run out of interest or need more ideas you can use the audience tool to get more ideas.

So for example, if under interest, I click Social Media Marketing, I can take that and add it to the other page you have opened up, and press enter. After you do so, click on suggestions

See how after I typed in my interest, I clicked on suggestions? This will give me more ideas. If you run out of Ideas this is a good way of coming up with more interst.

Just above the interest section is an age tool. I’d leave that as it is for this campaign.

4. Ad Placements:

Now this is where most people get it wrong. They think they should leave their ads on automatic placement. At first it might be great for Facebook to manage your bidding on what is working best, but they are in the business of making money from you.

Rather than selecting Instagram, and Facebook Placements, limit it to one. In this case since we’re advertising on Instagram, we want to just focus on that.

Hit on edit placements:

1. Deselect everything except Instagram news feed.

I’ve deselected Facebook Placements avove, and all else, EXCEPT kept Instagram Feed Selected. Also, keep an eye on your Audience Size, you want it usually to be in the middle of the green but to the right is just fine since our objective is to reach more people.

5. Select Your Budget.

This can get tricky, becuase sometimes we hesitate to put even a dollar, and some of us go for the big shot, thinking more will get you better results. I’d go with placing $5. You don’t need anything more or less. This is a good way to run your ad, and the point is not tp always use up the full amount per day, which sometimes doesn’t.

Set a time. 2-3 days is good enough for an engamgement post. Using on average $20-$30 for an add is respectable for 2-3 days. After a day and a half, keep an eye on your ad and see if people are engaging with it. If you’re not getting reactions, there couple be a couple reasons:

1. Your interest is too narrow or your ad is not specific to them

2. Your Ad creative, which I’ll show here in a second

Now onto creating your ad

5. Create your Ad(The Ad creative).

Are you ready for the fun part to begin!?

Here you can select your images, video format, carousel, etc(as We talked avbout earlier). Make sure to add a description, and for an engagement post you will not get a headline option, but for every other objective you will. 

So now select your button. I usually go with Learn More. Here’s a tip too, most people don’t click the learn more button, so put a link in the description, those have more click through rate.

If you have a facebook pixel, at the bottom make sure it is turned on.

And Thats it! Make sure to submit your work with the bottom green button.

What About Other Ad Objectives?

Since we just did one for begginers, I’ll talk about what the other ones are that follow and how to make little changes to the ad you ran from above.

Traffic: After you get engagement from those so few 2-3 days, then you can make a duplicate of the engagemt ad and run it again but this time through a traffic objective. A traffic objective will target more people with an interest in clicking to your affiliate link, your blog post, and more importatnly to get them to sign up for your email list.

Selecting your audience:

Now here you can start to utillze the audience insight tool more and figure out who your actual group of people you want to target. So I can say I want people in Washington, who are interested in Social Media Marketing, and use the audience tool to know which age limit is most shown. Select that one.

If you’re objective is to get people on your email list, do this. Everything else applies.

Offer them something for free in exchange for their email here.

Conversion: Now you’ll want to make sales right? This is where the beauty of conversion campaigns come in. After you run your traffic campaign, niow duplicate that one but for the Conversion objective.

Just like in a traffic campaign, you’ll want to narrow your audience even more. You should still be in the green zone with the broad audience in facebook manager. But utilize the audience insight tool to know exactly which age, which interest, and pages people go to.

The page that seperates most people from others is this one below:

The page likes will show you exactly what people follow on Facebook or Instagtam. So If I decided I wanted to use Coca-Cola, I can plug this into my other tab:

fffYou see how I still have social media marketing, but now I hit the “narrow further” button and added Coca-Cola.

I know how an audience in washington, age 24-35, male, interested in scoial media marketing, and have to like coca-cola. Now I know the coca-cola part is obsurd, but keep in mind this is just an example.

And to the right of my screen i have to watch my audience. Usually with conversions it will be a lot smaller like 2-5,000 people give or take, becuase you are narrowing in on your aduinece by this point better.

More Tips

• You can use your phone to run a content post straight from Instagram
• Use hashtags
• Create capturable content/text
• Speak as if you were speaking to just one person
•