Instagram offers incredible opportunities for businesses of all sizes to reach their target audiences. But as more and more brands join Instagram and the feed becomes more competitive, it can be harder to stand out.

Imagine being able to reach the specific groups of Instagram users you want to connect with, engage them and convert them into customers?

Well, that’s totally possible!

In late 2015, Instagram opened up Instagram ads. Using the Facebook advertising system, marketers can reach any specific segment of Instagram’s millions of users. And with 400 million people using Instagram every day, Instagram Ads have become an enticing avenue for brands looking to increase engagement (and profits, too). We’d love to help you get started and running with Instagram ads.

Why use Instagram ads?

Since Instagram launched advertising, it has driven more than one billion user actions. And just last year, it more than doubled its advertiser base in six months to 500,000 advertisers.

Why are Instagram ads so popular? Here are a few reasons:

• Audience growth: Instagram is one of the fastest growing social media platforms.
• Attention: Users spend, on average, 50 minutes a day on Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger.
• Intent: A study by Instagram found that 60% of Instagram users say that they learn about products and services through Instagram, and 75% say that they take actions such as visiting sites, searching, or telling a friend after seeing an Instagram post.
• Targeting: Instagram ads uses Facebook’s advertising system, which has probably the most powerful targeting ability. You can specify your target audience’s location, demographics, interests, behaviors and more. You can even target people who have bought from you or interacted with you and others like them.
• Results: According to Instagram, which looked at more than 400 campaigns globally, ad recall from Instagram ads was 2.8 times higher than Nielsen’s norms for online advertising.

All said and done, let’s take a look at 5 important things you should bear in mind when starting an Instagram ad campaign:

1. There are two types of Instagram ads

There are two types of Instagram adverts; both will appear in the feed and story ads. Mobile feed adverts will appear in any users Instagram feeds, much like Facebook’s regular news feed adverts. They can consist of several types of formats.

Including a single image, a video, or carousel ads that use both— and they can be saved like normal posts. These adverts will let you add clickable CTAs that take users to the destination of your choice.

2. There are a number of ad formats to choose from

Instagram’s mobile feed ads aren’t limited to a single image. Your ad could include:

• A single image
• A single video
• A carousel ad, with a minimum of two images or videos that users can scroll through
• A slideshow ad, which is a looping video ad that contains up to 10 images

By having this type of flexibility for your advert you can create a very powerful impact for your potential customers.

3. Maximum video lengths are shorter than Facebook’s

Something you do have to consider when developing adverts for Instagram is that if you are developing video content, you need to consider that Instagram video length are shorter. Which means any marketing material you use needs to be adapted to this.

4. You don’t need to use hashtags

Naturally, when you post anything to Instagram you want to make sure you reach the highest audience, but when you use ads on Instagram it already inputs your audience, demographics and interests so you don’t need to worry about hashtags.

5. High engagement means Instagram ads are worth the cost

Though Instagram adverts may cost more than other platforms, the high engagements make it worthwhile. Instagram organic content consistently has some of the highest engagement rates. This is something to consider when aligning your advertising budget.

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you check out some of our other blogs on various social media marketing elements. Also, make sure you keep up with us on social media, also if you have any more questions you can reach out to us in the comment section below.

Google Analytics

The analytic Tool that most people start with, and for good reason: it’s commanding, it gives highly relevant information and it’s free!

We’d like to add a disclaimer here that we would not recommend this tool for affiliate sites, and we would only use it for blogs or authority sites. Why? Because Google doesn’t like sites looking to only make affiliate sales and you are pretty much handing over the info about your site to them by using this tool.

That aside, this is the go to starter tool for measuring data on your site, and if you are not at least running this on your site, you definitely should be, and we would recommend running it in cohesion with Google Webmaster Tools.

Clicky

Clicky Analytics (located at GetClicky.com) has been making waves in the analytics biz since it was released, and is often the first tool that users migrate over to from Google Analytics.

The key difference here is in the delay of Google Analytics: you get information for the day before whereas the information from Clicky is in real time, which can be essential if you get spike in visitors from some outside source (think the traffic flow from StumbleUpon and other bookmarking sites).

All in all, if you want an overall analytics package which offers access to real time data, we can’t recommend another choice over Clicky at the moment.

Mint

Located at HaveAMint.com, Mint charges an upfront fee of $30 per site, but with no recurring costs afterwards. This definitely beats out other tools that even charge a low monthly rate, if you plan on sticking with Mint, because the long term cost would add up to over $30 after only a year.

Not only does it have this great price incentive, the actual product is excellent, it comes with a really fresh layout, with clean and easy to understand charts that display the info that you need to know.

Mint is largely comparable to the other overall analytic tools on this list that cover a bit of a premium price, but is the only one that features a upfront cost with no recurring fees.

Chruch Analytics

Created by one of the original developers of the Standard Theme Framework,  this analytics tool has one of the most beautiful interfaces that we’ve seen. Priding itself on providing the information you really need without the vanity data that won’t help your site, Church Analytics is a relatively new competitor on the scene, but it is definitely a solid system built by people who know what they are doing.

We like that the navigation (in the dashboard) is really easy to follow, it is important for a new analytics system to be easy to use, as those who might be willing to try it out need to be won over quickly, given the numerous great options out there.

KISSmetrics

KISSmetrics offers a great system for getting to know your visitors, although we would place it more in line for online commerce businesses over blogs.

Not to say that it cannot be used for blogs, especially blogs that have products to offer, and it is especially great to use in conjunction with KISSinisghts, but the tools that it has in place are definitely made for commerce sites, and we would recommend them over other tools for those sites above all else.

KISSmetrics

Open Web Analytics focuses on the simplicity of their tool and the open source nature of it as well. From their own site:

Open Web Analytics (OWA) is open source web analytics software that you can use to track and analyze how people use your web sites and applications.

If you are looking for something free, something effective, and enjoy working with open source software, Open Web Analytics is the way to go. It is easily comparable to Google Analytics, but again, if you like to use open source projects, this is one of the best serious alternatives.

In conclusion…

It is important for you to keep track of your site and your traffic. So find a good analytics tool from one of the above, try it out, measure your success with the information provided, change and tweak if needed, and keep your site moving in the right direction.

The post Running An Ad Campaign On Instagram? 5 Things To Know Before You Get Started! appeared first on Digital Leadership Institute.