Lessons

Lesson Info

Instagram Ads Basics

Instagram is a hugely popular platform that continues to grow everyday, almost one billion active users on Instagram. So if you're not already using it for business, go through the catalog to our other Instagram marketing courses with Sue B. Zimmerman where you can learn a little bit about how to use it organically, but it's a very important place to be if you're running a business or looking to build a social platform out. So Instagram is less distracting and less noisy than other platforms and that's why advertising on it makes sense because of how the user still is involved with the tool. Also, 60% of people say that they discovered new products on Instagram as you can see from my pretty coat over on the wall as well. So people are discovering products and discovering businesses and they are shopping on Instagram. So it's the right place to be. 200 plus million Instagrammers visit at least one business profile everyday. So it makes sense if you're in business to be on Instagram. And...

what makes an Instagram ad different? So if you're here and you're like I have no idea how to do paid ads. I don't do them on Facebook. I don't do them on Instagram, but you know that you have an Instagram account, what makes it different than a regular post is that ads are actually hyperlinked. So someone can click on that ad and be directed to somewhere on the Internet, which is amazing 'cause normally you only have your live hyperlink in your bio. An ad contains an action button on the post if you'd like. So you can have that direct call to action. Shop now, learn more, things like that to make it a little more obvious about what action you want them to take. Ads allow you to target users outside of your followers. So normally when you post organically you're posting out to people that like your account, as well as maybe being explored over in the explore area of Instagram, where today we can talk about targeting anyone, any user on Instagram, which is pretty powerful and I will be talking in depth about targeting in a little bit. Also, ads in your stories can be hyperlinked without 10,000 followers. So if you know anything about Instagram stories, which is a different section in the Instagram app, which is amazing. If you have an Instagram profile and over 10,000 followers, you're able to have that little swipe up call to action inside your stories, but you can also get that action if you put some money behind your stories without having that number of followers. So why do Instagram ads differ from Facebook ads? So if you're coming to this course because you actually are active in Facebook ads and you wanna know why Instagram ads are different, it's mainly about the strategy that you're doing behind the creative. So if you don't know, we set up Instagram ads inside of the Facebook ads manager. So Instagram is owned by Facebook and so the process is very similar. So if you didn't notice where to click it before, we'll point it out. For Instagram ads being different than Facebook ads, you wanna consider the native behavior of the user. So I said it a little bit earlier, people are scrolling in Instagram when they are more calm, when they're laying in bed, when they're relaxing. You're in that different state of mind. So personally, for me, when I'm on Facebook, I'm there to get something done. There's a lot of noise on Facebook. We run a lot of paid Facebook groups, so from the programs that I teach in and I'm going directly to that group to take action and to connect with the community that I wanna connect with 'cause there's a lot of other action going on the newsfeed, where in Instagram, kind of just chilling out. So that's the kind of user that you wanna be in front of because they're more open to seeing your ad. Also, you wanna consider the quality of the standards of the creative on ads. So if you can get away with a little bit of a different level of creative on Facebook, 'cause there's a lot more going on. But on Instagram you wanna make sure that your ads really feel like the high quality that you would put in an organic post. So imagery is so, so important. Also, there are fewer copy components in an Instagram ad than a Facebook ad. So you'll notice in just a few minutes the sections that we sell out. But if you have any experience from like putting a hyperlink inside of a Facebook post before you're hitting post, there's more copy sections besides just a description. So how do you decide if they are right for your business? You want to assess, first of all, your current standing on the platform. Do you have an Instagram account? You wanna make sure that you're active. We are going to be advertising because the ads will link back to this account. So just try and have an overall view of the current standing of your account. Next, you wanna consider your target demographic. So is it right for me to be on Instagram? Is my average customer an Instagram user? And there's tons of information online about male to female ratio. There's a huge international audience on Instagram. So just consider is your average customer an Instagram user 'cause that's who we're targeting. And then also you wanna consider your creative skills or the skills of your team. So if you're not active on Instagram at all and you haven't experienced taking photos for Instagram or developing graphics for Instagram or videos or things like that, just consider where you stand with that creative skill or who you have around with you that can help you get up to that standard 'cause you wanna make sure that the time, energy and money that you put into ads make sense. So the first thing that you have to know is that there are a couple of requirements in terms of doing Instagram ads count. First, you have to have a Facebook Business Page. That's because Instagram ads are run through the Facebook Ads Manager and you get that with a Facebook Business Page. You actually don't have to have an Instagram account, but I would stay it's preferred. The reason why is because when you put out an Instagram ad, if you don't have an Instagram account, it will be like kind of an icon of the profile picture of your Facebook page and it will be the name of your Facebook page, but grayed out. It won't be hyperlinked to anything. And part of what's awesome about putting money behind paid ads is that not only do you get the results that you're paying for, but you get naturally more likes, more exposure, more comments to you account in general. And so if you don't have an Instagram account, then it's not gonna be hyperlinked, then you're missing out on that good stuff. So you wanna make sure that you have this business Instagram profile because you will be hyperlinked and people will get that reach and your name will look the way that you want it to look instead of some dot, dot, dot thing from your Facebook page. Also, you aren't able to respond to comments on your Instagram ads if you don't have an Instagram account. So if your ads are for any kind of engagement, you wanna be able to have that option. They need to be connected. So it's really important that Facebook knows which Instagram account is yours. They can't guess for you. So you have to make sure that you go inside of the back of the settings and log in to your Instagram account one time in your ads manager so that those two things populate. It's a really easy thing to do to connect your Instagram account to your page if you go to settings, which is in the upper right hand corner in your Facebook page if anyone in the online audience is doing it right now. If you hit settings, there's a full menu on the left hand side with a ton of things on your page that you probably didn't even know about, but one of them says Instagram and you just simply click a button, sign in and your Instagram account is connected to your Facebook page. So just do that once if you're ready to dive into this. So where does ads creation start? I've mentioned it a couple of times that we can do things both in the Instagram App and in the Facebook Ads Manager. And they serve different purposes and that's what we're gonna talk about today is at which time should you be in which one. You wanna use the Instagram App if you're looking to get an easy boost out of a high performing post. It's the same kind of boosting that you do on Facebook if you're used to that. But for larger campaigns, digging into the Ads Manager is the right thing to do and so we're actually going to walk through it step by step both. But you have more flexibility in the Ads Manager. Far more flexibility in terms of targeting and that's what's really, really powerful. So now let's get into some specifics here. So if you've never been in Ads Manager at all, the first thing you wanna do is know how to get there. So this is just a little screenshot of my Facebook account menus. You can see how many ad things I'm running. But if you hit this little arrow that is in the upper corner of your Facebook account and hit Create Ads or Manage Ads, it will bring you into the Ads Manager for the first time. You also may have it on the left hand side of your profile if you've been there before and so it will populate there as well. So if you've never been to it, go for it and check out and poke around and try not to get scared 'cause we're gonna walk you through everything. The other requirement besides saying, Morgan, I have a Facebook page. I have an Instagram account. Don't worry I'll go connect to them. Is to learn a little bit about the Facebook pixel and this is something that ends up a little technical, but I think it's important to mention because it's an important part of tracking the results of your ad campaign. So a Facebook pixel is a just a snippet of code that you add to your website or any page that you wanna track. So maybe if it's a landing page builder, like the lead pages or (mumbles) you put that inside each page. And it allows Facebook to measure the effectiveness of your ads and also collect audiences. So it's hugely powerful and it, again, can be installed once on your website. I would highly recommend doing this for targeting and tracking purposes. It's not required. You can still run ads, but if you're looking to have that kind of the results that we're looking to track, I would recommend doing it. And I know this is gonna say silly, simple, stupid, but Google it. It's a really easy thing to check out and do once or to connect with your web designer to do. Google how to install your Facebook pixel. That first link there is a resource from Facebook. They have awesome resources and that will walk you through picture by picture how to get your Facebook pixel installed. Alrighty, so we've danced around it a little bit, but let's look at our first Instagram ad. Just so we understand what an Instagram ad can look like. First you have a photo. This is a photo ad. Or some kind of piece of creative, a video, a carousel in that first section there. The other segment is the Action Button. We can go without a button if you don't want it over the image. Or you can do something that is connected to what you're offering is on the other side such as learn more for this ad about a blog post or shop now, things like that. And then finally we have the Description. So like I said, this is the one piece of copy that we're writing for our ad instead of needing to think of a headline, if you think of a normal Instagram post or a link description, the text that populates when you put a link in a post on Facebook. We just have the description. So it's actually less work if you are thinking about it or a copy is what you're scared of, we just have that one piece there. So far we've talked about how to decide Instagram ads are right for you, what kind of account you should have, where you should go to publish your Instagram ads, the ads manager and in the app.