Powerful tips and tricks to get the best out of Instagram Ads

S.No	Name
1.	Introduction
2.	Understanding Instagram Advertisement
3.	What is the utility of running Instagram Ads?
4.	Powerful tips and tricks to get the best out of Instagram Ads 2.1 Set the right goals by asking the right questions to yourself 2.2 Do not simply use stock photos 2.3 Using the carousel ad format to its full potential 2.4  Explore the best video practices 2.5 Explore the best story practices 2.6 Pick out the best content for advertisement 2.7 Don’t style it as advertisement – Give it a natural touch
5.	Conclusion

Introduction

Instagram is one of the most powerful tools of marketing in this modern generation. This is due to the fact that there are thousands of influencers, models, actors, famous personalities who are ready to do brand integration. Moreover, Instagram Advertisement helps you market your product/page/brand to millions of people.

There are some basic quantifiers one must look for before investing money for marketing in a platform. The first is the active users the platform has along with the country from those active users. In India, most people use Instagram on a daily basis which makes it a suitable choice for advertisement. There are a total of 1.074 billion users worldwide in 2021, this goes to show that if you master the art of reaching an audience on this platform you are destined for success.

However, one must also pay attention to the age demographic while running advertisements:

This data is very crucial for you as it helps you understand the platform and the market that you are going to approach. When a platform is dominated by Youth, you need to personalise your product or advertisement for them. For instance, Gym equipment and supplements would be of a great interest to this age bracket. 

Understanding Instagram Advertisement

Instagram advertising is an effective method in the modern generation to display sponsored content. Now the crucial part to note here is that, instagram ads are primarily used for brand growth, traffic, increase in the convert rate but it can serve many other purposes. 

One of the best things about advertisements on Instagram is brand recognition. Through a simple paid platform you can hire a professional actor to play in your Ad and through that your brand would start getting recognised. This is why, influencers and actors like Deepika and Ranveer are paid to advertise for brands on Instagram. 

In simple words, Instagram advertisements are mainly of two types: One are the sponsored posts that you engage through Instagram and the second is the collaboration with the influencers to promote your brand. We will go in-depth to help you improve the effectiveness of these methods in the later part of this article. 

What is the utility of running Instagram Ads?

Instagram operates on visual media, you have two options to promote your brand: image or video. This published image is linked to your instagram account so that you can increase your reach and following. This is very powerful as these people will then follow you and then see the content you put out daily. This is a great method to increase brand awareness and also increase your convert rate.

There is no particular right time to start advertising. But in our opinion, a good time to start advertising is when you are ready to step up your game and expand your growth rate because social media is the new big market. There are huge perks to start right now in the advertising scheme.

One of the reasons you should consider this is flexible pricing. There is no fix price and that is the amazing part. It runs on a model of per click system and in lieu of that bids are placed. However, to give you an average idea, you would have to pay somewhere around 20 cents – 2 dollars per click. But, other methods of pricing are also available like cost per mile. You can easily understand their plans and reach out in case of any query to various manuals explaining everything in a simple manner.

The second reason to consider running ads on Instagram is its segmented targeting with a huge number of users. Through this you can target people of different age, location, interests and personalise the product/ad to a particular section that you determine in your marketing strategy.

Powerful tips and tricks to get the best out of Instagram Ads

• Set the right goals by asking the right questions to yourself

The first tip that is the most basic yet effective one. Many brand owners go wrong in their approach, they just want to pay the advertisement price and let Instagram do their job, but this is not it. Instagram requires basic input through which they can personalise this targeting process. So, in order to find those targeting parameters you have to ask the following questions:

• Is my product gender-oriented?
• What is the age-group of the people who can use the product?
• What interests are matching with my product?
• Which location would be the best to advertise the product?

This will not only help you in your online marketing process but can also help you in the offline mode to increase your sales. All you need to do is target all your marketing processes according to these parameters.

• Do not simply use stock photos

Stock photos are free photos that are available on the internet. For instance, you can get an image of a random mobile included in the stock photos. But, this does not mean you go on to use that image in your advertisement and let the description do the job. This will never work and this is why you have two options. The first is to include graphics into your image, this can be done with the help of a professional graphic designer or you can use platforms like canva.com. A good example of such thing is:

The second option is to make a video with real life characters or animated. It can depict a small 15sec attractive ‘hook’ to instantly grab the attention of the viewers.

• Using the carousel ad format to its full potential

Instagram feed is all about swiping up and down and in that moment you can use the carousel ad format to attract the viewer. In this basically you get multiple photos or video tabs through which you can generate a small story. This can help you to get the viewer emotionally invested in your product or brand. This is one of the most effective techniques if it is used right. What you must aim for is to make the customer understand what it is that your brand does and how it can help them. This is always based on the usage of the consumer so you have to make something that convinces them that the product is one that is useful for them. For instance: A low costing chocolate biscuit is a good example, followed by a story of a kid who didn’t have enough money to buy a high-costing biscuit from his pocket money. 

•  Explore the best video practices

This is a fact that videos are far more engaging than a simple photo. However, a bad video can destroy your advertising campaign. There are some particular things that you must keep in mind while making a video. 

• Use the ‘hook’ method

By this point you are wondering how I can use this hook method in the best way manner? Well, it is really simple. It is all about the art of public speaking and to grab the attention of the views the following techniques can be used.

1. i) Begin with a question: Have you ever struggled when your tire got punctured? Well not anymore( This will grab the attention of people quickly if you are into tire business)
2. ii) Humour is your  best friend, it is a known strategy to start with a joke to get the attention of the room

iii) Use sound effects to your advantage: In the previous years Coca Cola published an advertisement of around 10 seconds wherein the first 5 second there was no sound. This makes the user’s attention switch to the advertisement and figure out what it is. This is a brilliant technique that you can also use to promote your brand. 

• Use captions 

Now, one must argue that why is using captions so important that it has to be included in this list? Well, this is for a very crucial reason. You must understand that while using Instagram not all people are comfortable to use audio. Maybe they are scrolling through Instagram in the middle of a meeting. Well for this very purpose you need to have captions so that a person without sound can understand your content.

• Tell them what do next

This is a very subtle thing that many people miss out. When you have displayed your advertisement you must tell the customer what to do otherwise, they will keep the product in mind but will not take any action. Hence, this is your opportunity to call for action. You must include the instruction at the end as to ‘click to buy now’ or something similar to increase your growth. 

• Explore the best story practices

First and foremost is that when you are uploading a story make sure it is not a static image, it has interactive motion text to attract the viewer. Secondly, do not compromise on the quality of the story. Make sure as a brand, each and every media that you publish is of high quality and shows what your brand denotes.

One of the best practices for story publication is to make a small video with a short concept. This will help you to get an emotional connection with the viewer and with that you must also add a call for action. A combination of all of this makes the perfect story for your brand.

Lastly, the best thing while making a story is shoot it in a vertical format. Mobile phones are designed vertically and Instagram runs on the same model. Hence, all the major brands are using vertical stories. 

• Pick out the best content for advertisement

This may be the most difficult task to do when publishing an Instagram ad. How do you choose an advertisement? Do you get a new advertisement made for this purpose? Do you pick any of your old posts? Well, there are two approaches to this. First, you can get a new post made for the specific purpose of publishing it as an advertisement with a call for action. The second approach is to go back to your Instagram and check which post has the most interactions with the viewers. This way you know that customers have loved this particular post and now you can publish the same to attract more customers.

This works on the rationale that you have already explored, and promotes what is working for you. After this, people will connect to your Instagram and start consuming your content on a daily basis and help you in the process of the growth of your brand. 

• Don’t style it as advertisement – Give it a natural touch

This is one of those subtle tricks that is going to work wonders for you. Many people while advertising use the ‘old advertisement style’ photos and are not giving it a natural touch. What this means is that you don’t need to style your ad, you can make it a casual video between friends or a million other things and just display your brand and connect it to the story. This works as people have a tendency to skip ads. How many times have you skipped Youtube Ads without even listening to the second word they say? Well, this is what we are aiming to avoid here.

Conclusion

Instagram usage is on the rise and many people are promoting their brand on this platform. However, to do it right you need some experience and in this article we have explained even the slightest to help you succeed.  With the combination of all these tips you are all set to begin on your remarkable Instagram journey. These are presented in no order of preference and can be followed in combination or once at a time.