Tips For Running a Converting Ad on Instagram

If you’re looking to amplify your business or brand, reach new people, and make more money, running Instagram ads is a smart way to go. According to Statista, in June of 2018, Instagram had reached one billion monthly active users.

If you’re not promoting on social media, then you’re missing out on hundreds of thousands of people and money. Millions of people spend hours of their day every single day scrolling through Instagram, and if you’re not promoting your business or brand through it, you have to jump on it now. Social media marketing isn’t the future, it’s the present.

Running an ad on Instagram is simple, but making sure that people interact with the ad is a different story. Anyone can run an ad, but not everyone can get results from it. You don’t just want to run any ad, you want to run a converting ad.

The question is how do you do that?

What type of ads to run on Instagram

1. Run an ad that won’t make you any money

If you want to run a converting ad, you first have to run an ad that doesn’t convert. I know it sounds contradictory, but trust us on this.

Running an ad that doesn’t convert means that you run an ad on something that only gives value, and doesn’t even require someone to put in their names and emails.

Why do you do this?

You want people to know who you are first. If you run an ad, and nobody knows who you are, then very few people are going to sign up to your email list, buy your product, or enroll in your course. If they don’t know you, they don’t trust you.

You want people to know you first. Once people know who you are, then you retarget them, this time with an ad that has your lead magnet.

But before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s talk about running an ad that’s meant to engage and not convert. When you run this ad, you’re only supposed to share free content. This means running an ad on a video, a blog post, and so one. You want to give value first. This is what gets people to know, trust, and like you.

Make it some of your best piece of content.

What do you do after this?

2. Run an ad on free content that requires someone to input their name and email

Just like the free piece of content that you’ll be running an ad on, you want to make your lead magnet irresistible. Have it be some of your best work. You never want to offer something that you only worked on and believe in half-heartedly because then no one’s going to trust you again. They’ll think, “This person wasn’t so great the first time, so they won’t be any better the second time around.” You want to make a good first impression.

3. Retarget those people with your product

You’ve targeted the same people now, so now that they know, like, and trust you, you can finally run an ad on a product that requires payment. This is where you finally earn back the money that you’ve been spending on ads.

Let’s talk more about the actual ad.

Tips for running a converting ad on Instagram

1. Plan, plan, plan

The first thing you have to do is figure out what your goal is. What’s your business goal?

• Increase traffic to your blog
• Increase video views
• Increase brand awareness
• Grow your email list

The next question that you need to answer for yourself is what is your Instagram ad objective?

• Brand awareness
• Reach
• Traffic
• Post engagement
• Video views
• Conversions
• Lead generation

The final question that you want to ask yourself is what’s your budget? How much are you willing to spend on this ad? You can start off with as little as $5.00 a day, and if your budget allows for more, then obviously, the more you invest in the ad, the better.

You want to consider your cost per conversion, which according to Techopedia is “is a term used in Web analytics and online advertising to refer to the total cost paid for an advertisement in relation to the success in achieving the goal of that advertisement.”

The lower your cost per conversion, the better. Why? Because you, technically, spent less to convert someone.

2. Create a engaging ad

You want people to stop in their tracks when they see your ad. There’s a lot of noise on social media, and if you can get people to stop scrolling, then you have to keep them engaged so that your ad becomes a converting ad.

You have the option of using a photo, a carousel, a video, multiple videos, or even stories (however, we will not be touching on Instagram story ads).

Keep your videos quick and under sixty seconds. Don’t sound monotone, and while you don’t have to be dressed up, don’t look tired and bored. Be excited! Make your video unique, and find a way to add some color so that it really catches someone’s eye.

The copy

You have just a few characters that are visible in your caption before the ‘read more’ option. Use those first few words to fully capture your reader’s attention. Make it strong and powerful. You also want to make sure that you have paragraphs. If you have one giant paragraph, no one is going to read. White spaces are pivotal.

Whether you’re selling a paying product or giving a way a free product, you have to describe it using your best words. Hire a copy writer if you must. These are the words that are going to convince the person reading your ad if they want to click the ad or not. Make it enticing, give away juicy information, and use emojis!

If you’re going to be using pictures that have text on them, then make the text legible and obvious. Aesthetic and neatness counts and does have an impact on the decision that your reader is making.