If you want to attract customers quickly, start a promotion on Instagram. This is an advertising format that allows you to promote stories and posts without creating an advertising account on Facebook.
In this article, we will tell you how to set up a promotion in Instagram correctly and why you need it.
What are “Promotions” in Instagram and what are they for
A promotion is an advertisement of a selected post from the profile in the Instagram feed or promotion of their storis. The main advantage of such advertising is that it is very easy to run. There is no need to go into the targeting settings, create a complex ROK with a bunch of parameters and dance with tambourine around Facebook Ads Manager. Everything is done in Instagram itself.
Advantages of Promotions
CTA-buttons. A button appears at the bottom of the post that, when clicked, takes the user to the destination you set – Instagram’s business profile, Direct posts, or an external resource. Some variants of the buttons allow you to collect leads: mail, name, phone number of the user of Instagram.
Nativity. The fact that the post is advertising is signaled by the small “Advertising” inscription above the post and the button below it, but for the first few seconds such a publication is perceived as just another photo in the feed or storis. Advertising is unobtrusive and there’s no so-called “banner blindness” effect – the post catches your eye anyway.
Increased recognition. Even if people will not go straight to advertising, he can remember the photo or name of your company, and after a while make a purchase anyway. An unusual picture or creative video can have a viral effect. This is a great opportunity to introduce your products to an audience that doesn’t know you. For example, a user might see this post with children’s furniture and want that particular bed. That’s why it’s important to pay attention to the visual.
What you can do with the help of promotions:
- collect applications;
- direct traffic to the site;
- Increase profile coverage and attract new subscribers.
With the help of promotions promote online stores, online services, services, webinars, personal brand, events, specific products, report on discounts and contests.
How to make a promotion in Instagram: step-by-step instructions
To run promotions, the Instagram profile must be linked to the business page on Facebook. You can link your accounts when you first start a promotion or via profile settings – edit profile – page – then sign in to Facebook using your username and password or create a new page in it (or link it to an existing one).
You also need a business Instagram account for advertising. If you’re on personal, you have to go to edit your profile and click “Switch to professional account” at the bottom.
Next, you can start working with publications. There are several ways to start a promotion:
- The “Promotions” button on the page.
- Launch a promotion through “Settings – Statistics.
- The promotion button under the post.
You can also promote storis, read more in the article: How to set up a promo for storis. And today let’s talk about the post.
Find the post you want. We click on the blue “Promote” button right below the photo and move on to setting up the promotion.
Step 1:
Destination
You need to choose a destination – where the user who clicks on the ad will go. This can be a profile, a Direct message, or a website.
Profile
Choose this option if you want to increase the profile’s reach and attract new followers. Under the publication there will be a button “Open Instagram profile” or “Read more”.
It needs to be prepared in advance, so that the user coming from the ad will immediately understand where he is. Make a competent description of the profile and design the page beautifully.
Website
This item is necessary for the promotion of sites and services. By clicking on such advertising, the user will be directed to an external resource. In the settings you need to specify the url.
There are several buttons to choose from, such as “In Store” or “Contact Us”.
Some buttons, such as “Learn More,” don’t just redirect the user to the site – first a form appears with their nickname and Instagram-linked phone number. The form automatically substitutes data from the profile. If the user agrees to send them to you, you also get contacts for your customer base.
Your posts to Direct
By clicking on the post with the destination “Direct”, the person gets into correspondence with you. In such a promotion, a “Send Message” button appears below the post.
Through a private message, you can sign up customers for online consultations and webinars, sell products if you have a small assortment. Think in advance about how you will accept payment in Direct. You can send your credit card or online wallet data to a client in your personal message, or provide a link to your payment acceptance page (for example, from Yandex), or a link to your site where you can place an order.
Step 2:
Choosing your target audience for promotion in Instagram
There are 2 criteria here – automatic targeting or manual targeting. With automatic, Instagram shows ads to people who have similarities with your followers, as well as those who have already visited your profile. With manual, you need to specify your own targeting parameters.
Step 3:
Manual targeting settings
Name.
Think of a name for your target audience, for example, “young moms 20-25”.
3.1 Location.
Select the location of the audience (works if geolocation is enabled on the user’s device). The regional level allows you to specify a specific location, such as Russia. The local level allows you to mark a point on the map, for this function to work geolocation must already be turned on.
Nuances in the regional settings: if you need only the country, specify the country, and if you need a specific city, then first write it, for example, “Moscow”, and then in the drop-down list select the exact location and country. If you first write Russia, and then Moscow, then only Russia will be saved.
If there was an overlap of data, for example, Russia, the city of Moscow – Russia, it will pop up a warning that it is necessary to delete one of the locations.
3.2 Interests
Here we specify the interests of our target audience. It is better to specify a few, to cover as large an audience as possible. When we start writing the word, the system itself suggests options.
And also shows the recommended interests, associated with the selected keyword. We specified the interest “European soccer” and Instagram offered to mark additionally UEFA Champions League, FIFA World Cup.
3.3 Age and Gender
Here we simply specify the age and sex of your CA.
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At each stage, the potential reach of the publication is calculated at once – it is shown at the top.
Next, Instagram once again asks us to choose an audience. If you have created several audiences, they are saved in the settings and later you can choose them for your promotion.
Step 4:
Budget and Duration
Here you specify the daily budget and the number of days of the ad. We advise you to test the promotion first and specify a small amount for a couple of days. For example, $2 for 2 days.
Step 5:
Payment method.
Here you need to link your bank card or PayPal account, from which the money will be deducted for advertising.
After all the settings, click “Create promotion”, and it is sent for moderation. Ads storis set up the same way. The only difference from the post – here you can’t direct users to Direct. You can only link to the site or to the Instagram page.
Step 6:
Statistics
The statistics button is displayed under the post, the same place where we clicked “Promote”. There is the reach, the number of views and clicks, the budget spent.
To stop advertising early, go to the publication statistics, scroll to the bottom and click “Remove Promotion”.
Conclusion
Use Instagram promotions to attract users to your page, collect applications to Direct or promote external resources. This is the fastest and easiest way to run Instagram ads.