Advertising on Instagram is a lot easier than you might think. 

In fact, the ability to parlay Instagram account content to your Facebook page or create various Instagram ad formats makes it even easier.

You just need a little bit of guidance to reap big rewards on your Instagram advertising strategy. 

In this article, we're going to help you learn how to run Instagram ads and create brilliant ad campaigns using some of the newest ad features. 

What are Instagram ads?

Instagram ads are a way to amplify your brand through creating striking, algorithm-backed campaigns that reach your target audience and then some. Creators or business accounts can create ads or boost existing posts already getting organic reach. 

Plus, Instagram ads offer opportunities to reach people through every content type on the platform and any of the Meta platforms. 

How does Instagram advertising work?

Instagram advertising works by using Meta's data powerhouse to target specific audience networks with your ads through DMs, posts, Stories, Reels, or Live. 

You choose an ad set, which is where you define your audience, budget, schedule, placements, and bidding strategy within a campaign. You create ads, and then let the eye-catching content be carried off by the algorithm, where it ends up where it's most likely to perform well. 

But let's focus on that algorithm, because there's critical information behind the curtain.

Advertising on Instagram: The ad auction

Traditional television or print advertising focuses on placement. Brands would pay top dollar to choose which commercial break, page, or quadrant their ad appeared in, guaranteed. 

Meta does things differently by running ad auctions. Every ad within an ad set competes against one another for individual users based on: 

  • Bid amount: This is not the same as a budget. Through ads manager, you'll set a daily or lifetime budget (more to come on that) and select how you want to bid for ads. This can be done manually (not recommended for beginners) or through Meta's algorithm. 
  • Quality of the ad: A measurement of how well-made and engaging an ad is, based on overall design and viewer interaction potential.
  • Ad relevance to the selected audience: An evaluation of how closely your ad aligns with the interests and behaviors of the audience defined in your ad set.

The highest total value wins the ad auction. This process repeats for every ad users see, potentially billions of times a day. 

What this means is that big-name brands can't "buy their way" to the best placements. However, larger budgets will give a brand more stamina to compete in ongoing auctions. 

For those looking to maximize Instagram ad costs, focus on the quality of the ad and the relevance factors as much as the ad set and budget.

Instagram ad types and formats

Forget the standard concept of ads being 30-second commercials or newspaper print. Ads on Instagram offer versatility, creativity, and measurability. 

Image ads

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but in the world of Instagram ads, it's worth a thousand opportunities. 

Image ads showcase a single, bold visual or infographic that stops people from scrolling. Perfect for product highlights, big events, or brand building, they make a statement in a single photo. 

While Meta once had a 20% rule limiting the amount of text on the screen, that was done away with a few years ago. However, best practices still state that the 20% rule makes for the best viewing. 

Video ads

From slight movements of animated text to slick video ads, vertical to square to horizontal, video advertising opportunities on Instagram can keep scrolling audiences engaged. 

Depending on the placement of the Instagram ad (Stories, Reels, feed, etc.), you have anywhere from one second to 60 minutes. 

Debating between video ads and image ads? You should know each aspect of Instagram has its own algorithm and purpose, so mix it up! 

When the size limits of an image ad just aren't enough, consider a carousel ad. It's also a way to avoid choosing between video ads or image ads because you can use both! 

As of early 2025, organic carousels in your Instagram feed can have up to 20 cards, doubling the previous limit that can show up in users' feeds. However, carousel ads are still limited to 10 cards. Keep that in mind if you post a 20-card carousel and later want to boost the post. 

Use carousel ads to showcase various products, "reveal" the details of a panoramic photo, or mix multiple images with infographics. Add in any creative ideas you have to see what engages viewers. A carousel ad is a scrollable ad that lets you upload 2-10 images or videos that users can swipe through. They work especially well when you're advertising a new product or when you want to tell a story that boosts clicks and conversions. 

Stories ads

Instagram story ads are vertical, full-screen iterations that get placed between users' Stories. It's a fun option, with creative stickers that can help engagement soar. 

Unlike their organic counterpart, advertising on Instagram stories can last more than 24 hours, depending on your budget. In fact, the suggested run is seven days for maximum reach. 

Another benefit of Instagram story ads is that you can use images or videos. The video limit is up to 60 minutes (not a typo – minutes)! 

Reels ads

When you want to make a splash with video, consider Instagram reels ads. These short-form video ads get placed in the reels feed. As your target audience scrolls through followers' Reels, they'll see ads as they swipe through. 

While organic Instagram reels can be up to 90 seconds long, Reels ads have a 60-second limit.  

You’ll want to design your reels ads to get maximum viewing time, which matters because it raises your "relevance score". A higher score means lower overall costs for your Instagram ads because you'll get higher priority placement. 

So, you'd much rather have people soak in a full 10 seconds of a 10-second Instagram ad than only watch 15 seconds of a 30-second ad. 

Explore ads

For a visual, open your Instagram app and tap the magnifying glass icon in the bottom menu. The grid before you is the Explore page. You'll see that everyone's Explore page is curated based on their interests. 

Ads appear on Explore in one of two ways. First, Explore page ads are a separate category from all the others, and you can create them accordingly. Second, standout reels might get featured in the Explore feed. 

Shopping ads

You know how sometimes you see an advertisement and feel like the internet is reading your mind? That's the potential power of an Instagram shopping ad. 

An Instagram ad campaign centered on shopping will place your product on your target audience's Explore page, reels, feed, or stories. Another option is creating shoppable posts by using product tags souped up with an ad boost. 

Creating shopping ads means having a Commerce Manager account that's approved and filled with products. Look into collection ads, which are like carousel ads, only they focus on a main slide and then additional product images. For example, you might have a new product line for spring and want to showcase shoes, jewelry, and hats under "accessories." 

Need some inspiration? Look through the Instagram ads library to see other professional Instagram account ads.

Essential elements needed to create Instagram ads

When you get the budget for your Instagram account, it's tempting to dive right in and create your first Instagram ad. However, let's walk through how Instagram ads work and some important Meta terminology. 

Advertising on Instagram terms to know

  • Meta Business Suite - Manage Facebook business page and Instagram accounts, schedule posts, boost posts, track ads, and monitor messages in one place.
  • Meta Ads Manager - Manage Facebook page and Instagram accounts, schedule Instagram posts, track paid posts, and review manual placements or ad campaigns.
  • Meta Commerce Manager - Sync product catalogs, track sales, and manage Instagram and Facebook Shops for e-commerce needs.
  • Meta Audience Insights - See how your ads perform through audience demographics, interests, and behaviors to refine Instagram ad targeting and campaign strategy.
  • Meta Events Manager - Set up and track conversion events on your website using the Meta Pixel or custom conversions.
  • Meta Creative Hub - Design, test, and preview Instagram ad creatives; collaborate with teams on mockups and ideas.
  • Meta Business Partners - Managing complicated campaign objectives? Consider tapping into the resources of Meta Business Partners.

What is Meta Pixel? Meta Pixel (formerly Facebook Pixel) is a piece of code you add to your website that helps you see what visitors are doing – clicking buttons, browsing pages, or making purchases – so you can fine-tune your Instagram advertising. (Share this with your website developer to make it happen).

Step-by-step Instagram ads set up

First, ads on Instagram only work on professional accounts. That means either a business or creator account – any option but a personal account. Start from scratch or switch to a professional account through the Instagram app settings.

If you have a Facebook business page for your brand or business, connect the two during setup.

Second, download Meta Ads Manager from the app store. You'll also have access to the desktop or laptop version. It might be easier to set up your Instagram ads manager from the wider screen. While you're there:

  • Set up your payment method via credit card or PayPal. This funds your ad campaigns.
  • Adjust the Meta business settings to add access and permissions for others on your team.
  • Click through the various sections on the right vertical menu. Let the system guide you through the "how-to" before you run ads for the first time.
  • Thoroughly review and adjust all the Advertising Settings.

Third, if you have a website, secure it and your brand by verifying your domain. Go to the Meta business settings and select Brand Safety > Domains. Add your domain and follow the verification prompts.

Finally, consider working with a Meta Business Partner like Brandwatch to tap into third-party resources. Whether you're looking for collaborative partners, social listening, publishing help, or enhanced advertising on Instagram tools, we can help. 

How to create effective Instagram ad campaigns

Now that you're ready to get started with Instagram advertising, let's start working on a new Instagram ad campaign.

Define your objectives

While "I wanna go viral and make a lot of money" sounds like a great objective, we need practical, tangible, measurable steps to get there.

Align your objectives with the options from the Meta Ads Guide.

  • App Promotion - "I want more people to download my mobile app and increase app engagement."
  • Awareness - "I want to introduce my product or service to my target audience."
  • Engagement - "I want to boost engagement through comments, messaging, shares, or likes."
  • Leads - "I want to collect contact information for potential customers to enhance outreach."
  • Sales - "I want my products to sell."
  • Traffic - "I want my Instagram ads to attract people to my website or a specific landing page on my site."

The next step is choosing the conversion location. That means defining where ad placements will send people, such as engagement with the ad, clicks to your website, app promotion downloads, or messaging.

Once you know the conversion location, you'll see the options that can appear in the call to action button. For example, if "sales" is the objective of your collection ad and you want the conversion location to be your website, you'll have options like "Get Offer" and "Book Now."

Avoid trying to win all the categories listed above. Initially, it might make sense to want a 20% increase in awareness. Then, consider setting measurable goals for traffic and engagement, followed by sales and leads. It's smart to re-evaluate your objectives every one to three months.

Identify your target audience

Once your campaign objective is determined, you'll pair that with your target audience demographics.

While age range, location, income, and family structure matter, your dream demo should also include interests, hobbies, and lifestyle. Aim for those who are most likely to want or need your products/services and develop brand loyalty. 

When you start setting parameters for your Instagram advertising, you'll be able to manually set these demos. However, Meta Ads Manager can also Advantage Detailed Targeting. Essentially, that means you run ads powered by the algorithm, not specific set parameters.

Choose the right ad format

Now that it's time to create ads, choose between images and videos. 

Image ad types work best for showcasing single products, event details, jaw-dropping photos – anything that stops someone from scrolling and encourages a comment or click. Focus on Instagram posts, feed, carousels, collections, and story ads. 

Video advertising on Instagram fits into any of the ad types. However, put special focus on reels and Explore, especially if awareness and engagement are top objectives. 

Meta makes ad formats easy to create and preview. The Ads Guide provides the ideal specs for every type of ad set; just be sure to select Instagram from the drop-down menu when choosing the format. From there, Meta's creative hub allows you to create a mockup before you run ads.

Write engaging copy

The text above, below, and around your Instagram ads need to be as attention-grabbing as your visuals. It's worth considering a brand and style guide so everyone who writes for you sticks with the same branding.

The Ads Guide is a great place to learn how to write in Ads Manager. It clearly details length limits and best practices for headlines, body copy, and product descriptions, even noting when text becomes truncated.

Some things to focus on when writing stand-out copy:

  1. Talk to your target audience. If you're focusing on yoga for beginners, avoid writing Vrksasana when Tree Pose will resonate more.
  2. Less is more. Instagram users scroll fast, and your message needs to be clear and to the point, not confusing. Brevity and clarity reign.
  3. Encourage engagement. It's not enough to stop scrolling; you want users to start tapping and typing with likes, comments, and click-throughs. Use the CTA function on ads when available, but encourage engagement beyond that.
  4. Create a compelling headline. While viewers can't always see your ad's headline, it's well worth creating a short headline just in case. It needs to be brief and describe where your prospects will be visiting. Keep it under a few words to maintain clarity and drive action. 

The Instagram ads library comes in handy here, too, as you can see how years' worth of ads were written. Inspiration awaits.

Add your website URL with UTM parameters

Especially if your end goal is to drive more traffic to your website, you need to add your website URL to your ad. It's essential. 

For those using marketing automation software, you'll need to put together a unique tracking URL with UTM parameters. Otherwise, you won't be able to track the conversions and traffic you're generating from your ad. These tracking parameters help you see exactly which ads are performing best in your analytics tools. 

Remember that Instagram only lets you add one link at a time to your profile. If you're using your ad (and thus your link) to drive traffic to your website, don't forget to tell people where they can find your link. Direct them to the link in your bio as part of your call to action strategy. 

Develop a hashtag strategy

You could develop your very own hashtag for your next Instagram ad campaign. The purpose of a hashtag is to improve content discovery.  It's simple to make your hashtag. But it's a lot harder to make an Instagram hashtag that people use and engage with. 

Keep it simple and keep it short, maybe three words max. The last thing you want is a hashtag that's already been used elsewhere. It needs to be related to the brand, too, just like Coca-Cola's iconic #ShareACoke campaign. 

Your hashtag needs to be branded, short but sweet, memorable, and included in your Instagram ads. Once people start interacting with your hashtag, be sure to interact with them back. This helps to create awareness and excitement around your campaign. 

Set a budget and schedule

So far, we haven't spent a dime on Instagram ads, but now it's time to focus on how much of an ad budget to forecast. 

Meta ads manager offers two types of financial management. You'll choose from a daily or lifetime budget. 

  • A daily budget sets a specific amount of money to spend every day starting at midnight in your account's time zone. These ads are ideal for long-term advertising on Instagram but with the flexibility to adjust and scale the ad budget based on daily metrics.
  • A lifetime budget isn't as much of a commitment as its name might imply. Consider a lifetime budget when there's a designated length of time for an ad campaign objective, such as a sale or new product release. 

When scheduling ads, Meta Ads Manager will show you the most active times for your preferred platform. These times can vary between Facebook pages and Instagram accounts. Feel free to buck the trend and choose specific times. 

The lifetime budget campaigns will be a little more plug-and-play since Meta will optimize spending based on audience activity. You won't spend more than your ad budget for the campaign objective, but the daily amounts might differ. 

Optimize delivery pacing and bidding

When deciding your budget, you also need to optimize your ad delivery. You can go for link clicks, which means Instagram will use its algorithm to get you the most clicks to your web page for as low a price as possible. Alternatively, you can go for impressions, which means your ad will be shown as many times as possible within budget. Or you can go for daily unique reach, which aims to display your ad to as many unique users as possible for your money. 

Then, you need to decide whether to manually or automatically set your bid amount. If you go for manual, you can decide on a maximum price you're willing to pay for link clicks. Go for automatic, and the algorithm decides for you. If you set your bid manually, you can try to outdo a competitor by going for a higher than suggested bid. 

When should you use automatic bidding? It's appropriate to use it when your audience is rather big and you don't have a lot of competition. On the other hand, if your audience is small and the competition is fierce, you might want to use manual bidding instead. This prevents any risk of you bidding too high as well. 

Whatever your bid is, it needs to be based on the value of a conversion for your business. Remember that Instagram doesn't know what this is, only you do. That said, it's also important to note that not all audiences will offer the same value. You'll want to adjust your bids depending on the audience you're targeting. 

Finally, you need to decide whether to show your ads throughout the day (standard) or whether to quicken the pace of delivery (accelerated). 

Run A/B testing on Instagram ads

With all of these steps, it might feel like you're expected to be an advertising guru to get any traction with Instagram ads. However, tools are available to test your content in various formats or styles, a process called A/B testing. 

Pick from new ads, existing ads, or ad sets to send two versions out into the Instagram universe and see which one targets the objective better. 

Some ad examples for A/B testing might be: 

  • Seeing if a new sunscreen with high SPF gets better results from moms or dads.
  • Compare click-through rates of a fitness app, with one ad offering a free trial and another one highlighting 30-day result photos.
  • Testing a piece of jewelry to see if your audience prefers close-up shots of the product or dynamic images showing someone wearing the item.

Let the A/B testing run for a few weeks. In the end, you'll have results that help you better invest your ad spend.

What is the cost of advertising on Instagram?

We all wish we had an insane marketing budget, right? In reality, you need to budget to get the best ROI on Instagram ads. There's not an ideal "sweet spot" for epic results. It's about starting small, testing what works, and scaling up when you see success. 

Daily Instagram ads can start at $1 a day, with campaigns at $5 a day for campaign objectives like clicks, likes, or views. Beyond that, there isn't a set maximum. As we discussed earlier in the ad auction, you can't buy your way to success through IG ads manager. 

Instagram and Facebook Ads Manager will show you expected results when you add in a budget and might prompt suggestions to make more of an impression. It's worth noting that Meta will spend your entire ad budget. Don't put more money into a campaign than you're willing to pay.

Check out our deep dive into the cost of advertising on Instagram compared to other social media platforms. 

FAQs

Is Instagram a good way to advertise?

Instagram is doubling down on creative content and engagement, which almost makes it impossible to ignore the benefits of advertising there. Look for third-party tools like Brandwatch Advertise to help ramp up your Instagram ad game. 

How can I measure the success of my Instagram ads?

Meta Ads Manager is as much about reviewing results as it is about creating and posting ads. Once you're familiar with the layout, you'll see all the metrics to review: ad placement performance, ad relevance score, auction competition, budget and spend, clicks, conversions, cost per result (CPR), click-through rate (CTR), impressions, and reach. 

Is Instagram advertising suitable for B2B businesses?

A million marketers might answer this question differently. We stand at a firm "yes." Given the number of objectives and ad sets to create, it's worth seeing what tracks in the B2B atmosphere for your Instagram and brand type. 

At the same time, test the same type of campaign on LinkedIn or Google Ad formats to see where you get the best ROI or CTR. Just be sure you're doing apples-to-apples comparisons. 

Can I create Instagram ads without Meta Ads Manager?

The simplest way to go around Meta Ads Manager is to boost a post already organically living on your Instagram profile. Beyond that, you can also use third-party tools like Brandwatch Advertise (a Meta Business Partner) to create and monitor ads without the Ads Manager. 

Conclusion

Aside from all the best practices we've discussed in this article, it's important to stay on top of Meta's Newsroom to see what new functions and features are coming out.

In any ad type testing, give it two weeks before you expand or scale back. Experiment with different tools like vertical videos and collection ads. And carefully select the call to action button – little changes can make all the difference.

We also invite you to explore the Brandwatch products that pair perfectly with Instagram ad campaigns.