With over 1.2 billion active users, Instagram has evolved from a simple photo-sharing app to a powerful social media platform.
A year ago, we discussed Instagram’s potential as a marketing tool and provided a primer on setting up and running your first Instagram advertising campaign.
The Instagram advertising platform has grown since we last updated this guide, with new ad types including Instagram Stories advertisements, which appear between the tales posted by accounts your target customers follow.
To help you make the most of your Instagram campaign, we’ve outlined few of Instagram’s ad formats, along with examples of successful campaigns from both established and up-and-coming brands, as well as recommendations for how to maximise each one.
Picture Ads
Instagram’s original and simplest ad format is photos. Photo advertisements, as you might guess, centre on a single image and include standard ad elements like a headline, body copy, and a clickable URL for further information.
Instagram photo adverts are interspersed with the content of the users’ feeds. Except a “Sponsored” label and a call to action button, they resemble regular Instagram photo updates in every other way.
Photo commercials are simple to make and evaluate since they centre on a single picture. Because of this, they are a good choice if you want to launch and test a number of different ad creatives at the outset of a campaign without investing a lot of effort in designing those ads.
Using photo advertising may be quite effective if you’re selling a visually striking goods, such as a watch, purse, or other piece of clothing.
Instagram photo advertisements, like other Instagram advertising, may be made through the Facebook Ads Manager. It’s easy to create and try out a number of various photo advertisements because you can upload up to six at once.
Ads on a Carousel
Images in a series, or a carousel, are used in a specific type of photo commercial. A carousel ad shows many photos rather than a single static one, and allows viewers to swipe left and right to see the next and previous images.
Carousel advertisements are useful since they allow you to display many images of your goods.
You may boost the relevancy of your ad and appeal to a larger audience by using carousel advertising to showcase the many uses for your product in a single ad space, as is the case with the multipurpose product we’ve used as an example.
The versatility of a carousel ad’s headlines means you can highlight more features and benefits than you could with a single static image ad.
Promotional Slideshows
Ads that use a slideshow format may create an animated sequence of up to 10 photos, allowing you to showcase many images in rapid succession to promote your product or tell a narrative. Slideshow advertisements may be made into dynamic videos by using sound effects and music.
Slideshow advertising are much lighter than video ads. There won’t be any buffering difficulties because they only hold a maximum of 10 frames. They may be made with far less time and money investment than videos.
After you’ve found your best-performing photographs, extending them into a slideshow with more images is a quick, inexpensive, and simple approach to improve your Instagram Advertising campaign without having to create a complete video campaign.
Commercials in Video Form
Instagram advertising centred around a single video are called “video ads,” as you might assume. Instagram’s video advertisements, which were introduced in 2015 as one of the network’s original ad types, have already surpassed the popularity of the network’s traditional photo ads, making up 60% of all Instagram ads.
Real video footage, like the one used in the aforementioned Weight Watchers commercial, or animated GIFs can be used to produce video advertisements. Instagram videos may be up to one minute long, giving you plenty of opportunity to demonstrate your goods in action or make your case.
Video advertisements are superior than picture and carousel advertising because they allow you to see your product in action and provide more information than can be shown in a still image.
The above Weight Watchers commercial provides an actual recipe that may be used as an example of the sort of cuisine that can be prepared while following the Weight Watchers diet.
Video commercials are more effective when promoting complex goods. You are not restricted to just one static image while advertising; instead, you may demonstrate the product’s versatility in a number of contexts and applications.
Creating video advertising is more time-consuming than creating photo ads, so you should save them for later in the campaign. Start your initial Instagram advertising campaign with a few different photo advertisements and then expand on the most successful ones by turning them into videos or GIFs.
Advertising Video Carousels
Video carousel advertising can be made on Instagram, albeit the format isn’t really an ad type. Depending on your needs, video carousel advertising might have a series of individual movies or a combination of moving and still images.
As with video advertisements, video carousel ads allow you to provide more immersive and interesting content than a static image ad. With the carousel style, you may highlight many features of your product in a single advertisement, increasing the likelihood that your target audience will respond.
Commercials on Instagram Stories
In contrast to advertising in the feed, those for Instagram Stories show in the same place as users’ stories. There is no competing material to detract from your ad’s visibility or readability when using the full screen version of Stories advertisements.