How Much Do Instagram Ads Cost?
The real question might be: How much should you pay to advertise on Instagram? There are probably as many answers to that question as there are small businesses advertising on Instagram.
The key is to make sure you’re getting a return on your investment, and to calculate your ROI you need to have a clear understanding of what your goals are and how much that’s worth. Is your goal to get visitors to fill out a lead form on your website? If that lead is worth $100 to you, then you know exactly how much you should spend to get it.
You can set a number of goals for promoted posts and ads, such as driving traffic to your website, call or visit your business, increase followers, increase reach and generate leads. You should set a goal for each promoted post and use Insights to track the goal and assess whether your post helped reach your goal. You can then use this to refine your strategy for your next ad.
Paid advertising on Instagram isn’t necessary for every small business. Many experts recommend instead spending your time focusing on organic engagement—the likes and comments you get naturally by posting compelling content—which could boost your placement in followers’ feeds without a cash investment.
The smart small businesses avoid paying for sponsored Instagram posts—which inherently are trusted less than an organic post—and instead focus on content that is interesting, emotional or useful enough to have viral lift on its own. Posts like this are free, shared more than sponsored posts, and have more credibility.
How to Create Instagram Ads for Your Business
It’s easy to create promoted posts from within the Instagram app. Tap on a post that you’ve already shared on Instagram and tap “Promote” underneath the photo. You can select an advertising objective—such as getting website visits, or getting calls to your business—which will help you pick a call-to-action button to accompany your ad.
Next you need to select the targeted audience for your ad. Instagram can suggest targeting for you, or you can manually pick an audience based on age, gender and location.
Then you enter a budget for your promotion and decide how long you want it to run. Tap “Promote” to confirm your ad. After your ad is approved, you’ll see “Insights” on your notifications page; from here you can follow the status of your promotion and see how it is performing.
You can create more advanced ad campaigns in Facebook Ads Manager or Power Editor. From the Manage Ads tab, you can create new campaigns, choose an advertising objective and manage your budget in more detail.