Instagram may have started allowing advertising in 2013, but it was not until 2015; they began allowing brands and businesses to advertise unlimitedly. But even without the Ads, Instagram is the best social media platform for a business to drive audience engagements. Also, if you are a small business, you are sure to get likes and even a few comments on every post, and it’s all thanks to the 500 million active daily users.

Using Instagram Ads is undoubtedly one of the best ways to ensure your followers and other prospects see your products. One of the reason is that it’s integrated with Facebook’s Ad manager, which allows brands to expand their reach. Moreover, with Instagram Ads, 75 percent of Instagram users take action by visiting the brand’s profile, their website, or making a purchase on the spot.

Also, about half of Instagram users are adult, so depending on your target audience, you might want to leverage it. Here are some of the things to know about Instagram Ads and how to advertise on it to increase the visibility of your business.

Types of Instagram Ads

Instagram has five different Ads you can choose from to run. You can also choose to run all five of them. Take a look at all five ads:

• Photo Ad
• Carousel Ads
• Video Ads
• Slideshow Ads
• Stories Ad

Photo Ad                

Using a photo Ad is as simple as choosing a single image, you feel will depict your business the best and using it to run the ad. It could be in a square or landscape format.

Carousel  Ads

It takes more than an image to make up for a carousel ad. Here you need about two to ten images showing different views of your product so that viewers can swipe through and get better insights into your products.

Video Ads

With the increased time limit for Instagram videos from 15 seconds to 60 seconds, you can now advertise your products using videos. It could also be in landscape or square formats.

Slideshow Ads

These are a series of pictures which plays like a video like a slideshow in iPhones.  Adding texts or videos makes it more fun for your viewers to watch.

Stories Ad

You can choose to advertise using Instagram stories, which could either be a photo or video content.

How to create Instagram Ads

Now you know about the types of Instagram Ads, check out how you can create an Instagram Ad. You can advertise on Instagram with Facebook Ads Manager or with Instagram itself. But for the sake of this post, let’s concentrate on Facebook Ad manager seeing it helps expand your audience reach.

Link your Instagram with your Facebook Page

We assume you are operating an Instagram business account, and you have a Facebook Page. The next thing you need to do is connect it with the Facebook business manager by going to (business.facebook.com) and create an account.

Add your business name first then type your name and business email address which you’ll get prompted to do when you select the “primary” page. Fill the rest of the required fields and feel free to add people to your newly created page.

The next step is to link your Instagram account to your Facebook page. Go to the business settings after clicking on the menu of business manager. You’ll see a drop-down list where you will see the Instagram account. Click on it, and it will take you to a new page where you can add your Instagram login details by clicking on the “Add” button. After inputting your details, click on next.

If you want your ad accounts to use your Instagram account, check the boxes displayed there and click save changes.

Create your First Instagram Ad campaign

The next step after the linking is the creation of an Ads campaign. To begin this process, head over to the Facebook Ads Manager and click create. The next step is choosing how you want to create your campaign, and the two options are the guided creation and quick creation.

The guided creation is for those who are new to anything campaign ads. It is instructional and takes gives you a step by step process. On the other hand, quick creation is for those that have experience creating ads, especially Facebook ads.

If you choose the guided creation, the next step is choosing your ad campaign objective. Choose the one that best suits the need of your Instagram ad. For some, it could be awareness while others will prefer traffic. It all depends on your objectives.

After choosing your objective, you’ll need to name your campaign or leave the default name which would be the campaign objective you selected.

Choose your target audience

The next step is identifying the target audience for your ad. Facebook allows the basic targeting which considers demographics and also detailed targeting which deals with people who have visited your website, watched your videos, and so on.

Select your Ad placements

Go to the ad placement section to decide how your ads will appear. You’ll see two options for ad placement; the automatic and edit placement. Select automatic placement if you want the Ads manager to show it wherever they feel it would perform best. But if you want to control your ads, go with edit ads.

Choose your budget and schedule

In this section, you’ll decide the amount of money you wish to spend on the promotion along with the time limit. You can either choose the daily budget or lifetime budget depending on your overall social media budget.

If you are choosing a budget, be aware that running a budget on Sunday are very expensive. You can get more clarification on how the Ads manager will spend your budget through the optimization and bid strategy options. And for the scheduling, you can decide to run the ads at specific times during the day or continuously.

Create your Ads

Before creating your Ad, it’s a must to choose the Facebook page to associate your ad. Then, from the five formats, you’ll see displayed, choose the way you want your ad to look. We’ve talked about the types above.

The next step is to select the pictures or videos you want your audience to see, write your ad copy, choose your means of payment, get an ad review and click “confirm” to create the Ad. Congrats! You’ve created your first Instagram ad.