If you know that your target audience is active on the platform then Instagram Promotions are a fantastic way to advertise your business.

Promoting Instagram posts enable businesses to get discovered by new, conquest audiences who don’t already follow them – thus increasing engagement, followers and ultimately sales.

Conquest audiences can be targeted based on their location, interests and much more to really make the most of the marketing budget.

It’s important to note that you can only run an Instagram promotion if your account is set to a business profile.

 

Establish Your Presence On Instagram

Think of your Instagram profile as a digital storefront and establish your presence organically on the platform to reach your target audience, build brand awareness and develop a rapport with existing and potential customers.

Businesses are successful on Instagram when their content is authentic, so it’s essential that your profile reflects the look, feel and voice of your brand.

Be sure to include key information such as your website, contact details and an interesting bio. Your profile picture should represent your business, ideally featuring your logo.

 

Post Regularly

Consistency is key so businesses must post regular, quality content to their Instagram profile to help build a following and a fab looking grid. When it’s time to run an Instagram ad, and viewers click on your profile to learn more about you, you want them to see any recent posts about your products or services.

The more often you post, the easier it will be to establish credibility and share content that appeals to your audience. Then, when you choose a post to promote, you will be able to select the one you know your audience will respond to best, such as one that will grab their attention.

How to post to Instagram

Set A Goal

As with all areas of marketing, by setting goals businesses will be able to stay focused and accountable. Ask yourself what you’re looking to achieve from your Instagram promotions and marketing efforts

Goals should be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-Bound.

Once you have determined your marketing goals – which should align with your overall business goals – you can decide where to direct your audience. For example, businesses can opt to drive traffic to their website, Instagram profile or direct message, depending on your desired outcome.

 

Decide Who You Want to Reach

Now you know what you’re trying to achieve, it’s important to think about who you need to reach to meet your goal.

Depending on your objective, consider who your target audience is. To determine your audience, ask yourself:

• Where Do They Live? This could be anything from local to global depending on your business.
• What Is Their Demographic? Consider your existing customers and refer to any customer personas.
• What Are Their Interests? Back to the customer personas – it’s what they’re there for!

If you’re ever stuck for who to market to then consult your sales team where possible as they will know your ideal and typical customers.

On Instagram, businesses can choose to show their ads to people who are similar to their existing followers – this is called an ‘Automatic Audience’ and puts your targeting in the hands of the platform.

However, if you’re looking to be specific or you’re confident you know how and who to target then create your own audience by selecting the locations, ages, interests and genders of who you’re looking for.

For audience inspo, take a look at your Instagram Insights to understand your current followers, their locations, ages and genders. This information will be crucial in curating your own ad audiences.

Control Your Spend

For each Instagram promotion, you will need to set a daily budget and ad duration. The size of your budget will directly affect how many people see your ad and the duration determines how long it’s live for.

The combination of your daily budget and ad duration will total your maximum spend. If you want to reach more people over a longer period you will need to increase your budget and duration – which will increase your potential reach and therefore results.

a/b test posts

Test Different Posts

If you don’t immediately receive the results you’re looking for then don’t be disheartened. After your first promotion, it’s recommended you try new promotions with different posts, copy and creatives to see what works for you and your audience – remember that every business is different.

Understand which types of content resonates most with your audience by trying new things and keeping an eye on your results including the number of likes, comments and saves that each post receives.

Compare posts and stories to learn what gets the best engagement and highest level of interactions.

Try Different Ad Destinations

Similar to the above, it’s important to trial different ad destinations. Within Instagram Insights you will be able to check your interactions and see how many people tap your call to action buttons.

Experiment With Different Audiences

Last but not least, play around with your audience.

Targeting your typical audience is great but don’t forget to use Instagram promotions as a chance to experiment and reach new users.

By promoting your ads to different audiences you will gain a good understanding of who is most likely to become a customer, whether that’s an online purchase or an offline client. Linking your Instagram account to your Facebook business page can help with cross-promotion here

Don’t go too broad and waste your budget – target users who have interests or hobbies related to your products or services and expand on these.

Businesses should tweak their creative, audience, budget and ad destinations as individual test variables. Insights will then help you understand how each ad is performing and how one change affects your results.

 

Promote In Five Easy Steps

Ready to run an Instagram promotion? Follow these five simple steps:

 

instagram promotions 5 steps

1. Pick A Post Or Story To Promote

Share a post or story organically to your profile and tap ‘Promote’/ ‘Boost’
select goal

2. Select The Destination Of Your Ad

As above, choose whether to direct traffic to your Instagram Inbox, Website or Profile. Choose your destination based on your marketing goals.

 

Instagram define audience

3. Define Your Audience

Based on the post you have chosen to promote, who is your target audience for this campaign?

Select ‘Automatic’ to allow Instagram to target users similar to your existing followers.

 

 

Instagram ad budget

4. Set Your Budget And Duration

Decide how long you’d like this campaign to be live for and how much you’re willing to spend – this may vary depending on the post, product or time of year for example.

Instagram recommend ads are run for at least seven days to allow time to get a generous reach. Budget and duration can be adjusted based on business needs.

 

instagram promotions review

5. Review Your Payment Options And Submit Your Ad

Time to go live – select your payment method and submit your ad for review!

Track Your Results

As we’ve mentioned before, the Insights available within Instagram will teach you a lot about your audience and how they’re responding to your content. Once your Instagram promotion is live, it’s important to monitor your results to see how they perform and then, based on your results, create another ad.

 

Gary Evans

Gary Evans

Gary is the Founder of Feedalpha. He has a background in AI, Data Analytics, SEO, Digital Strategy and Web Design.