Creating Instagram Stories Ads: From Setup to Launch

Instagram has long turned from a regular social network into an advanced tool for conducting commercial activities. With its help, you can loudly announce a product and quickly promote a brand or service. For these purposes, a news feed is used, where short stories – photos or videos lasting no more than 15 seconds – are posted. Every day, more than 200 million viewers around the world view the portal, making it an ideal place for advertising. In this article, we will explain how to use the tools and place ads on Instagram.

What are Instagram Stories: Benefits for Advertising Launch

First, let’s understand what the section of short stories on the social network Instagram represents. This feature appeared relatively recently and opened up a wide range of possibilities for users. With it, you can tell your subscribers and page guests about yourself and your life, promote your account, as well as advertise your own brand, product, or service.

Photos or videos no longer than 15 seconds are added to the Stories section, but this is enough to arouse the visitor’s interest and make them go to your external resource or page for more detailed information. The service has set another limitation – the content in Stories is broadcast publicly for only 24 hours from the time of publication, after which it is either permanently deleted or saved to an archive list. The feature of Stories is the ability to decorate the image or video with built-in graphic tools, effects, filters, text, or stickers.

Advertising in Stories can be used for the following purposes:

1. Increasing the recognition of a service, product, or own brand.
2. Promoting a page on a social network and gaining subscribers.
3. Increasing sales of products when conducting commercial activities.
4. Gathering an audience and organizing a creative event.

There are many directions for development, the main thing is to set a clear goal.

Let’s consider the advantages of using advertising in Stories:

1. Low level of competition among advertisers. Currently, this niche is just beginning to unfold, and most advertisers prefer to present in the feed.
2. Economy. The cost per click in this case is much lower than regular advertising on an Instagram page. Therefore, with a small budget, you can achieve a lot.
3. High efficiency. Every day, more than 200 million viewers from around the world view the Stories section. Here you can colorfully tell about a product or service, having a significant audience coverage.

All of this makes advertising in the Stories tab a new and unique way to present your activity, product, or service. You have a huge space for promotion with a minimal number of competitors. The content is launched between the Instagram Stories feed, in the gap between user stories.

Promising niches for launching advertising in stories

The question arises, what should be shown in advertising to users, what niches to occupy and which direction to move in? In this case, it is best to promote consumer products. For example, a presentation of factory equipment or machines is unlikely to interest anyone here, so contextual advertising is better suited for such cases.

The client base of the social network is designed for the following categories of services and goods:

1. Consumer products and goods – clothing, food, and other household items.
2. Info-business – promotion of one’s own page on the service or useful information from third-party resources.
3. Brand promotion.

These niches are currently considered promising, as the target audience of the social network is mainly young people. In stories, you can show products and goods, promotional offers and discounts, reviews from satisfied customers, as well as invitations to creative events or master classes.

It is important to convey the essence to the viewer and not to bore them with endless information about the product. If the photo or video is filled with gray text, it is unlikely that anyone will want to wait for the end of the video and not click on the link. Therefore, your publication should be interesting and encourage users to take action.

How to set up advertising in Instagram Stories: step-by-step actions

Let’s move on to the actual actions in creating an advertising post on social media. You will have to work through another popular platform, Facebook, where tools for designing and implementing ads are implemented. It should be noted that such services are provided on a paid basis, no one will broadcast your product or goods for free. Therefore, first calculate your budget. Now you can get down to business. Below we will consider each step in detail on how to set up and create an ad for the Instagram stories section.

Creating a Facebook business profile

As previously mentioned, the action will have to be taken through the partner social network Facebook. It should be noted that all actions are more convenient to perform through a personal computer. First of all, it is necessary to register on Facebook, and create a business page. To do this, follow these simple instructions:

1. Go to the official Facebook website on the internet.
2. Once in the main menu of the service, find the button in the form of a downward arrow, which is located on the top panel of the workspace.
3. A pop-up window will appear, select the option to create a page.
4. The system will offer two options – the implementation of a community or a public page, or the creation of a company and a brand. We need the second option.
5. On the next page, you need to fill in the information fields – the name of the organization and the direction of activity.
6. Done.

Similar actions can be performed through the Instagram social network. Create a business account there and through it a page on Facebook. To do this, go to the profile editing section on the personal page in Instagram and at the very bottom of the window, find the business account registration item. Choose a category and direction of activity. There are no built-in tools for setting up advertising, so the next step is to link the page to the profile on Facebook.

Linking Instagram account to Facebook business profile

To synchronize accounts on two different social networks, you need to follow these steps:

1. Log in to Facebook and open the recently created business page. It is located on the top panel in the dropdown menu – click the arrow down.
2. Find the settings section at the top of the screen.
3. A new window will open, click on the Instagram tab on the left side.
4. A prompt to authorize the account will appear on the screen.
5. Enter the personal information of the Instagram account – protective password and login.
6. If everything is entered correctly, a menu will appear displaying all your data from Instagram.

Only after this can you start creating an advertisement banner and publish it in the short stories section.

Setting a goal and creating an advertising campaign

First of all, it is necessary to determine the goal and objectives of the future advertising campaign. Currently, the following categories of goals exist:

1. Awareness – promoting your own brand or product, with the presentation being shown to the maximum number of users, some of whom may not be interested in the offer.
2. Traffic – your ad will be broadcast to subscribers who are more likely to click on a link to an external resource.
3. Video views – video ad format aimed at video enthusiasts.
4. Conversions – the goal is aimed at those who are most likely to purchase your product or take a specific action, download an app, or click on a link.
5. Lead generation – this type of ad banner is aimed at collecting requests from visitors, such as phone numbers or email addresses.

The choice should be made depending on the task you set for yourself. The most common category is traffic, if you are registering for the first time, it is better to try this goal.

Later on, after analyzing the influx of traffic and new users on your external resource, you can edit the task and choose another goal at any time.

On the main page, click on the arrow button located on the top panel. At the bottom, you will see the option to create an ad, click on it. After that, a list of goals will appear on the display, choose the necessary one. Click on the “Next” button.

Choosing an advertising format

Next in order – setting up advertising:

1. In the next window, you need to specify the country for the broadcast, the time zone, and the local currency.
2. On the same page, in the lower field, write the name of the account on behalf of which the service will publish posts.
3. Click the continue button.
4. After that, select where to direct traffic from the social network. If there is a third-party resource, check the box next to the “website” item.

Defining the target audience

The next important step in creating an advertising campaign is to carefully consider and select your target audience. This is the group of social media users who will be interested in your stories. For example, if you plan to advertise your beauty salon, choose to broadcast within your city limits. Residents of other areas are unlikely to be interested in your offer. The success of your further promotion depends on correctly identifying your audience. In the next window, you need to:

1. Indicate the location on a virtual map, limiting the radius of your offer.
2. Determine the age group and gender of your viewers.

In addition, you can set up detailed targeting. If you know your customers well, describe their marital status, financial situation, interests, and other factors that will help narrow down your search. By specifying one extra parameter, you risk reducing the effectiveness of the entire campaign. The same situation arises if you do not limit the circle of people.

Save the changes. In the future, you can edit the parameters as you see fit.

Choosing a location for advertising – Instagram stories

After that, you need to determine the platform on which your offer will be displayed. By default, the system registers the company on Instagram, Facebook, and other partner services. Remove all unnecessary checkboxes and prioritize advertising in the Stories section on Instagram.

Here you can set the following parameters:

1. Stream only on a computer or smartphone.
2. Choose the Android or iOS operating system.
3. Display the publication in the news feed from the mobile network or from Wi-Fi.

Advertising budget limits

On the next page, you need to specify the budget of your company. Here you can choose either a daily budget (the amount you will pay each day) or a total budget (payment for the entire period of advertising in the news feed). If you choose the second option, the system will suggest planning the placement of banners on certain days and times of the day. Enter the required amount and click the next button.

Definition of creativity and introduction of a link

Now, you need to specify in which format to broadcast the publication. You have three options available – circular display of content, one photo, and one video. To start, you can use one photo. In the editing menu, upload the necessary material that you prepared in advance. Try to decorate it beautifully using additional applications.

Here, specify the link to go to your external resource, as well as the caption for swiping up. All changes can be tracked in real-time mode. To avoid future problems, the following restrictions must be taken into account:

1. The photo should be in a resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels, with an aspect ratio of 9 to 16. The Facebook service is extremely critical of publications on which more than 20 percent of the text is placed. The format is jpg, png with a weight of no more than 30 megabytes.
2. The duration of the videos should not exceed 15 seconds, and the aspect ratio should be the same as for photos. Choose mov, gif, mp4 as the format. The maximum size should not exceed 4 gigabytes.

Choosing a betting strategy

Instagram social network independently chooses the cost of one click. By default, the price is low. You can edit this value yourself. In the bidding strategy menu, specify the maximum value of the cost of one click. Here you can also choose what money will be charged for each impression or click. In the end, all that’s left is to attach a bank card or e-wallet and launch advertising in stories.

The cost of advertising in Instagram Stories and payment methods

As for the cost of an advertising campaign on Instagram, there is no definitive answer to this question. Everything depends on the selected target audience, targeting method and goal, as well as the format of the publication – video or photo. To start, set a budget of 100 or 200 rubles and see how much money is spent each day.

Payment is made by non-cash method, at the end of the ad setup the system offers to choose a transaction option:

1. Bank card.
2. Qiwi wallet.
3. Sberbank Online.
4. Coupons from the social network Facebook.

Before launching a campaign, you need to specify payment details and attach them to your business account.

How to increase the effectiveness of advertising in stories

To increase the effectiveness of advertising broadcasts, it is necessary to use the following tips:

1. Try to provide information briefly but clearly. It is important that the text reflects the essence of the advertising post and arouses interest among users.
2. Use a video clip as advertising, as this format is more popular among social network visitors. Make it colorful and bright.
3. Always create a call to action. Use stickers and labels to draw attention to the swipe up button and link.

Analyze your strategy, and if there is no growth, change your goals, audience, and other parameters in your business account.

The article explains in detail how to launch advertising in Instagram Stories. This is a completely new and effective way to talk about your brand, product, or service. It has minimal competition and is cost-effective. The main thing is to try to correctly select the target audience.