Instagram ads, when used correctly, can be the perfect channel to market your ecommerce business. In fact, a Facebook survey found that 54% of people purchased something after seeing it on Instagram. 83% of respondents discover new products or services through the platform. And 80% use the platform to decide whether or not to buy a product or service.
Plus, Instagram users are much more engaged than users on any other social media platform. So if you manage to get your brand and products in front of the right people, you should be able to drive a lot of conversions through Instagram. Advertising on the platform makes this even easier, as you can target a highly relevant audience.
Instagram Ad Tips
Here are some tips that can help you create better Instagram ads for your ecommerce business:
1. Use High-Quality, Relatable Visuals
As you already know, Instagram is a visual platform. So your ads need to stand out visually among the sea of images and videos in people’s feeds. They need to be able to catch the user’s attention and stop them from scrolling. Otherwise, people might not even notice your ad, even if it’s about something they would be interested in.
However, that doesn’t mean it should look obviously like an ad because you don’t want to blatantly sell your products and turn off potential customers. Avoid catalog-like images and instead, use visuals that look like they were posted by a user’s friend or by the influencers they follow.
Take a look at the following Stories ad from Nuxe France, for instance.
It looks like something out of a beauty influencer’s feed. It’s aesthetically pleasing and maintains a consistent color scheme, which adds to the ad’s overall appeal. The brand saw a 6.2X return on ad spend through this ad.
2. Combine Them with Compelling Captions
Images or videos without any context may be difficult for your target audience to process. Increase the impact of your ads by combining your visuals with compelling captions that will entice your audience to take an action. At the same time, don’t go on and on about how great your product is.
Keep your captions short and to the point since you can only write up to 300 characters. This can be a bit challenging, especially when you’re trying to make it compelling. The best way to solve this problem is by mentioning their pain points or interests in 1-2 sentences. And then follow up with a call-to-action that briefly mentions how your product addresses those pain points.
The following ad from Blank Tag Co. is the perfect example.
It asks the audience if they love stickers and then invites them to check out their sticker collection. They used words like “waterproof” and “durable” to describe their stickers. This brand generates 80% of their total revenue through Instagram ads.
3. Test Different Visuals, Formats and Placements
One thing about Instagram ads is that there’s no fixed rule on what works best for different companies. An ad format or placement that delivers impressive results for one company may not necessarily be ideal for you. So it’s crucial to test your ads as much as possible if you want to get the highest returns.
This is particularly important for ecommerce businesses as you typically cater to a diverse audience with varying characteristics, behaviors, and interests. So you’ll have to test what kind of ad works best to reach and appeal to a majority of your target audience just like you’d test different ecommerce marketing strategies.
Perhaps you can test Stories ads if you’ve run a lot of Instagram feed ads. This could give you a significant edge over the competition because small and medium businesses aren’t leveraging Stories as much as bigger companies.
Morhipo, a Turkish online department store had been running successful Instagram feed ads for a while. But they decided to test Stories ads as well to see if they could drive even more sales.
After a four-week test of Instagram Stories ads, the store attracted 82% incremental purchasers. Their cost per customer was also 45% lower than campaigns that didn’t use Stories ads.
4. Analyze and Optimize
Just like your search marketing ads, you need to analyze the results of your Instagram ad campaigns as well. This is a great way to learn what’s working and what isn’t, what you need to change, and how to further optimize your ads for better results.
For instance, perhaps videos are delivering a much higher engagement rate than photo ads. So you’ll want to create more video ads for your future campaigns since you know that that’s the format your audience likes.
The Instagram Ads Manager will show you metrics that measure how people engage with your ads within the platform. But to get a complete idea of how your ads are influencing people’s actions even outside Instagram, you’ll need to measure your referral traffic using UTM tracking parameters.
This is extremely important, especially if you’re testing different placements, formats, and visuals. Your website analytics will only show you the referral traffic coming from Instagram. But with the help of UTM parameters, you can get an exact idea of which ad sent the traffic. So you can get a more accurate idea of how each of those ad versions is performing.
The main problem is that it can be a bit challenging to create UTMs, especially with limited technical knowledge. However, you can use tools like UTM.io to easily generate unique UTMs for each version of your ad. The tool even lets you create UTM templates that you’ll be able to customize and reuse for other campaigns.
5. Feature Relevant Influencers in Your Ads
Influencers have massive reach and have the unique ability to influence people’s decisions. In fact, 31% of consumers in an Olapic survey have purchased something after seeing an influencer’s post about it. People look up to these influencers as experts in their fields, yet they’re still considered credible and trustworthy because they’re relatable to everyday consumers.
You can strengthen the impact of your Instagram ad campaigns by featuring relevant influencers instead of models or celebrities. Perhaps you could repurpose your influencer-generated content from a previous influencer marketing campaign. Or you could invest in an entirely new set of ad creatives with influencers in the spotlight.
JOOP! the German fashion brand decided to work with Toni Mahfud, an artist and fine art photographer, for their Instagram ad campaign. The influencer has a massive following of 3.5 million on Instagram. He’s also German-born, making him relevant to the brand’s target audience.
They advertised an opportunity for people to win an exclusive t-shirt signed by the influencer. They managed to raise their ad recall by 60% and lowered their cost per reach by 27%.
For a similar impact, you can find relevant Instagram influencers using Influence.co. The platform helps you find highly relevant influencers within selected niches and categories. It also shows you stats, such as reach, average engagement rate, and previous brand partners to help you analyze their relevance for your campaign.
Image Source: Influence.co
Conclusion
These five excellent tips for ecommerce businesses can help you execute powerful Instagram ad campaigns that deliver results. High-quality images and compelling captions are a necessity. But to get an accurate idea of what works best on your target audience, make sure you run tests and analyze your results. Of course, featuring relevant influencers can also maximize your ad impact.
Got any more Instagram ad tips that ecommerce businesses can use? Let us know in the comments below.
Image: Depositphotos.com