Instagram has become one of Nigeria’s most popular social media sites, with millions of active users. As a result, many businesses are already using Instagram’s ads to boost sales, increase traffic, and interact with their target audience. Effective Instagram advertising in Nigeria requires a good strategy and adequate platform knowledge.
What are Instagram Ads?
Instagram ads are paid posts that appear in users’ newsfeed. These ads appear just like a normal organic post, but it has the text “Sponsored” to indicate to the Instagram audience that it’s a sponsored post.
Instagram Ads can be photos, videos, carousels (many images), or collections (dynamic product galleries).
Steps to running Instagram Ads
They are a few things to consider when running Instagram ads, from setting up your ad account, and choosing the right ad type all of these steps will be discussed below:
- Set Up an Instagram Business Account
Before you can run Instagram ads, you must first create an Instagram business account. You can easily convert your account to a business account if you already have one. This will get you access to extra ad-related capabilities, such as Instagram Insights.
Steps to Switch to a professional account.
- In your Instagram settings, click find account, then tap Switch to a professional account.
- Select a category that best describes your business goals, then select business.
- You’ve got an Instagram business account. Now complete your profile using the tips below.
- Define Your Target Audience
A thorough understanding of your Instagram target audience is a necessary part you need to research for a successful Instagram marketing campaign. The success of your Instagram ads largely depends on your ability to target the right audience. You should clearly know who your ideal customer is and what kind of content they are interested in. Use Instagram analytics to learn more about your audience and their behavior on the platform.
To find your target audience from your existing Instagram account, Under “Insights,” go to “Audience.” Here, you can see vital statistics about your existing followers, including their age range, gender, and location.
- Choose Your Ad Format
Instagram offers a variety of ad formats, including photo ads, video ads, carousel ads, and story ads. Choose the format that best suits your goals and the content you want to promote.
- Set Your Budget and Schedule
Decide on a budget for your Instagram ads and set a timeframe for when you want your ads to run. You can choose between a daily or lifetime budget, and you can select a specific start and end date for your campaign.
- Create Your Ad
Now it’s time to create your ad. Instagram ad campaigns can be created in two ways: by boosting an existing post or by creating a new ad through the Facebook Ads Manager. Promoting a current post is simple and can be done directly from the Instagram app, although it lacks the personalization possibilities in Instagram Advertising Manager.
Method 1: Using Instagram Boost
Promoting one of your current posts is the most straightforward approach to begin advertising on Instagram. This is easier compared to Facebook’s ad manager feature.
Steps to boost post using Instagram Ads
- Click Boost post on the post you want to use as an ad.
- Next, decide on an objective. You’ll have three options: increase profile visits, increase website visits, or increase messages (this includes WhatsApp messages).
- Then, define your audience. You can let Instagram choose your audience for you (based on your follower data). E.g Age range, and Gender,
- You can also select to run the boosted post on Facebook.
- Now select your daily budget and the time you want the ad to run. You can set a time limit or let it to run continuously until you stop it
Method 2: Using Ads Manager
You can use the Facebook Ads Manager to design ad campaigns to maximize Instagram’s broad ad targeting, creative, and reporting capabilities (remember that Meta owns Instagram). To run Instagram ads using Ads Manager, you can follow these steps:
- Log in to your Ads Manager account on Facebook.
- Click on the “Create” button to start creating a new ad.
- Select the objective for your ad campaign. Instagram ads can be used for various goals, including brand awareness, lead generation, and conversions.
- Choose your target audience. You can target people based on demographics, interests, behaviors, etc.
- Set your budget and schedule for the ad campaign.
- Choose the placement of your ad. Select “Instagram” as a placement option.
- Create your ad. This can include images, videos, or carousel ads with multiple photos.
- Preview your ad to ensure it looks the way you want it to.
- Submit your ad for review.
Once your ad is approved, it will start running on Instagram. You can monitor its performance through Ads Manager and make adjustments as needed.
To summarize, running effective Instagram advertisements in Nigeria needs a thorough understanding of your target audience, a well-crafted ad campaign, and ongoing monitoring and optimization of your ads.
You can run efficient Instagram ads that will reach your target audience and meet your marketing objectives by following the step-by-step method explained in this article. To ensure the success of your Instagram ad campaigns in Nigeria, stay up to date with the newest trends and best practices in Digital Marketing, and always be prepared to adjust your approach as needed.
