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5 Simple Ways to Improve your Instagram Ads

1300 words · Reading time: 7 minutes
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Looking to improve your Instagram ads and grow a larger following? Then check out this article, where we’ll show you 5 simple ways to increase your chances of success. 

Here are 5 simple ways to improve your Instagram that you can start using today! 

Create Quality Content that Feels Native

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One of the things many affiliate marketers fail to remember is that people use social media to see things that they like. Therefore, you have to interest the audience that you’re targeting. 

Your first step when creating ads on any platform should be to look at what other people are doing and also at what you’re doing. Scroll through your feed, see what catches your attention and check the comments and reactions to see if other people feel the same way you do. If so, they are probably doing something which is worth imitating. 

When it comes to Instagram, quality content sells, but it’s not easy to stand out in the crowd. Influencers spend a lot of time, energy and money curating their content. Luckily, with paid advertising, this won’t matter as much, unless you’re also trying to get people to follow you. 

One thing you’ll notice if you spend any time on Instagram is that a lot of influencers create posts that take you on their journey with them. They add stories to the post and try to show the world around them through an idealised lens. If you can find a way of doing this with your product or service, then you can begin to create content that feels user-generated. 

Tip: Try looking at your product/service through the eyes of a person that would use it. Show it working and in the context that a real user would use it. Test video’s where it’s used as product placement or images where it features as an integral part of someone’s life journey. This will help you appeal to Instagram audiences and make them feel like they are missing something by not using your product. 

Targeting

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Targeting has become a bit more difficult since the IOS14 Update but that doesn’t mean you should ignore it. You need to target people that will want to buy your product, so be sure to do some research and know your audience before paying for ad space. 

If you are entering a new market with a new product, then you can conduct your own research to see which audiences will work for you. Here’s a quick list of steps to take when trying to uncover your audience for the first time. 

  • Find out who your competitors are and make notes about the creatives they use, the number of followers they have, the hashtags they use. Look at who their audiences are and if the angles they use are actually targeting the audience they have. 
  • Set up a business page and post free posts. See how well you can populate the page with followers for free first and test out the hashtags you’ve used. Paid ads should only scale what you can do for free. 
  • Test the audiences thoroughly once you have them and optimise them as best you can. 

Add Motion

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Due to the nature of social media, you need to catch people’s attention and force them to stop when blindly scrolling. Instagram is no different. Regardless of where your ad is placed, you need people to notice it and adding movement is a good way to do this. 

Moving images and movies can be a great way to stop people in their tracks. Both are the same as far as file types are concerned, but moving images are a lot easier to make.

You can apply effects to any static ad that you’re currently using and there are a lot of tools available to help you. Canva offers a great service for this and can also help you to create movies out of slideshows.

When creating movies or moving images, it’s important not to get carried away and to still try to make your creatives as native as possible. Any effects you add should not detract from the message you are trying to relate. Instead, they should catch people’s attention and then focus it on the product. 

Movies and moving images are different to static images and you should be sure to test and optimise them individually. When starting out, consider these points: 

  • Does motion make the product or ad stand out?
  • Is it possible to highlight an attribute of the product or service that is not otherwise possible with a static image?
  • Does the ad still look native after the effects have been added and do the effects look natural?

Test the performance of all of the types of media you decide to use and then optimise the best working creatives. You should also consider the time it takes to generate creatives and how quickly you can optimise them. If the conversion rate of moving images is only slightly higher, than static, but moving takes twice as long, then focus on static first, and then come back to moving creatives when you have working campaigns. 

Effective Copy and Relevant Hashtags

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When advertising on any social media platform you should treat your audience as cold, unless you are retargeting. This means, no inside jokes, wordplay or technical terms. There’s a time and a place for these things, but not if it’s the first time a person sees your product. 

To entice and interest new people to like, follow or buy your products or services, then you have to be clear and direct. Tell them what the product is, what it does and why they should buy it. If people know right from the top of the funnel exactly what you’re about, then they can decide whether or not it’s for them. This will help you to filter out high-quality traffic and the people who go further down the funnel will be much more likely to convert. 

Remember, form follows function! Creativity is great, but it should never affect clarity. 

The same is true for hashtags. Some hashtags will be great for getting loads of people to see your page, but if the audiences aren’t relevant then it’s a waste of time. Therefore, you should aim to find hashtags that have a wide enough user-base, whilst also targeting the right people. This will take time, but it’s well worth the effort. Plus, a lot of companies have already put in the hard work, so check what your competitors are using and see if they work for you. 

Seasonal Relevance and Context

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One of the things to remember when posting on social media is that there are millions of posts each day, all about different things. Therefore, you need to add context. 

Images that show your product in action, in the place where it is intended to be used help to give people the information they need and help your ads to look more native. 

People need quick reference points that will stick in their mind, so showing your product working up against a visual contrasting colour can help to burn the vision into your audiences’ minds. Similarly, using seasonal colours in your campaigns can also add vibrancy.  Once again though, creative decisions should always be made to improve the function of the ad and not take away from it. 

The Bottom Line

Creating ads and content for social media should be fun, and if you enjoy it and like discovering new angles that work for your audience then you’ll find it much easier. However, if it’s not your cup of tea, then it’s definitely worth outsourcing the job to someone with passion and a creative eye as they will most likely be able to help you drive the performance up and increase your revenue.

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