If you want to maximize on Instagram’s marketing opportunities, you need to know how to optimize your campaigns to create real results. In particular, you require high quality, targeted followers who are really interested in your brand.
In this guide, we will teach you the best practices to set up result driven Instagram ad campaigns that will help you get the right and interested followers.
Getting Started with Instagram Ads
Before diving into campaign strategies and optimizations, let’s quickly go through the fundamentals of creating Instagram ads.
Step 1: Switch Instagram Account to Business Profile
First, you need a business profile, not a personal profile. Business profiles unlock additional analytics and advertising options that are key to understanding audience insights and tracking campaign performance.
Upgrading is easy. Simply go to your profile, tap the hamburger menu in the top right corner, select “Switch to Business Profile,” and convert your personal account.
Step 2: Set Up Ad Payments
Instagram advertising is pay-to-play. So you need to connect a payment method before creating ads. Under the business profile menu, tap “Get Started” under the payment settings and input your billing details.
Step 3: Create an Instagram Ad Campaign
With payments set up, it’s time to create your first ad campaign. Go to the Instagram Ads Manager, which is accessible through the business profile. Here you can launch a campaign, establish an overall budget and schedule, identify your marketing objective and preview how your ads will appear across Facebook (Instagram’s parent company) properties. We’ll dig deeper into campaign optimization and objectives later.
If you’re just starting out, focusing on growing your audience is crucial. While organic growth is important, many businesses also explore strategies to buy insta followers to build an initial audience base. This can help boost credibility and increase engagement rates, especially for newer accounts.
And that’s the quick basics! Anyone can start advertising on Instagram with just three steps.
Crafting Ad Creative That Attracts Followers
Ad creative is marketing that speaks for the visuals, copy, media and messaging that make up the content of your ads. Mastering ad creativity is arguably the most important component for running successful Instagram campaigns.
You need to grab attention while conveying what makes your brand unique and compelling enough to earn a follow. Here are three creative tips for boosting follower sign-ups:
1. Show Off Your Brand Personality
Instagram is a platform that showcases aesthetics and lifestyle. As users scroll through feeds, you have mere seconds to capture their interest. Ad creative that reflects your brand’s human personality and visual identity cuts through the noise.
Share behind-the-scenes footage highlighting company culture, showcase employees, and creatively convey your mission and values. The goal is to get potential followers to relate to and connect with your brand’s human elements, not just the products or services you sell.
2. Utilize User-Generated Content
User-generated content (UGC) leverages organic posts from real customers and fans. UGC is more effective at driving conversion than brand-created content.
Ask loyal followers to share photos featuring your products and repost the best shots. The authenticity and word-of-mouth advocacy make new visitors more inclined to hit that follow button.
Bonus tip: Don’t forget to credit creators and ask permission beforehand.
3. Promote Contests and Giveaways
Contests, sweepstakes and giveaways incentivize followers to follow your brand. Create fun challenges or random prize draws for free products. For example, followers can follow and like your brand for a chance to win the latest product for free.
The key is keeping entry barriers extremely low while showcasing tempting prizes. Instagram contests also organically spread brand awareness as participants tag friends or share competition posts.
Optimizing Campaign Settings to Find Followers
Crafting the right creative is step one. You also need to optimize actual campaign parameters and settings for conversions, specifically followers acquired.
Here are three campaign optimizations to boost followers:
1. Target Interests Aligned With Your Niche
The most basic Instagram ad targeting option is interesting. Select interests that showcase the hobbies, passions, and lifestyles of your ideal customers.
For example, outdoor brands should select interests like hiking, camping and mountaineering. Ecommerce retailers can choose online shopping or fashion-related interests.
Targeting ensures that products are placed in front of audiences that actively care about or identify with what you sell, converting them into engaged followers.
2. Develop Lookalike Audiences Off Current Followers
Not sure what interests to target? Lookalike audiences automatically locate new users that “look like” your current followers.
Instagram scans profiles of existing followers, identifies common qualities like demographics and behavior patterns, and then finds new accounts matching the same characteristics.
Lookalikes work incredibly well because you know your current followers already like your content enough to follow you. Finding more users like them is a proven way to replicate follower success.
3. Set Follower Acquisition Campaign Objective
This may sound obvious, but choosing the right campaign objective is vital. To gain followers, select the “Conversions” objective and then toggle to the “Follow” sub-objective.
These tailor your campaign’s algorithm to optimize and bid for conversions associated with driving new Instagram followers specifically. For example, the algorithm may learn that Like actions indicate higher intent to follow, so bid higher on ad clicks with that action.
Analyzing Performance to Improve Continuously
Gaining followers on Instagram requires an iterative approach. Consistently monitor campaign analytics to uncover optimization opportunities and then use those insights to build higher-converting ads and better target audiences.
Here are the key metrics and analytics to analyze:
Follow Rate
This metric shows the percentage of users who see your ads and perform a follow-action. Generally, aim for a follow rate between 0.5-2%. Anything below or above indicates improper targeting or ineffective creativity.
Cost Per Follow
What’s the average spend associated with each new follower? Lower cost per follow means greater return from your ads. If the cost per follow rises, it is time to create new ads or reset targeting to lower acquisition costs.
Audience Insights
Instagram compiles incredibly detailed analytics on the types of users engaging with your ads and content. Use audience reporting to see crucial data such as top demographics, location, device usage and even lifestyle categories.
Uncover your best-performing follower segments, then optimize targeting to find more users matching those qualities.
Final Tips for Continued Instagram Follower Growth
Instagram marketing requires an ongoing commitment, but brands that consistently nurture their presence reap long-term dividends. Here are three final tips for sustaining follower growth after launching your initial campaigns:
1. Engage With Your Audience
Don’t treat followers as a vanity metric. Actively engage by responding to comments and messages, seeking feedback and paying attention to UGC and user reviews.
2. Promote Your Instagram Across Other Marketing Channels
Add Instagram follow buttons to your website, emails, paid ads on other networks and anywhere else you market your brand. This will make it easy for interested audiences to follow you.
3. Partner With Aligned Influencers
Collaborations, shoutouts and takeovers from influencers in your industry give you access to new, targeted audiences already passionate about your niche.
Master Instagram ads for follower acquisition, then double down by producing content and experiences devoted followers actually want to see.
Gaining followers is the first step. Retaining and engaging those followers is where brands build communities that foster loyalty, word-of-mouth and long-term business growth.
Conclusion
Instagram offers unmatched targeting capabilities, with interests, lookalikes, and conversion-based campaign objectives that are finely tuned to attract new followers.
Combine precise ad targeting with compelling, personality-driven creative optimized to incentivize followers. Analyze performance and continuously test new targeting combinations and creative concepts.
Implement this strategic approach—precise targeting, enticing ad creative and relentless optimization—and you will have a proven Instagram ad framework for acquiring targeted and engaged followers who will expand your brand reach.
