Launch of advertising on Instagram

Instagram advertising has become a powerful tool for businesses looking to increase their online presence. Regardless of whether the advertiser is a startup or an established business in Ukraine or abroad, understanding how to create and run effective Instagram ads is extremely important. In short, you should use the advertising account, where you can set up promotion, choose a suitable library of creatives, and organize payment for the campaign.

In this article, we will analyze what Instagram advertising is and how it works, what are its advantages and disadvantages, how to create an ad, set up payment, and analyze the effectiveness of the campaign.

Advertising on Instagram: what is it and how does it work?

Instagram advertising is digital promotion through visual and interactive content from the page, allowing businesses to make targeted posts and stories to attract potential customers. The main advantages are the ability to customize the target audience by interests, demographics, and behavior, which allows you to effectively connect with new and existing customers.

The first step is to set up a campaign. There are two ways to do this: through your Instagram profile or using your Facebook account, where you can also access a library of creatives for promotion. Here, you need to choose the target audience, creative formats, and campaign duration, then buy ad space and set up payment. After that, you need to launch the target. Let’s analyze both methods in more detail in the sections below.

Rules for advertising on Instagram

Before starting a campaign, it is important to familiarize yourself with the Instagram advertising rules. These requirements are made for a safe and reliable experience for both users and advertisers. Here are some of the main points:

1. Your post or creative for the target must be original and meet the community’s standards. Any creative used must be authentic and go through a verification process to avoid being disabled or removed from the page and the RC.
2. Instagram requires that each ad meet certain technical and creative requirements. For example, if you use video or a carousel format, make sure that your creative for the target does not exceed the allowed duration and that each frame is optimized for fast loading.
3. Target settings should be clearly defined. It’s important to respect privacy principles and avoid discriminatory practices when setting audience parameters to ensure that your content reaches the pages of those who can become potential customers.
4. The payment process should be transparent. Make sure you know how much each post costs and compare prices to determine the best deal. Instagram provides a convenient library of price options. This helps you make an informed choice when placing an order.
5. Thanks to the close integration with Facebook, the settings made in the advertising account are automatically displayed on both platforms. The rules of the platforms also coincide. This greatly simplifies the launch of campaigns and contributes to the effective promotion of products, but business owners should check that campaigns do not contradict the Facebook advertising policy.

For a more detailed review of all the rules, we recommend that you review the official guidelines on the Instagram for Business website.

Pros and cons of Instagram advertising​

Like any advertising channel, Instagram advertising has its advantages and disadvantages.

Let’s look at these aspects.

Advantages

Instagram advertising has a number of advantages that make it an effective tool for business promotion.

Firstly, due to the visual orientation of the platform, creative content on the page can make your product stand out among others. Especially if the advertisement is made in the form of vivid images and videos. An impressive post attracts the attention of potential customers by demonstrating an innovative approach to presenting goods or services.

In addition, Instagram ads allow you to fine-tune your target audience. You can choose the settings that ensure that your content is shown to those users who may be interested in your product. This approach helps to increase conversions and make more efficient use of your advertising budget.

Integration with Facebook ads is another important advantage. Thanks to the close connection between these platforms, campaign settings are synchronized, making the process of managing ads easier and more convenient. This integration allows you to use additional analytics and optimization tools that ensure high efficiency of your campaigns.

Equally important is the active interaction of users with the content of an Instagram page. The platform encourages interaction through likes, comments, and shares, which helps to increase audience engagement and increase conversions. Finally, due to the transparency of information on the cost of advertising, a business owner always knows what expenses to expect. This allows them to effectively control payments and plan campaign budgets.

Disadvantages

This method of promotion has certain disadvantages that should be taken into account.

One of the main challenges is the high competition: due to the popularity of the platform, many brands are fighting for the audience’s attention, so your creative for the target must be of the highest quality to stand out from the rest. In addition, a large set of settings and target parameters can be difficult for those who are just starting out in digital marketing.

Another important issue is the risk of disabling or removing ads – ads that do not meet the platform’s requirements can be blocked, so it is critical to verify the creative for the target before launch. It’s also worth noting that although advertisers have the ability to control costs, high-quality placements can be more expensive during peak periods, making it difficult to predict the budget.

Finally, due to the platform’s focus on visual content, targeted ads containing large amounts of text or certain types of content may be less effective.

Advertising formats on Instagram

Instagram advertising formats are a variety of digital promotion methods on the page that help businesses to make communication with their audience effective. The main task is to choose and order the optimal format for launching a campaign, which depends on marketing goals and the nature of the content. Let’s consider the main formats.

Photo advertising

This is the easiest and most popular format for targeted ads. It allows advertisers to use a single image with a caption to convey a message. Photo ads are ideal for showcasing in-store products, highlighting promotions, or directing traffic to a specific page.

Video advertising

It allows you to make the campaign launch more dynamic, which helps to better engage the audience. You can use videos to tell your brand story, demonstrate a product, or show customer reviews. Videos usually have a high level of interaction on pages, which increases the effectiveness of your promotion.

Advertising in the carousel

This type of launcher allows you to show multiple images or videos at the same time. This is ideal for showcasing multiple products, different features of one product, or a step-by-step display of content. Each card in the carousel can have its own call to action, which simplifies the process of buying or getting more information. To create ads in the carousel, we recommend using the advertising account, where you can configure campaign parameters in detail, choose the desired format, and set a budget.

Advertising in stories

Advertising in stories provides an immersive effect, as ads take up the entire user’s screen. This format is especially effective for quickly launching promotions or special offers. Don’t forget to add clear calls to action that help make a direct transition to your product or service. Stories have a limited duration, so it’s important to focus on a strong, creative message that encourages immediate action.

Advertising in Explore

It is displayed on the Explore page, where users search for new content. This format is aimed at those who are actively looking for inspiration or new trends. The main advantage is that there is a high-interaction audience reach, which creates additional opportunities to promote your brand.

Each of these formats has its own settings and options that allow you to maximize the use of available creative resources and make the launch.

Types of advertising

When planning to launch Instagram promotion, it is important to choose the best approach that meets your business goals and the needs of your target audience.

The first type is organic advertising. This is a native way to engage the audience through regular posts, stories, videos, and interaction with subscribers at no additional cost. Organic promotion helps to build brand trust, form a community around your profile, and provide the basis for further advertising campaigns.

Next, it is worth paying attention to several key areas:

1. Targeting is the foundation of a successful advertising campaign. By fine-tuning parameters such as demographics, interests, and geographic location, you can reach the exact audience you are interested in. This allows you to increase conversions and reduce advertising costs, ensuring the most effective targeted promotion;
2. blogger advertising opens up opportunities for cooperation with popular influencers whose audiences are highly trusted and engaged. Collaboration with bloggers allows you to promote your brand through creative content created by the advertiser or bloggers themselves. Personalized presentation of information to followers significantly increases the recognition and trust in the advertised product;
3. Collaborations with brands or other companies allow you to pool resources and creativity, create unique content, and expand your audience reach. This not only helps to increase brand awareness, but also opens up new opportunities to increase sales through joint efforts.
4. Exchange-based advertising is a modern tool that automates the process of buying advertising space. This approach greatly simplifies campaign management, optimizes costs, and ensures maximum reach of the target audience thanks to software solutions and algorithms that analyze the effectiveness of ads in real time.

By choosing one or combining several of these areas, you can build an effective Instagram advertising strategy that will ensure the growth of your brand.

Instagram advertising from bloggers

Influencer marketing is also worth mentioning. It is becoming an increasingly popular way to boost brand promotion on Instagram. Advertising through bloggers allows you to use the existing and targeted audience from the page.

To get the best results, choose influencers whose profiles match your brand, as their creativity and organic connection with the audience increase the authenticity of the ad. Next, define a clear order and target parameters of the campaign, make sure that the blogger’s profile and content are consistent with your brand identity. Discuss the cost of cooperation: some influencers work at a fixed rate, while others work on a CPC or CPM basis, so it is important to agree on the terms. After launching the campaign, regularly monitor its effectiveness by analyzing the engagement, placement, and impact of the creative for the target using your own analytics and data from the influencer.

For example, let’s imagine two companies. A local store can work with a fashion blogger to present new collections, and a tech company with another influencer to demonstrate product features in a targeted format.

How to advertise on Instagram: a step-by-step plan

Instagram advertising is a powerful tool for attracting new customers and increasing brand awareness. The main task is to set up the page and campaign correctly to reach the audience that is already interested in your product or service. Below are two approaches to setting up ads: through your Instagram profile and through your Facebook account.

How to launch targeted advertising on Instagram

Targeted advertising allows you to fine-tune audience parameters by interests, demographics, and behavioral characteristics, which maximizes the effectiveness of your campaign. Choosing the right approach depends on the scale and complexity of the advertiser’s tasks.

Setting up ads through your Instagram profile

Setting up directly through the Instagram page is a convenient and fast way for small businesses or those who are just starting out with paid promotion on the social network. To use this method, first make sure your page is converted to a business profile, as this gives you access to statistics and advertising tools. Next, select the post or story that wants to promote and click the «Promote» or «Promote Post» button on the page.

In this mode, you will be prompted to set the basic parameters.

• The goal of the campaign is to increase profile traffic, increase engagement, or direct sales.
• Target audience: demographic parameters, interests, and location so that targeted ads from the page are shown to those who may be interested.
• Budget and duration: set a daily budget or a total campaign budget and determine the period during which the ad will be active.

The advantage of this approach is the simplicity and speed of launch. Advertisers immediately get access to statistics, which allows them to quickly adjust the campaign without switching to another service. However, this method may be less flexible for more complex campaigns that require detailed settings or omnichannel management.

Setting up Instagram ads through your Facebook account

The Facebook Ads Manager is a tool that provides advanced features for customizing Instagram ads. It allows you to create and manage campaigns with greater granularity, using flexible tools for audience segmentation, setting up payments and budgets, and display schedules. Using the Ads Manager account, advertisers can create and save custom audiences, use retargeting, analyze conversions using pixels, and integrate data from other Facebook platforms.

You can set it up through your Facebook account:

• segment the audience in detail, namely, set complex parameters that help to reach exactly those users who have a high conversion potential;
• control payments by fine-tuning bids, daily budget, or total budget, and optimize costs based on CPC and CPM;
• conduct A/B testing, i.e. compare different creatives for targeting and settings to determine the most effective option and scale advertising;
• get advanced analytics of campaign results thanks to detailed reports in the system, track conversions and make necessary adjustments.

This method is suitable for companies that plan large-scale advertising campaigns and need maximum control over the process. Thanks to the integration with other Facebook tools, advertisers can make more in-depth reports and optimize every aspect of their ads. We have described the launch of Facebook ads in detail in the articles Facebook Promotion for Business and How to Set Up Facebook Ads, so we won’t dwell on it now.

How to choose the best time to publish an ad

The timing of your post can have a significant impact on the performance of your Instagram ads. The optimal time depends on the online activity of your target audience on the page. Here are some of the main points:

1. Research shows that engagement is usually higher in the morning and evening. Try testing different time slots to determine when your audience is most active.
2. If you are targeting an international audience or a specific region, such as Ukraine, adjust your schedule accordingly.

Use Instagram analytics to find out when your target audience is most likely to be online. This will help you choose the best time to post and maximize the reach of your creative.

And remember that while timing is of the essence, the quality of the creative for the target and the setting of the target parameters are also extremely important. Experiment with different durations and times of posts on the page to find the perfect window for your campaign.

How much does Instagram advertising cost?

This is one of the most important questions for every advertiser. The answer depends on many factors, so it is difficult to determine the exact amount in advance. The cost can vary significantly depending on the target settings, ad format, campaign duration, and payment options.

In general, the following factors affect the cost:

• Narrowly targeted ads may cost more, but they can provide higher conversion rates;
• Different formats (video, carousel, or photo) have different prices if they are made to order by specialists, and the cost of interaction in the app;
• the duration of the campaign also affects the budget: long-term campaigns allow you to distribute payments more evenly, while short-term promotion may require more costs per day.
• the payment model (budget per day or total budget) allows advertisers to precisely control the cost per click (CPC) or cost per impression (CPM).

So, the cost of Instagram advertising depends on the industry, the level of competition, the quality of the creative for the target, and the effectiveness of the target settings. Different business segments may have their own benchmarks, so it is important to conduct A/B testing to find the optimal balance between the price and the results obtained. To get more information about the cost of advertising on Instagram, you can refer to Facebook Business Ads.

How to evaluate the effectiveness of Instagram advertising

To make sure that your Instagram advertising efforts are bringing the desired results, you need to regularly analyze the effectiveness of your campaign. A modern advertising account allows you to track a lot of useful data that can help you evaluate the performance of your ads. It’s important to pay attention to interaction metrics: the number of likes, comments, and shares. This helps you understand how much your creative, which was created to run in the targeted mode, arouses the interest of the audience. In addition, analyzing click-through data allows you to see how many users follow a link to a page or store, and measuring conversions allows you to assess how many visitors perform a targeted action, such as buying a product or filling out a form.

It is equally important to track the ratio of campaign costs to results. Calculating the cost per click (CPC) and cost per impression (CPM) helps you understand how much each interaction or ad placement costs, which allows you to optimize your budget. Return on investment (ROI) allows you to clearly assess the profit received from a campaign in relation to its total cost.

For a deeper analysis, we recommend conducting A/B testing. In the process, small changes are made to the creative or settings to compare which version of the ad delivers better results in terms of interaction and conversions. This allows you to gradually improve the target settings and make the optimal parameters for advertising.

Some advertisers additionally use third-party tools that integrate with Instagram page data. They do this to get even more detailed reports on the performance of the creative that was created for the target, audience interaction, and the overall duration of the campaign.

Thanks to the constant analysis of the described indicators, it becomes possible to quickly adjust both payment and creative for the target, as well as make changes to the settings of the target audience. These actions are important to maximize the effectiveness of the launched advertising campaign.

Impressive cases of successful Instagram advertising

The most successful Instagram campaigns demonstrate how creativity and fine-tuning can be a game-changer in the marketplace. Precise targeting is also a key success factor. The cases of such global leaders as Nike, Red Bull, and Daniel Wellington demonstrate that non-standard solutions can be a powerful tool for maintaining a brand in a highly competitive environment.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, the sports brand Nike launched the PlayInside campaign, which encouraged people to stay active even if they had to stay at home almost all the time. Nike marketers scheduled the publication of content with home workouts on the page and this was a significant step towards keeping in touch with brand fans. Another interesting case of Nike is an Instagram story ad promoting the new Nike React collection. As a result, sales increased by 7% and brand perception by 4%.

Red Bull has always been distinguished by its special approach to advertising and its scale. One of their unrivaled advertising solutions was the online broadcast of skydiver Felix Baumgartner’s jump from the stratosphere. The video was watched by millions of viewers around the world, and Red Bull once again made a loud statement.

Daniel Wellington’s advertising campaign has demonstrated the effectiveness of cooperation with influencers of different levels. This method of promotion can significantly increase brand visibility and sales.

Another example is Airbnb’s campaigns. The first one invited users to share their travel stories. It significantly strengthened the trust in the service and allowed to see the real experience of other people. Another Airbnb campaign promoting the new Airbnb Experiences product consisted of photos and videos with unique activities. The company demonstrated various master classes on the page – from dancing to cooking – and the result was a 28% increase in bookings and a 9% increase in brand awareness.

These cases prove that experimenting with formats and unconventional approaches can yield impressive results, but success depends on a deep understanding of the target audience and careful planning of each campaign.

A little more about Instagram advertising

The previous sections cover the basics, but there’s always room for improvement in advertising your product on Instagram. So, for those who want to get the most out of it, there are additional tips.

1. Regularly update your library with new images, videos, and texts. Experiment with different creative elements to determine what resonates with your target audience.
2. Make sure your Instagram profile is fully optimized. A well-designed profile that reflects your brand identity makes it easier to convert clicks into lasting connections.
3. Check if you are using the connection between your Instagram page and Facebook page. In fact, this is very important because it will help you place additional ads and share creatives between the platforms.
4. Stay tuned for updates on how to disable or remove ads. Instagram regularly updates its requirements, so check the verification rules periodically.
5. Encourage users to interact with your posts. Ask questions, conduct polls, or encourage dialog to build an active community around your profile.
6. Periodically analyze the results of your campaign. The Instagram analytics dashboard in the Ads account provides detailed information on costs, creative performance, and other important metrics.
7. Digital marketing is constantly changing. Keep up with the latest trends by reading authoritative resources like Facebook Business Ads and HubSpot’s Digital Marketing Blog.

By following these additional recommendations, you can further optimize the effectiveness of your campaign and ensure that your promotion is cost-effective.

Conclusion

Launching an effective Instagram ad in 2025 requires a combination of creative vision, strategic planning, and continuous optimization.

Regardless of the scale of the business, the main thing for the owner is to research and understand the characteristics of their audience. And, of course, to use all available tools for promotion. Regularly analyze the effectiveness of campaigns, adjust creatives, and monitor the cost of each order to make informed decisions that maximize the return on investment.

Advertising on Instagram is not just about posting cute pictures and videos on your page. First and foremost, it’s a way to establish a real connection with your audience. With the right approach, your Instagram campaigns will not only attract attention, but will also help you generate real business results.

Pavlo Vlasiuk

CMO

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