Whether you're brand new to Instagram ads or a seasoned advertising veteran
you're gonna want to pay careful attention to this episode, because in it
I'm going to be breaking down five newbie Instagram Ad mistakes that can
absolutely destroy any hopes you have of success with the platform. Let's get to it!
Hey there my name is Adam Earhart,
marketing strategist and welcome to The Marketing Show, where we help you grow
your business and generate more leads, customers and sales. So, if you're
interested in learning the latest and greatest marketing strategies, tools, tips,
tricks and tactics, well, you may want to consider subscribing and hitting that
notification bell. Alright, if you've been following me or this channel for
any length of time then you know just how big a proponent I am of Instagram
ads. After all, they're one of the greatest marketing opportunities
available to businesses today I strongly believe that pretty much everybody
should be at least testing them in their business in order to see if they're
gonna convert for them. But, like all things, the quality and the results that
you get from your Instagram advertising campaign it's largely going to come down
to the quality and the information that you feed into the program itself.
Basically, if you want good results and more profitable campaigns out of
Instagram ads, well, then you're gonna need to set these campaigns up properly
right from the beginning which is why I'm pretty excited to get to share these
5 newbie mistakes I see time and time again among both novice and pretty
seasoned advertisers when it comes to setting up profitable Instagram ad
campaigns. So, I strongly advise you to take this episode to heart, make sure to
understand the tips, make sure to write them down maybe and make sure to be
implementing them in your campaigns because ignoring them will virtually
guarantee a completely failed Instagram ad campaign. So, with all that said let's
get right into the tips. Let's help you avoid these mistakes and let's save you
a whole lot of money in the process and it all starts with mistake number 1
which is using the Instagram promote button. Now, I totally understand
Instagram has made this incredibly easy and they've really kind of marketed this
button to you as that easy button for your ad campaigns the parallels are
pretty much identical between the Facebook boost post button and the
Instagram promote button and essentially all these are is just real quick and
easy ways to get a campaign out there without really doing much work behind it.
But, like all things and marketing and business and in life, well, the more you
put in the more you're going to get out and there really are no shortcuts when
it comes to creating effective online campaigns. The promote button is no
exception. Now, there's a number of massive issues
with using the promote button but by far, probably the most important one at least
for me and when I'm looking at different client accounts and when they're using
this, is that they're almost using this as that shortcut or as an excuse to not
set up a proper marketing campaign right from the beginning and really clarify
their objectives and what they're hoping to achieve from this Instagram campaign.
You see, when it comes to advertising on Instagram, advertising in general,
marketing in general, well, no campaign - no great campaign - was ever created just on
a whim or just by hitting a promote button and hoping for the best. That'd be
amazing, but it's not the case. Rather, proper campaigns and by proper I mean
profitable, well, profitable campaigns are created right from the beginning by
clarifying an objective really spelling out exactly what you're trying to
achieve, who the market is that you're trying to
reach, what message you're going to use and really building out a strategic and
well-structured campaign right the way through. The promote button on the other
hand, is what I call random acts of marketing and it's essentially just oh
that looks like a good post to promote I guess I'll promote it. Shockingly or
completely unshockingly, this results are always completely
abysmal and they often lead to the business owner or entrepreneur swearing
off Instagram ads saying that they don't work because they really didn't get any
results from them. So, mistake number one is using this promote button. Rather, you
want to do the alternative and set the campaign up strategically right from the
beginning making sure that it's not a random act of marketing but is rather a
really strategic and well-thought-out campaign. Otherwise, you're significantly
better off just to save your money and wait for the future when you've got time
or more resources to do this right it's. Just like grandma used to say: "Do it
right or don't do it at all". Wise words. Alright, moving right along to newbie
mistake number two, which is using Instagram ads to build followers. Now, we
saw this exact same scenario play out on Facebook a few years ago where brands
and businesses were dumping just a ton of money into building those Facebook
like campaigns and essentially building up their followers and paying a whole
lot of money to do so. Well, if history is any indication of what's going to happen
here it's pretty clear to say that a lot of people are gonna spend a whole lot of
money building up these followers and then Instagram is gonna slash that reach
completely just like Facebook did and all of that time and money and energy
will be pretty much completely wasted. So the lesson here is
that when you're running advertising campaigns, when you're essentially
putting money behind your message and try to get it out in front of more
people, you rarely, if ever and probably never, want to advertise for vanity
metrics. These are things like likes or comments or shares or things that make
your brand in business look good but don't really contribute to the bottom
line. You see, advertising that relies on
vanity metrics is what gives advertising a really bad name in the first place.
Essentially, classifying it is an expense rather than an investment. Advertising
should absolutely be held to task, should be accountable and it should be aimed to
provide a valid ROI or Return On Investment. When it does this you know
you can spend more and get more in return. It's essentially the same as
spending a dollar and getting two dollars back. I don't know about you but
where I come from that's a pretty good deal.
Vanity metrics on the other hand, allow you to pay a dollar and get some likes
in return. I don't know about you but where I come from that's a pretty bad
deal. Essentially, when it comes to advertising on Instagram a giant mistake
is spending money to look successful rather than spending money to actually
be successful. Likes, comments and shares all make you feel good but you can't
build a business with likes. You're far better off by telling Instagram exactly
what you want to achieve in other words if you're running an advertising
campaign with hopes of generating more leads or PDF downloads or viewers to
your video series or whatnot, well, just come out directly and tell
them exactly what you want to achieve and you can optimize for this inside the
ads manager. Rather than trying to outsmart the algorithm or circumvent it
with fancy techniques like building a ton of followers first and then going
after them later and all sorts of other tactics which can work in the more
advanced settings well if you're just getting started you're significantly
better by just going straight for the kill. If you want a webinar registration,
well, then ask for a webinar registration. If you want someone to download your
lead magnet then optimize for someone to download your lead magnet. If you're
trying to get a sale, then run an ad to get a sale. If you're trying to build
likes well then just don't feel like. The next newbie mistake I see time and time
again among most of the ad accounts that I audit is really relying solely on
image ads. Yes, image ads still work and they can work incredibly well but
relying on them as your only form of creative it's kind of crazy. This is
especially true if you've never tested or leverage the power of video, whether
we're talk about feed or in the stories. Basically,
you need to be testing all kinds of different creative,
yes image ads but also video ads and again in the feed and in the stories. You
see, there's a funny thing that happens with a video ad in that it's essentially
a little more engaging, now this is going to mean that possibly more people are
going to engage with your content initially but it's also going to keep
them engaged with the content for longer which Instagram is going to reward you
with by showing your ad to more people for less money. If you have absolutely no
idea how to create video ads for Instagram, no worries here, you can start
really simple just by using your phone or even a simple camera setup but the
reality is is that you do want to find some kind of moveable images, also known
as a video, and get it out there in your advertising. I'll also make sure to link
up, in the description below a piece of software that I'm using right now inside
the agency that allows us to quickly create video ads for both feed and
stories without having to be on camera. So, if you're camera shy or don't even
know where to begin make sure to check that link oh it'll be a great place to
start. There's another important point to talk about when it comes to using video
ads and that's essentially staying in tune with what Instagram wants to see
and what they want to promote on the platform. You see, the algorithm is always
changing and it's always updating and evolving and adapting to what kind of
features that they want to promote and what's working best with the audience's
that they're promoting it to. Well, right now it happens to be video but this
doesn't mean it won't change in the future which is why you always want to
be testing those image ads and those video ads different placements, different
creative, different design, different lengths, all sorts of different factors
but again, I'm getting ahead of myself we'll cover that in just a second. The
point is, you want to stay up-to-date on the algorithm and on the platform itself
so that you can give them more of what they want so they in return will give
you more of what you want which is more reach, more customers, more engagement and
more sales from your Instagram advertising. The next mistake that I see
newbies advertisers make when it comes to running Instagram ads is combining feed
and story ads or more accurately combining the creative across both
different versions. Now, it's no secret that the feed and the stories, well,
they're both very different in regards to size and dimensions and video length
and essentially all the formatting that goes into the creative. This is why it's
completely nuts to come up with one creative and then just slap it on all
locations and hope for the best, because the reality is
it's gonna look very different depending on which one it's designed for. On one, it
could fit perfectly, looks like it belongs there, it's enticing and
appealing, all the graphics fit and the text is easy to read. But on the other,
things could be just crammed in, look like they don't belong and really they
look like exactly what's happened here which is you've used the exact same
creative and just thrown it across all the different places and that's a no-no,
because not only does it not work well it also makes you look kind of like an
amateur and looking like an amateur no surprise is kind of bad for business. The
other factor is that user behavior it's pretty different depending on whether
we're talking about scrolling through a feed or looking through stories, so again,
you want to make sure that your creative fits the tone and the style and
essentially the overall aesthetic of whatever position you're using. Basically,
the newbie mistake to avoid here is just using the exact same creative across all
your different placements. You want to customize it and you want to make sure
it fits and looks like it belongs there. I'll make sure to put a link in the
descriptions below that'll show you the exact sizes and specifications for feed
and four stories ads, so you never have to worry about it again. The next newbie
mistake that I see not only in Instagram ads but also Facebook ads and YouTube
ads and pretty much any other online advertising platform is simply not
testing enough. You see, you have an amazing opportunity here to quickly test
different audiences, different placements and different creative in order to find
that mythical and magical combination of the perfect ad that's going to give you
the best results at the lowest costs and yet so few people fully leverage this
incredible power, they don't create enough creative, they don't test enough
placements, they don't do enough audience research and really split test a number
of different audiences. Again, at the end of the day what this leads is to pretty
poor performing campaigns and then just blaming the platform and saying
Instagram ads don't work. This is why my rule is that you should always be
testing, always test videos, images, captions, fonts, colors, audiences,
targeting, feed, stories, landing pages, everything. Test, test, test and test some
more. I'm absolutely shocked sometimes at some of the ads that I think are going
to absolutely dominate, well, they fall a bit flat and then the ones that I'm kind
of on the fence about well, they're the ones that end up crushing it and deliver
5 times, 10 times, even a 100 times ROI so avoid that newbie mistake and
always testing. Alright, the next thing you're
gonna want to do is check out this video I have linked up right here when it's
released next week which is part of this Instagram marketing series. So, make sure
to check that out when it's released next week. Thanks so much for watching
and I'll catch you next time on The Marketing Show. Your ad really only has
two goals: number one, to stop the scroll and number two, to get the click. That's
pretty much it. First, let's talk about stopping the...
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