Key advantages of Instagram advertising for ecommerce: flexible budgets, advanced targeting, Instagram Shopping and multiple ad formats to grow your brand and sales.
Instagram allows you to set very flexible budgets for your campaigns. Obviously, your results may be limited if you only spend €1 a day; however, that flexibility lets you run tests with different objectives and creatives.
One of the most common questions from marketers interested in Instagram ads is the potential ROI: how much does a click or a conversion on Instagram cost?
When analysing Instagram advertising costs, HubSpot found that the average cost per click (CPC) for Instagram ads ranges between $0.70 and $1.00.
However, many factors determine the cost of your Instagram ads. For example, there are differences in Instagram CPC prices across age groups.
The highest CPC age groups are 18–24, 25–34 and 35–44, the most valuable age groups when it comes to Instagram marketing.
I recommend using Meta Ads Manager to manage your Instagram advertising campaigns for your ecommerce. Instagram gives you the option to run campaigns directly from its app, but there are certain limitations.
For truly customised reports that allow you to optimise your campaigns, the Meta Ads Manager platform is ideal.
Instagram allows a wide variety of campaign objectives for your ecommerce; as part of the Meta network, you will find almost all the objectives you already know.
In summary, the objectives mirror the classic vision of a conversion funnel (Awareness -> Consideration -> Decision -> Conversion).
This is the top of the funnel, sometimes known by its acronym TOFU (Top of Funnel).
Let’s be honest. Not everyone knows us — unless we’re called Coca-Cola, Apple or Nike… and even then, those brands spend millions of euros each year on campaigns whose sole objective is brand awareness.
Put simply, in the awareness stage we make sure to solve the first problem a seller faces: people don’t buy from brands they don’t know.
Therefore, in this stage our campaigns focus on building trust in our brand, through carefully crafted messages and without being afraid to show our ads several times to our audience. In fact, the recommended frequency for branding campaigns is between 5 and 9, according to a Nielsen study.
We will use the Reach, Brand Awareness and Video Views objectives (even though Meta places Video Views in the next phase).
Your audience has its own individual preferences. Don’t miss opportunities for good results by using a single creative format.
At the top of the funnel, the following formats are usually recommended:
This is the middle stage, also known by its acronym MOFU (Middle of Funnel). With Instagram advertising campaigns for your ecommerce, you can show your services/products to people who already know you and are more likely to visit your ecommerce to buy.
Your audience already knows you and may have visited your page a few times. Trust has been established but they haven’t yet reached the final goal: converting.
Here we want to strengthen the relationship by offering more information, more detail and an even more personalised message.
We will use the Video Views and Traffic objectives.
At the middle of the funnel, the following formats are usually recommended:
The final stage of the conversion funnel, also known by its acronym BOFU (Bottom of Funnel).
Your audience not only knows you — they already trust your brand. In short, they are ready to commit and purchase your products.
We often see brands focusing solely on this objective; it’s not a bad idea to start with campaigns whose objective is easy to measure. However, for someone to buy from your ecommerce, they first need to have had some awareness of your products and brand.
Reducing advertising campaigns to a single purchase objective is a strategy that won’t allow you to grow. And for a business with limited market history, it will be very difficult to achieve good results.
Now, if you have campaigns running at each stage of the conversion funnel, your sales-objective campaigns will always have qualified audiences to feed from.
Some of the most common sales-objective campaigns are those we direct at people who abandoned their cart, or who spent a lot of time on a product page — the campaigns known as “retargeting”.
At the bottom of the funnel, the following formats are usually recommended:
The main strength of Meta/Instagram compared with Google is the availability of very precise audience segments.
Within Meta Ads Manager we can create very specific audiences, based both on segments provided by Meta and on our own audiences built from pixels or email lists of our customers.
And finally, we have the option to use Meta’s artificial intelligence to create audiences similar to our best customers with Advantage+ Lookalike — with very interesting results.
Several studies show that a large proportion of Instagram users discover brands and products within the social network.
Instagram’s potential is not limited to branding campaigns — it also offers various formats to increase sales.
It’s clear that if nobody knows your brand, you will struggle to get results with sales-only campaigns. The best solution is to run multiple campaigns with different objectives so you can nurture your conversion funnel with qualified audiences.
Instagram lets you promote your products and services with a wide range of creatives.
What is the best creative format? There is no definitive answer to that question, other than: it depends.
In fact, since the algorithm Meta uses to optimise campaigns is becoming increasingly agile, it is recommended that you use both photos and videos.
Also, if you have a product catalogue, carousel ads will serve you well — particularly for retargeting campaigns of the “abandoned cart” type.
Finally, Reels offer a vertical video format that fills the entire mobile screen; they are highly effective for both website traffic objectives and brand growth.
Static images remain one of the most effective formats for showcasing products clearly.
Videos capture attention more effectively than static images, especially in the Instagram feed.
Ideal for showcasing multiple products or telling a visual story sequentially.
“62% of people surveyed said they became more interested in a brand or product after seeing it in Stories” – Instagram for Business
Stories offer a full-screen vertical format with a high engagement rate.
Reels are currently the highest-organic-reach format on Instagram. For advertising, they allow you to reach audiences who don’t yet know your brand with native, entertaining content.
Thanks to its seamless integration with Meta’s advertising system, Instagram lets you sync your product catalogue to manage campaigns whose content will be your products. Using a catalogue allows you to advertise on Instagram for your ecommerce, dynamically showcasing your products.
When running campaigns aimed at people who have added a product to their cart without completing their purchase, you can dynamically load the abandoned products and show them again on Instagram.
Instagram Shopping (formerly Instagram Checkout) allows users to purchase products directly within the app, without leaving Instagram. Available globally for eligible business accounts, it offers a streamlined purchasing process that reduces friction. Users can discover products in the feed, in Reels, in Stories and in the Shopping tab, and complete the purchase without leaving the app. To activate it, you need a product catalogue linked to your Meta account and must comply with Meta’s commerce policies.
Instagram has more than 2 billion monthly active users. According to Meta, more than 200 million businesses use Instagram every month.
The Instagram social network enjoys a relatively young audience, with the majority of its users under 44 years old, with a global balance between women and men.
Instagram is already an ideal complement for ecommerce marketing. The platform is often used at the discovery stage of the sales funnel.
Insurance, Fashion, Airlines, Food, Sports Nutrition, Hotels, Personalisation… B2B, B2C… many businesses are on Instagram. Is your ecommerce already using Instagram’s full potential?
30 minutes to review your situation and tell you exactly what I would change. No pitch, no sales proposal.