Hey, What’s your Insta username?

Isn’t it something you’d ask someone you want to connect with? Well, most people do so. In fact, people are more comfortable connecting with others on social media than through their personal phone numbers. Instagram is one such platform.

It’s good and all for socialising, sharing pictures, videos, etc. but lead generation through Instagram ads? Really?

Instagram Ads

Well yes, you can generate leads for your business using this platform. In fact, Instagram has proven itself as an effective digital marketing channel. This is why online businesses make a point to include it in their social media marketing practice.

Instagram is one of the leading social media platforms. It has over 1 billion monthly active users. This makes it a great medium of reaching a global audience. Moreover, with its free and effective features like Story, Reels, etc. it becomes a great tool for marketing over internet.

But in this article, we’re specifically going to talk about the paid promotion feature on this platform—Instagram ads.

Wondering how you can generate more leads and improve your conversion funnel with Instagram ads? Here’s how to do it-

Facebook’s Ad Manager

Before you begin with your Instagram ad campaign, there’s something you need to know. Instagram doesn’t have any specific ad manager. But don’t worry. You can manage your Instagram Ads through Facebook Ads. So, the ways that we are going to discuss below would require you to manage your Instagram Ads using Facebook Ads manager.

How to generate leads with Instagram ads

– Set an objective

Setting an objective is essential before beginning with any digital marketing campaign. What are you generating leads for?

Lead is basically a person you can trail by capturing their information or by establishing contact. Following are some of the reasons one could be generating a lead for-

Brand awareness: It’s as simple as it sounds. If you have just started a business or you’re new to social media marketing, you can use Instagram ads for brand awareness.

Reach: Are you using Instagram ads because you want to expand your virtual reach? This can be one possible objective.

Traffic: Many companies sort to Instagram ads because they want to increase traffic on their online establishments.

App installs: Have you developed a new app? You can use paid ads on Instagram to have more people install your app.

Engagement: Do you simply want more engagement (likes, comments, share, etc.) on your social media handles? Many businesses use Instagram for the same objective.

Conversions: Sales maximization is a common marketing objective when using Instagram ads. Many businesses use it to sell their products.

These are just a few possible objectives to name. For example, SEO agencies in Pune may be able to generate most leads if they target audience that lives in Pune and owns some online business. Therefore, they could set location and demographics accordingly.

So, before starting with an Instagram ad campaign, identify your objective. It could be one of the options above or a mix of it. Once, you’re done with this, you’ll be good to go for the next step.

– Define your target audience

Targeting is a crucial element of marketing. If you don’t target the right people, you may end up with a low ROI and your marketing efforts can go in vain. So, make sure to define a target audience for your Instagram ads.

There are following things you’ll need to figure out about your target audience:

  • Location: Figure out the region the region your target audience lives in. You may need to define particular country/state/city/zip code, and so on.
  • Age: It lets you select a range of age for your target audience. However, the minimum age limit is 13.
  • Gender: You can define whether your Instagram ad is targets gender specific audience or is it for all.
  • Languages: In some cases, what language your audience speaks may play a role.
  • Demographics: For more detailed targeting, you can define the demographics of your audience. This includes options like Education, Financial, Home, Life Events, and so on. Upon clicking on these options, you will find more specifications which will further help you refine your targeting.

There are more targeting specifications in the UI like Interests, Behaviours, Connections, Custom Audience, Lookalike Audience, and so. Make sure to use the most of these to refine your audience targeting.

– Define your ads placement

Since, we’re using Facebook’s ad manager, it is important to define the placement of your ads. If you miss this step, Facebook will automatically post your ad on both the platforms (Facebook & Instagram). So, if you want your ad to be published on Instagram only, this is a crucial step.

Along with letting you choose what platform you want to place your ad on, it also allows you to decide whether you want your ads to appear only in stories/feed, or on both.

Some ads may look good on both Instagram & Facebook while some may not. Also, some ads may suit to be posted in story/feed only. Hence, these are some important decisions to make when starting an Instagram ads campaign for lead generation.

– Set your ad schedule

At what time your ad shows up has a great influence on its all over success. Well thankfully, you can also schedule when your Instagram ad shows up.

Therefore, find out at what time your target audience is active the most and schedule your Instagram ad accordingly. This way, you will be able to the get the best out of advertising on Instagram and generate maximum lead.

– Form your ad carefully

Once you are done defining your lead generation objective, target audience, ad placement, and schedule, the next thing is to create the advertisement.

Apparently, if you intend to post your ad on story, it’d need to be created differently than one to be posted on feed. So, identify which format is best suitable for your advertising requirement and design your ad accordingly. Also, make it a point to use high resolution images and videos to maximize lead generation.

– Ask minimum questions in the lead form

Finally when your Instagram ad has reached your target audience, you will need to serve them with a form. It is where they can fill details required to make them your leads. You have led your audience all the way to this form; make sure it doesn’t become the point where you lose them.

Generally, long lead generation forms or those which ask too many questions can be discouraging. Moreover, your audience might not be comfortable sharing too much information in such early phase of contact. Therefore, make sure to keep questions at a minimum. Even better, use multiple choice questions rather than asking open ended questions. This way, you will be able to maximize lead generation through your Instagram advertisement campaign.

Conclusion

Paid advertisement on Instagram has become a popular marketing practice on social media. This is why many businesses use Instagram ads for lead generation. You can generate quality leads using this medium if you start with a clear objective. Moreover, you should also define your target audience, ad placement, ad schedule, and so on. Once you are through with all this, the next step is selecting a suitable ad format. Finally, you need to optimize your lead form in a way that your audience feels encouraged to fill it. This way, you will be able to generate a high number of leads using Instagram ads.

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