Social media marketing is impossible without Instagram. This photo-sharing networking service has come a long way since its inception in 2010. Instagram’s popularity increased even more after its acquisition by Facebook. Statistics show that Instagram had 1.221 million active users in January 2021 and ranks among the top 5 social media platforms based on the number of active users. Naturally, Instagram is a favorite amongst marketers for networking and communicating with a large user base.

Marketing on Instagram – free vs. paid

Like any other social media platform, Instagram offers many other features that marketers and brands can use for promotion. Features like Instagram stories, live videos, shoppable ads, push notifications, Q&A sessions, and more make it easy for marketers to reach out to more audience and feed them content that they like. Brands can also increase awareness and engagement using Instagram. Traffic and sales coming from such marketing strategies are organic and free.

However, that’s not the only way you can boost your business via Instagram. Brands can also use paid Instagram ads as a part of their marketing strategy. Incorporating both methods can have offer better results for your brand and business.

Benefits of paid Instagram advertising

1. Targeted marketing

When you set up an advertisement campaign, you can specify the demographics that you want to target. You can specify age group, gender, location, and more in your ad campaigns. This means that your message or product is shown only to potential users. This, significantly, increases traffic influx and improves chances of conversion.

 2. Improved brand awareness

Using paid advertising as a part of your SMM strategy can significantly improve brand awareness. With ads, you can connect with more audience than via organic promotion. As more people get to know about you, your chances of making a sale increase. Thus, a hybrid strategy including both organic and paid promotion on Instagram will give you the revenue boosts that you desire.

Eye-catching ad formats

Unlike other social media platforms, Instagram ads are super eye-catchy. Marketers can add photos, stories, videos, and more into their ads to them appealing to users. Visually enticing advertisements are likely to attract more interest than ordinary text and banner format ads.

 1. Specific ad objectives

Instagram allows you to choose an objective for all your ad campaigns. This means you can create ad campaigns that will fulfill certain objectives. Instagram ads offer a set of objectives for all ad campaigns and you can choose what suits your business goals. You can choose from brand awareness, traffic, reach, engagement, app installs, conversions, and video views.

 2. Customizable CTA buttons

Call to action is an important part of any marketing campaign. Instagram considers that and allows marketers to use a CTA button with their ad campaign. The best part is you can choose custom CTAs for your ad campaigns depending on what your objectives are. Also, remember that CTA button options vary with the objective that you have selected for your campaign.