It’s time to rethink how to use Instagram’s advertising tools for your business. With the ongoing development of the platform, new ad placements, and algorithm changes, the ads, captions, and CTA that worked in the past may not deliver the same CPC, reach, and engagement in the near future.
Brands are increasingly concerned about where to spend their core social media marketing budgets. More than 50% of social media marketing budgets are spent inefficiently due to poor advertising, mixed coverage, limited ad types, and unfortunate ad captions.
With this article, I want to explore how we optimized advertising strategies on Instagram for GLAM LAB London, which allows freelance beauty professionals in the UK to register and list their services, for clients to book. The goal of the marketing campaign on Instagram was to highlight the service and generate leads.
Trial 1
Image or video creative?
At first, I was hesitant to test image ads just to see how they performed and compare them to the performance of our video ads.
Quick research showed that video generates ads three times more engagement than other formats. I ran a quick campaign that included an image ad for a few more days and found that Instagram’s algorithms were reluctant to push image ads:
Image Credits: GLAMLAB
That’s why I decided to use video ads instead. I started with two video ads that went viral on Instagram Reels (with 21,000 and 5,000 views) to test the algorithms and goals. We showed a six-second video of a girl first showing her off without makeup and then transitioning to her post-makeup to music, and a 13-second video showing a client struggling with makeup up and finally ordered our service.
I used a generic ad description with a CTA to book the service on our website, targeting a generic audience: London women aged 18-55. I chose all three Instagram ad placements (Reels, Stories, and Feed Posts) and the average results were:
Image Credits: GLAMLAB
l already heard that Instagram Reels might be more expensive than other placements, but didn’t expect such a big difference. The same creative can perform at almost half the cost when used on different ad placements.
