Instagram stories have been a huge hit and are wildly popular! Due to this, it’s a no-brainer to start advertising your products with Instagram story ads. A great example is the drastic growth Airbnb experienced by using businesses that saw through Instagram story ads was.
Airbnb ran a series of 15-second video adverts in stories to build awareness and buzz around its largest product launch to date: experiences on Airbnb. With its stories campaign, the company saw a double-digit point increase in advert recall.
Since then, Instagram story ads have become an extremely beneficial tool for marketers. Do you want to start advertising on Instagram stories? In this article, we’ll explain everything you need to know about Instagram story ads. From the benefits of running Instagram story ads to real-world examples and success stories, we’ll reveal all to help you get started.
Without further ado, let’s begin.
Instagram Story ads are vertical ads you can run on Instagram's Stories feature. They are published separately from your Instagram profile.
The benefits of Instagram ads are endless. You can target ads to your demographics and specific products, unlike organic stories. Additionally, these ads will not disappear after 24-hours.
You can also choose how long the campaign lasts and the frequency of ads shown, just like any other ad on Facebook's ad platform. Moreover, a user doesn't have to follow your brand page to view a Story ad from you.
In-feed ads are overused and even expensive. In contrast, story video ads are underutilized. Instagram story ads are becoming wildly popular among marketers because:
While Instagram feed ads are still a great place to advertise, Instagram stories ads are new and exciting. It is still a relatively new tool by many marketers with massive potential.
While some surveys may say that infeed ads on Instagram work better, we think they were a bit early to the party. Right now, Instagram story ads are blowing up, and there is no saying which type of ads are better.
Instagram Stories are vertical videos, not horizontal or landscape. This orientation is essential for marketers to keep in mind when creating content. The full-screen experience of Instagram Story ads means that ads are different on Instagram Stories than on In-feed Instagram ads.
Instagram story's orientation is 9x16, while for Instagram in-feed ads, the orientation needs to be 1:1. A story ad will cover the entire mobile screen, while an in-feed ad will have a square shape.
In a feed ad, you'll usually have a visual and a text that a viewer can expand to read more thoroughly. You will have an Instagram post with images or videos. Moreover, you will have the chance to add a copy to your caption.
But Stories ads don't offer much real estate, but they require a cohesive, creative unit. The stories need to have all the images, video, captions, and text, in one place. So, you need to be creative about running Instagram story ads.
Instagram in-feed ad length can be 1-60 seconds. It can be an image ad or a video ad. But with Instagram Stories ads, the length can be 15 seconds.
But you can use multiple stories and treat them as carousel ads. The attention span of people has reduced. Using shorter-length story ads can work wonders than using longer ads.
Unmuted audio is one of Instagram Story's newest features — and it's a huge advantage for brands and advertisers.
When someone interacts with your story ad, the sound comes on automatically. However, in the Instagram feed, the video ads only play the sound if you click to listen.
Often, the call to action is at the bottom of an advertisement. When clicking, users are directed to learn more or buy. Instagram stories can act as URL click-through buttons.
Clicking on the swipe-up button will automatically send the user to the website's landing page without any extra typing required. However, you can only add the Swipe up URL feature if you have more than 10K followers on Instagram.
Learn more: Instagram Video Marketing - What you Need to Know
The best way to run Instagram Stories Ads is with Facebook Ads Manager. They can be any size photo or video. You can also make carousel ads to show more than one photo or video in an ad that runs on Instagram Stories.
Here are several steps you can take to run Instagram story Ads with Facebook Ads Manager,
1. Open Ads Manager and select "Create."
2. Select your marketing objective for your Instagram Stories ad (Choose from Brand awareness, Reach, Video Views, Lead Generation, etc.)
3. Choose where you want to place your ad in the ad placement option. There are two options: Automatic placements or Manual placements.
If you choose manual placement, tick the box for Stories under Instagram.
4. Set a budget and schedule. How much money do you want to spend on an ad set per day? What’s your average cost per click? You can set it all here.
5. decide how you want your ad to look. Choose Single image ad, Single video, or Carousel as the ad format.
6. Select and upload the video or images you want to add to the story. To make your video creation process easier, you can choose from the several different templates from our Instagram story maker.
7. Finish the process by clicking on Confirm.
Instagram offers a variety of ads you can run — from in-feed video ads to Story ads. However, all the types of ads have different specs. For Instagram story ads, the following are the proper specs for it.
Instagram can be a great way to promote your brand on social media, as you can place ads as high as $0.70 per click or as high as $5.00 per click, depending on the industry and placement.
Although prices vary massively depending on what you're looking for, there's still a budget control option built into the platform which allows you to set a pre-determined budget.
Your costs may vary based on industry, days of the week, time of year, targeted demographics, and various other factors.
Every Instagram user is aware of the poll sticker on the story. Influencers and small business owners often use it to know the audience. Using interactive polls while creating Instagram stories ads can be a game-changer
Use this tool to display simple text overlaid on your ad. To include an interactive poll in your ad, you’ll need to leave enough space to account for the insertion of the poll overlay during the ad creation process. That means leaving enough space for the poll overlay.
How to add interactive polls? When making your story ad creative, you will get an option in "Stories customization" to run an interactive poll. Choose Add an Interactive poll and then customize it by adding options and sticker width.
Motion attracts your viewer's attention. Dynamic ads perform better than static images. Even Facebook says that "Ads with motion perform better". Use this to your advantage by conveying a story with as much information and motion as you can.
Even if you're using static images, consider the benefits of adding movement to your content. Try to add automated animation to your pictures to give them some depth. You can do so with Offeo's Geniemate feature; it offers one-click animation for striking visuals.
If you didn't already know, Instagram is all about hashtags.
Ads Manager prioritizes the visual in an ad. If your ad includes a video or image designed to take up the entire screen, you might not see any text. But don’t worry! When preparing the final ad, you can still add text to your ad—including hashtags and tags.
But you have cut down the image’s dimensions or ad to add text. Moreover, the average count of characters in the stories is also less. But if you can use the relevant hashtags and engaging copy, you can streamline your ad to reach specific audiences.
One of the essential elements in an Instagram advertisement is a clear call to action. There might be different goals with your advertising. You might want them to click on a link or swipe up through the story to get a website with more information. Either way, you have to tell people what you want them to do.
Using limited-time offers or exclusive deals to convince your followers to take action can be a great way to encourage impulse purchases. Another simple trick is using the sense of urgency, or FOMO, by creating limited-time offers or exclusive deals for your followers on Instagram Stories.
Instagram has two carousel ads types: In-feed carousel ads and story carousel ads. You can tell a longer, more complex story than one video or photo on Instagram Stories. That's why Instagram created carousel ads; you can run Instagram story ads to up of three cards.
It can be three 15 second videos or three images. The carousel ad format lets you share a more “sequenced” story over several parts.
Thanks to Facebook Ads Manager, customizing your audience on your ad campaigns is easier than ever. Creating a customized audience makes it easy to reach people genuinely interested in your brand.
Don’t take a swipe at potential customers who were never exposed to your brand before or aren't the least bit interested. Use Facebook Custom Audiences to target Instagram users who’ve already been exposed to your brand for remarketing purposes.
Facebook Custom Audiences is a way to target Instagram users who have been interested in your company before. It is possible to target these people with four different segments:
You can survey your existing customers and create lookalike audiences. That way, the ads are bound to perform.
Thanks to dating apps, swiping has become quite a hobby for everyone. If you do not make an excellent first impression, your audience will swipe next. The first few seconds on Instagram story ads are essential. You need to come in with all guns blazing to catch the viewer's attention.
Learn more: 9 Instagram Story Best Practices You Can Use Immediately
Many brands have experienced great success with using Instagram Story ads. Below are several Instagram stories ads that performed exceptionally well to take inspiration from.
The reason why this ad stood out to the audience was because of the excellent graphics in the above image. On top of that, it offers an incentive to the audience- cheap food delivery. The call to action is also clear - "Download.” You swipe up, and you will be downloading the app.
This is what you call a simple but powerful. It sticks to the brand image and places the magazines right in front of the audience. The value proposition is just an introductory offer. An interested enough viewer can swipe up and subscribe to The Economist.
This Instagram story ad example has a few things going for it. For starters, the colors are very attention-grabbing. Furthermore, the placement of text and illustration up top is excellent. And to top it all off, there's a clear call-to-action with a subscribe button.
Babbel asks a simple question that makes you want to know the answer. Once you answer, you get to explore the rest of the ad. Moreover, notice how this ad splits into two scenes. That's an easy hack for Instagram story ads if they are too long to fit into one section.
This ad shows a video where Upasana Prakash talks about her tutorial where she teaches viewers how to travel on a shoestring budget. Tripoto uses the popular keyword Budget travel and hooks in the audience with a catchy title.
The CTA is "Book now" which means you can book your spot for the class straight away.
Okay, we just got this ad while swiping through our regular story today. What caught us off guard is the more section. When the user clicks on More, the text shows. The caption offers a detailed explanation of the power programs Danyel is offering.
Instagram Story ads are vertical ads you can run on Instagram's Stories feature. They are published separately from your Instagram profile.
To make sure your Instagram story ad loads correctly, you need to follow Instagram's guidelines and create your story with a 9×16 aspect ratio.
Furthermore, try making your video or image resolution no more than 1080 x 1920 pixels and no less than 600 x 1067 pixels. Finally, ensure the maximum file size of your image to be 30 MB and 4 GB for your videos.
Instagram stories play video ads for up to 10 seconds per card. If your video ad is more than 10 seconds, Instagram will split it into up to six separate Stories cards.
Instagram Story Ads appear when you scroll through Instagram stories. However, when you see an Instagram story ad, you'll see a 'sponsored' label in the top right corner, differentiating it from usual Instagram Stories.
Yes, you can have sound on your Instagram Story Ads. Better yet, because of the successful launch of Instagram Reels, you must add sound to your ads. This way, your ads will blend organically when your audience sees them when browsing through Reels.
Now you're all set to create your own inspiring Instagram Story ad! Remember, however, that your brand and audience are unique. Use these best practices as a starting point, but be sure to try and find what works best for your business goals and social media objectives.
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