Want to know how to do paid traffic on Instagram and succeed with the strategy? Check out our guide with the 6 essential steps to get started
Paid traffic on Instagram, one of the most popular social networks in the world, offers a rich and diverse platform for brands and businesses to reach their audiences.
However, growing organically can be challenging, especially amid increasing competition. This is where paid traffic on Instagram comes in as an effective and targeted way to reach potential customers and increase your brand’s visibility.
In this guide, we will cover tips ranging from creating ad campaigns to analyzing results to help you start investing in one of the world’s largest social networks. So, shall we?
Why invest in paid traffic on Instagram?
Investing in paid traffic on Instagram offers several benefits that can impact a brand’s online presence and success. Some of the main reasons to consider this strategy include:
the broad reach of content, as it is delivered to a much larger audience than would be possible organically. This is particularly useful for brands that are starting or want to expand their audience quickly;
precise targeting based on demographic and geographic data, interests, and behaviors, which increases the relevance of ads and the likelihood of conversion;
faster results than organic strategy, such as increased website traffic, lead generation, and sales growth;
greater engagement (likes, comments, and shares), which helps build an active and engaged community around your brand;
complete control over how much you want to spend and the freedom to adjust as needed to maximize return on investment (ROI);
results tracking with robust analytics tools that allow you to monitor ad performance in real-time;
brand strengthening, keeping it at the top of consumers’ minds. This is crucial for building trust and loyalty in the long term;
diversification of traffic sources, as relying solely on organic can be risky due to constant changes in social media algorithms. In other words, investing in paid traffic makes your marketing strategy more robust and less vulnerable to fluctuations.
In summary, advertising on Instagram is a powerful strategy that, when well executed, can significantly increase visibility, engagement, and conversions, helping your brand achieve and exceed its digital goals.
How to advertise on Instagram? Check out the step-by-step
Now that you know the importance of investing in paid traffic on Instagram, it’s time to learn how to start advertising on the network to succeed. Below, you will find the 6 essential steps for this process.
1. Have a business account on Instagram
Before starting to invest in paid traffic on Instagram, it is essential to have a business account, as only it offers access to ads and performance insights.
In this sense, you can create one from scratch, already starting the configuration process with a focus on your brand, or transform your profile into a business one. But if you are in the second situation, the process is also very simple. Just:
- Access the profile through the Instagram app;
- Click on the menu (three-line icon in the upper right corner) to access “Settings”;
- Click on “Account type and tools” and select the “Switch to Professional Account” option;
- Select the category that best matches your business and enter all relevant information about it;
- Finally, it is important to connect your Instagram account to a Facebook page to facilitate the management and creation of ads with Meta Ads.
Transforming your personal account into a business account is an essential step to start doing paid traffic on Instagram. After all, this not only enables you to create ads but also offers tools and analytics that are crucial for a successful strategy.
2. Choose the platform to do paid traffic on Instagram
So, after setting up your business account on Instagram, the next step is to choose the ideal platform to manage your ads. There are two main options: promoting content directly through Instagram or using Meta Ads for more advanced configurations.
Promoting content through Instagram itself
Promoting content directly from your profile is a simple and quick way to turn your posts into ads. To do this, just choose an existing post, click the “Promote” button, and follow the steps to define your goal, target audience, budget, and duration.
This option is ideal for beginners or those who want to boost specific posts without much complexity. In fact, the intuitive interface allows you to manage everything directly through the Instagram app, making the process quick and accessible.
Using Meta Ads for more advanced configuration
Now, if the focus is on working with a more robust approach, Meta Ads (formerly known as Facebook Ads) offers advanced tools for creating and managing advertising campaigns on Instagram.
Through the platform, you can define detailed objectives, such as brand awareness, conversions, or engagement, precisely target your audience, and use different ad formats, such as carousel, video, and collection.
Furthermore, Meta Ads provides full control over the budget, schedule, and content of the ads, as well as offering detailed analytics to monitor and optimize campaign performance.
3. Define your goals and target audience
The third essential step to doing paid traffic on Instagram is to clearly define your goals and the audience you want to reach. This step will ensure that your campaigns are more targeted and effective.
Defining goals
First, determine what you expect to achieve with your Instagram ads. Within Meta Ads, goals can vary widely, including:
Brand awareness: increases your brand’s visibility among a broad audience;
Engagement: encourages interactions like likes, comments, and shares on your posts;
Traffic: directs users to your website or specific landing page;
Conversions: encourages specific actions, such as purchases, sign-ups, or downloads;
Leads: collects contact information from potential customers.
Defining the audience
Next, identify the audience for your campaigns. Both Instagram and Meta Ads offer detailed targeting tools that allow you to reach the persona based on:
Demographics: age, gender, location;
Interests: hobbies, behaviors, and specific interests;
Behaviors: users’ previous actions, such as online purchases, app usage, among others;
Custom audiences: existing customer lists or website visitors;
Lookalike audiences: users who share characteristics with your current customers.
Correctly targeting the audience is fundamental to maximize the relevance and effectiveness of your ads, ensuring that they are displayed to people who are most likely to engage with your brand and perform the desired actions.
4. Set the budget and ad schedule
Another essential step to doing paid traffic on Instagram is to set the budget and schedule for your ads. This is the moment when you make the campaigns financially sustainable and efficient, reaching the right audience at the right time.
To start, Instagram offers two main budget options for you to choose from:
Daily: sets a maximum amount you are willing to spend per day. This helps control daily spending and maintain a constant flow of ad displays;
Lifetime: determines the total amount for the entire duration of the campaign. This allows for greater flexibility in distributing spending over time, adapting to periods of higher and lower demand.
Additionally, scheduling ads helps ensure that your message reaches the audience at the most opportune moments. Therefore, you should consider:
Campaign duration: determine the period your ads will be active. This can be a few days, weeks, or months, depending on your goals and specific events, such as promotions or product launches;
Display times: base on data about when your audience is most active on Instagram to maximize the effectiveness of the ads.
By correctly adjusting the budget and schedule, you can optimize campaign performance, avoid excessive spending, and ensure that your ads are seen at opportune moments, increasing the chances of performing the desired actions.
5. Create attractive ads
Creating attractive ads is also essential to capture your audience’s attention and encourage their engagement.
Therefore, when developing creatives for Instagram Ads, always prioritize factors such as the quality of images and videos, the use of clear texts and CTAs, the overall visual composition of the content, and experimenting with different formats. You can bet on:
Feed ads: images or videos that appear in users’ feeds, integrating with the content they are already consuming;
Stories: great for quick and impactful messages;
Carousel: ideal for showcasing various product features or telling a story;
Collection: combines a main video or image with products displayed below. This format is effective in encouraging purchases directly from the ad;
Explore: helps reach users who are discovering new content.
Creating visually appealing and well-structured ads is essential to capturing your audience’s attention on Instagram and encouraging them to interact with your brand. By using the different available formats, you can diversify your strategy and maximize campaign impact.
6. Analyze results and optimize your campaigns
Finally, analyzing the results of your campaigns and continuously optimizing them is essential to succeed with paid traffic on Instagram. After all, this will help you understand what is working and where there is room for improvement.
Within Instagram’s insights tab or Meta Ads, you can track key performance metrics, such as:
Impressions: number of times your ads were displayed;
Reach: unique users who saw your ads;
Engagement: likes, comments, shares, and clicks on ads;
Click-through Rate (CTR): percentage of people who clicked on the ad relative to the number of impressions;
Conversions: desired actions performed by users, such as purchases, sign-ups, or downloads.
Based on the collected data, it is essential to make adjustments to improve campaign performance, such as A/B testing, audience adjustments, budget reviews, and continuous content improvements.
Furthermore, if you want to go beyond analyzing your Instagram paid traffic strategies, you can count on Reportei’s comprehensive reports. In addition to capturing social network metrics in seconds, our platform integrates with over 20 other channels and provides a complete view of the success of your entire digital marketing strategy.
So, check out how Instagram report creation works in practice with Reportei and request your free trial of the tool!
