Boost Your Instagram Ads with These 5 Tips from Top Marketers and Brands

Happy Friday, LinkedIn friends! At CatCow, we help brands create engaging ads for their paid social media strategy. Not surprisingly, Instagram, with its 800 million monthly active users, is one of the top platforms for which we create content. So, we've gathered a lot of helpful information along the way on how to add some rocket fuel to your Instagram strategy.

Below are five of my favorite tips that you can easily implement today - yes, today, Friday afternoon :) You got this.

If you're interested in learning how to set up your Instagram and Instagram Ads account, check out these robust guides from Hubspot and Buffer.

Insta tip #1

"Let your ad resemble organic Instagram content: Don’t push the sale, be subtle with your branding" -- Neil Patel

Neil has spent over $57K on Instagram ads, so I'm going to say he knows what he's talking about :) But this tip can't be over-stressed - Instagram users can easily spot an ad if it doesn't look like the content in their feed. So keep it real and fresh.

Insta tip #2

"Be Strategic With Your Text Positioning in Instagram Stories Ads" -- Nikki Canning, Later

Instagram stories are a great way to grab the attention of a super engaged user. With its quick-moving content, it's super easy to get drawn in! The drawback? That pesky sponsored tag in the top, right corner of your story. Nikki suggest to "draw attention away...by placing your main message or graphic in the middle of the screen, or closer to your ‘swipe up’ link."

Insta tip #3

On a budget? "Use Carousel as a Starter Format" -- Alex York, Sprout Social

Carousel ads on Instagram allow brands to add more than one piece of visual content to a post. Alex tells us that "carousel ads are a great way to showcase multiple visuals with a relatively low budget. If your ad caught a user’s attention, give them more to get them to engage and take action."

Insta tip #4

"Partner with Targeted Influencers" -- Lyfe Marketing

You've heard it over and over again: influencers are the future to building your brand fast. Lyfe tells us that "if you want to reach out to your potential customers on Instagram, you should consider leveraging influencers who have already done the hard work of building an audience. With more and more people buying products and services based on the content of their Instagram feed, it only make sense to partner with the right influencers to get your brand in front of them."

Insta tip #5

"Promote with video" - Jeff Bullas

Obliviously, we're all for video - but there's a reason a behind it! It works :) Jeff tells us that "videos instantly capture the attention of users because they stand out from the content around them. People love watching videos, even if they are short. If you put product videos in front of your customers, they are nearly twice as likely to make a purchase, especially if you couple it with a call-to-action button."

And who doesn't love purchases? :)

Bonus Insta tip!

"Use a Hashtag strategy." -- Meliss Jakubovic, Meliss Marketing

"Hashtags will get you noticed, increase engagement and build your following. A good Hashtag strategy includes Hashtags that are brand specific, industry relevant and trending.”

#instagram #socialmedia #videomarketing #b2cmarketing #paidmarketing #amidoingitright? :)

Take it from the experts and apply it to your own strategy - and be sure to follow us @catcowstudio on Instagram :)