Making the Best Instagram Story Ads Will Uplevel Your Marketing Strategy

Want to learn how to make the best Instagram Story ads to help your marketing campaign uptick your business’ success? You may already know that constantly posting content on your Instagram feed is important for any small business. We want to share how to create short and effective Instagram Stories  ads that can boost your business.

Read on to learn about how Instagram Story ads can increase your overall marketing success.

TLDR: Level Up Your Instagram Story Ads

• Tip 1: Follow the Instagram Story Ads do’s and don’ts
• Tip 2: Choose the right tool for the job
• Tip 3: Stay up-to-date on platform changes to keep current

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Why Instagram Story Ads Matter to Your Marketing Campaign 

In our #BizHackLive webinar, Instagram Stories Ads 101, Giovanni Insignares shares his insights on ways to use Instagram, and specifically Instagram Story ads, for your marketing success. Giovanni Insignares became one of our first-ever master instructors at BizHack. He now works as the Digital Marketing Manager at The Related Group, one of the nation’s largest real estate developers.

In the webinar, Insignares goes over three important aspects to creating the best Instagram Story ads for your business:

1. How to use Instagram Stories ads to provide customer’s new opportunities to reach potential clients
2. Tips and tricks to build an effective Instagram Story ad with metrics to measure its success
3. Some follow-up routes your business should take for better sales.

Instagram Stories is an easily accessible path for businesses with even small marketing budgets because of the app’s use across the globe.

“Instagram continues to grow in popularity, so it is critical that your business has a presence there,” Insignares said.

Insignares listed some important Instagram stats from 2020 to highlight the power of the platform:

• 1 billion people use Instagram every month.
• 500 million people use Instagram Stories every day.
• Instagram users will spend an average of 28 minutes per day on the platform.
• 200 million Instagram users visit at least one business profile daily.
• Instagram’s potential advertising reach is 849.3 million.
• One-third of the most-viewed stories are from businesses.
• 75.3% of U.S. businesses reported using Instagram Stories in 2020.
• Business brands post an average of 2.5 stories per week.

Insignares also discussed the differences between organic and paid posts. Organic posts are day-to-day, generic posts that can be created easily by using your phone. Paid posts target a specific audience, are labeled as sponsored posts, and contain a call-to-action button. Instagram Story ads specifically allow you to access the swipe-up feature that is only accessible to profiles with at least 10,000 followers.

Tips and Tricks for Creating the Best Instagram Story Ads 

Insignares shared a few pointers about how to effectively use Instagram Story ads, as well as what not to do. He shared a few of these tips with us here:

Instagram Story Ads Do’s and Don’ts

Do’s

• Do create in-your-face offers.
• Do include concise calls-to-action.
• Do utilize full-screen images.

Don’ts

• Don’t have too much text on your story ad. 
• Don’t leave your promo code for your website or next action, as viewers don’t have enough time to digest that much information.
• Don’t use square-sized images.

With Instagram Stories, time is of the essence, so make sure not to overwhelm your viewer with too much to read.

Bonus Tip: Instagram Stories disappear after 24 hours, so it’s a great place for quick, concise, and impactful messaging. For longer messaging, consider creating a post that will remain in your feed. 

“You have two seconds to grab someone’s attention,” Insignares said.

The platform also allows for videos or sequences of images. As many videos are viewed on mute, Insignares suggests considering image sequences for your Instagram Story. 

Top 3 Instagram Stories Tools

There are countless tools on the market right now that help users create easy and simple Instagram Stories ads. Insignares shared with us his favorites:

• Facebook Ads Manager: This tool allows you to create Stories content in the required format.
• Seen and Adobe Express  Mobile Apps: These apps have some of the highest ratings on Apple’s App Store and are frontrunners in the simple visual design market.
• Lumen5: Consider this tool your one-stop-shop for creating content that you can post across many different social media platforms. 

Insignares suggests using Facebook Ads Manager when creating your overall marketing campaign. Even though Facebook offers a mobile app to use to make these, he strongly recommends against using it. For more on Facebook Ads Manager, check out the demo in this webinar that starts at 1:10:00.

Tips for Using the Lumen5 Tool

Insignares also touted the easy-to-use and high effective Lumen5 tool.

“It does the heavy lifting for you,” said Insignares. 

He listed his favorite reasons why he recommends using the tool:

• Content will automatically be created in the format you choose for your ad.
• You can create a video ad extremely quickly.
• They have an extensive library of royalty-free images that you can use for your ads, as well as having the capacity to upload your photos.
• You can add text overlays to create concise calls-to-action.
• You can create an Instagram Story Ad in  five minutes.

For more on the Lumen5 tool, check out the demo in this webinar that starts at 1:20:00.

What’s Next for Instagram Story Ads?

IGTV is Instagram’s rendition of Youtube, where people can view long-form video content on business profiles. While feed videos can only be one minute in length, longer ones can be posted on IGTV. Instagram is now offering ad placement on IGTV. These long-format videos have commercial-like ads that are up to 15 seconds long.

IG Story ads allow for a new way to market to your audience of followers by providing content with a clear call-to-action. We hope this content has helped you understand how you can easily and quickly harness advertising’s marketing power on Instagram.Want more tips? On Wednesdays, join BizHack Academy for our FREE#BizHackLive Webinars and hear experts discuss the latest and best small business marketing strategies. For a list of upcoming events, click here.