instagram advertising: the performance marketer's guide to finding and scaling success

Advertising Automation Software

Instagram AdvertisingThe Performance Marketer’s Guide to

Finding and Scaling Success

Please note: Companies featured are not necessarily Nanigans customers.


Why Use Instagram For Direct Response Advertising?

• Instagram is a primarily mobile experience, so ads are seamlessly integrated into a stream of organic content

• Instagram advertisers can use familiar Facebook targeting capabilities and the same cutting-edge ad units

• Instagram is a proven driver of purchase intent, with many brands achieving results 2-3X above Nielsen online averages

Source: Instagram for Business

http://instagram-static.s3.amazonaws.com/case_studies/John%20Lewis%20Case%20Study.pdf


Instagram By The Numbers

• Instagram has over 400 million monthly active users

• 75% of its users are located outside the US• Over 40 billion photos have been shared on the

site• Over 80 million photos are shared on Instagram

daily• Instagram sees 3.5 billion likes each day

Source: Instagram for Business

INSTAGRAM AD UNIT TYPES


Instagram Ad Units: Mobile App Install Ads (MAI)


Instagram Ad Units: Mobile App Install Ads (MAI)Try This:

Showcase in-app functionality, the device on which your app will be used, or someone from your target audience interacting with your app.

If your app has a recognizable character or some kind of win screen – like a bonus level or a promo code – experiment with featuring it in your ad creative.


Instagram Ad Units: Photo Ads


Instagram Ad Units: Photo Ads

Try This:

Test different copy variations to discover which words are driving site visits.

Then, further optimize copy based on what’s performing best for your campaign objectives (e.g. member registrations, purchases, signups, and more.)


Instagram Ad Units: Video Ads


Instagram Ad Units: Video AdsTry This:

By default, Instagram automatically plays video ads with no audio, and automatically loops at the end of the video.

Make sure the first few seconds of your video include eye-catching visuals that will grab your audience’s attention even without sound playing.


Instagram Ad Units: Carousel Ads


Instagram Ad Units: Carousel Ads

Try This: Tell a narrative story with each progressive image. Be sure your first image prompts your audience to engage and scroll.

With a unique visual storytelling format, you can get creative to drive clicks to your website.

AD CREATIVE BEST PRACTICES


Ad Creative Best Practices: Lighting & Detail

Make sure your Instagram images are high quality in order to fit in naturally with other photos on the platform. Avoid grainy or blurry images.

When producing creative for your ads, choose natural lighting over harsh, artificial lighting. The more authentic your image, the better.


Ad Creative Best Practices: Classic CompositionAds will be more appealing when you apply classic composition techniques such as the Rule of Thirds, balance, leading lines, and creative framing. Let your creative stand on its own by keeping things simple.

Elements like borders or heavy photo filters can distract viewers from your message.


Ad Creative Best Practices: Subtle Branding

You don’t want your brand to overpower your Instagram ads. Try incorporating an iconic brand element or signature color for memorable yet not overpowering branding.

If you’re going to include your logo in your creative, don’t make it the main focus.


Ad Creative Best Practices: Consistent Visual Messaging

Focus on a central idea that is conveyed in a storyline, a specific visual style, or a continuing theme.

Make sure the image alone conveys this message so users can understand it even if they don’t read the accompanying text.


Ad Creative Best Practices: Minimal Text

Imagery - not text - should be the main focus of your Instagram ad creative. If you use text overlay in your photos, make sure it covers less than 20% of your image.

Alternatively, try sharing the accompanying text in the ad caption instead of on the image itself.


Ad Creative Best Practices: Mobile Optimization

Since Instagram is a mobile platform, it’s crucial that your ad creative is designed with small screens in mind. Equally important is that ads link to mobile optimized landing pages.

Keep the customer journey smooth by aligning branding and messaging across your ad creative and landing page design.

CREATIVE ITERATIONS


Keep it Fresh: Creative Iterations

Repeatedly promoting the same ad to your target audience can lead to ad fatigue or even negative reactions towards your brand.

With consistent changes, your audience always sees fresh creative that’s more likely to inspire them to take your desired action.


Creative Iteration: Bloomingdales

Here, Bloomingdales varies Instagram ad imagery while leveraging the same copy in both ads.

Though the message in consistent, the presentation is entirely new in order to capture the attention of a different buyer persona.


Ad Creative Best Practices: Minimal Text

Here, retailer Abercrombie & Fitch takes a close look at the details and craftsmanship of its jeans.

To refresh the creative concept, the second ad takes a wider view, selling not just one pair of jeans, but an entire outfit and attitude.


Creative Iteration: Blue NileBlue Nile emphasizes the handmade quality of its product in the first ad.

The second ad appeals more to the emotional association of presenting an engagement ring. By using different creative approaches, Blue Nile prevents ad fatigue.

WAYS TO SCALE SUCCESS


Ways to Scale Success To scale your success in a sustainable way, you’ll need to know which tactics and targeting strategies work best.

Here are Nanigans tips and strategies behind some of the best-performing direct response campaigns on Instagram.


Ways to Scale Success: Cohort AnalysisThis powerful tool breaks up performance data of common characteristics or experiences into segmented cohorts, and then visualizes the data to you can easily identify patterns across the lifecycle of a customer.

By identifying top performing ads and deciphering what made them a success, you can replicate those attributes to ensure that your future ads drive similar results.


Ways to Scale Success: Creative TestingBecause Instagram is all about visuals, you want to make sure that you’re putting the best possible creative in front of your audience.

The Nanigans creative testing tool automatically promotes ads based on performance, ensuring that the image and copy combinations best suited to drive your desired results are prioritized over all others.


Ways to Scale Success: Stop LossWhile scaling Instagram campaigns, you’ll want to avoid exceeding your target CPA and instead work towards meeting your yield goal.

Nanigan’s Stop Loss protection tool will monitor each individual ad in your campaign and automatically pause ads that are under-performing.


Ways to Scale Success: Closed-Loop AttributionBecause Instagram is a native mobile platform, closing the loop on attribution across devices enables you to more intelligently optimize towards lifetime value and attribute revenue back to specific efforts.

Implementing tracking pixels on desktop and the Nanigans SDK on mobile is the best way to paint a complete picture of your return on ad spend on Instagram.


Ways to Scale Success: Custom Audiences & Lookalikes

Instagram’s personalized targeting capabilities help you do everything from retargeting lapsed app users to attracting new high-value purchasers based on your best and most loyal customers.

Pairing Custom Audiences with Lookalike Audiences takes the guesswork out of scaling user acquisition and retention, leading to increased revenue on Instagram.


For more information about advertising on Instagram, visit

the resource center at Nanigans.com.

instagram advertising: the performance marketer's guide to finding and scaling success

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