How to Create Instagram Story Ads + Drive Results
Are you using Instagram Story Ads for your business?
More than 500 million people use Instagram Stories every day.
But more than just usage, Stories have shown high conversion.
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In one study, 58% of people said they became more interested in a brand or product after viewing Stories.
And, 50% said they visited a website to purchase a product or service as a result of viewing it in Stories.
So results await for small business owners who are using Instagram Story ads.
So for today's post, we are going to show you how to create Instagram Story ads along with best practices to maximize your returns.
If you use Instagram a fair amount of your personal time, you've probably seen ads because you're tapping through to view Instagram Stories.
But if you're not familiar with the platform, let's start by defining what Instagram Story ads are.
What are Instagram Story Ads?
They are full-screen vertical images or videos that appear in the middle of organic Instagram Stories.
You can identify them by looking for the text "Sponsored".
And this is a carousel story ad below, which we will discuss a little later.
You can deliver these ads to the specific target audience you choose, and give them a call to action to follow like:
buy now,
sign up, or
view menu
…which will take them to your website or wherever you want to send them.
The user can follow this call-to-action by swiping up on the story ad.
If you're not already familiar with organic Instagram Stories, which are Stories that anyone posts that aren't sponsored…
...we would suggest for businesses to read our posts on Instagram Stories to become more familiar with the context and what people generally post.
That's because you'll want to translate that tone into your ads to get optimal results.
But essentially, Instagram Story ads are just another advertising option for you:
drive more sales,
lead form completions, or
...whatever your goal.
So on that note, let's go ahead and show you how to set up Instagram Story ads.
how to set up Instagram story ads
Step 1: Go to https://business.facebook.com/adsmanager and click on the green Create button.
You must choose a campaign objective that best fits your business goal.
We've said this in other posts, but these are optimized for that goal.
This means that if you choose a post-engagement campaign, it will deliver your ad to people within your target audience...
…the ones most likely to engage with your ad – but not most likely to make a purchase.
We've seen a lot of business owners who are new to advertising make the mistake of selecting campaigns like reach or engagement…
... simply because when they really want to sell there is less setup involved, and they are left disappointed with the results.
If you want more sales on your website, don't even choose an engagement campaign or a traffic campaign, choose a conversion campaign.
Because a conversion campaign shows your ad to the people in your target audience who are most likely to convert.
And in the digital marketing world, conversion can mean a sale on your website or the completion of a lead form on your website or landing page.
So this was our mini crash course in choosing campaign objectives to help you start off on the right foot.
The campaign objectives compatible with Instagram Story ads are:
Access
brand awareness
transportation
The engagement
app install
video views
lead generation
conversion
So, you have to choose any one of them.
You'll set up your campaign settings, budget, schedule, and target audience just as you normally would for a Facebook or Instagram campaign.
If you need more direction here, we're going to suggest How to Create Facebook Ads or How to Create an Instagram Ad Post…
... because they include a more comprehensive how-to on these sections and how to use this Ads Manager platform as a whole.
But for this post, we want to focus on specific parts of an Instagram Story ad.
Step 2: So you will scroll down to Placements, click on Manual Placements, deselect everything except Instagram Platform.
And then, deselect all placements except Instagram Story placements.
If it's not letting you choose Instagram Story placements…
...go back and check your campaign objective to make sure you choose one that is compatible with Instagram Story ads.
This moment in the process is also a good reminder of the dimensions you need to use when creating your creatives.
Then click till the ad level.
Step 3: On this screen, make sure your Facebook Business Page and Instagram account is selected, and then scroll down to Ad setup.
Here you can choose your format, so you can decide whether you want to use it or not:
single image,
Video,
carousel, or
collection.
Now we talked briefly about carousel ads at the beginning of this post.
This is not a completely new feature. But it's still new enough that it's little used, so we'd like to draw your attention to it.
"Instagram Stories carousel ads make it easy and seamless to showcase more products and tell a deeper story by using more than one image or video."
If you own an eCommerce store and sell products online, then carousel or collection advertising would be a good option to test…
…because then you can toggle on Dynamic Formats and Creative.
Dynamic ads allow you to draw from your product catalog.
An example of this is if someone clicks on certain products on your website…
...but leaves your site unpurchased, so Instagram can show them that exact product again when they're viewing Instagram Stories.
This prompts them to return to your site and purchase the item.
This creates a personalized experience for them as you are showing everyone the same product they were looking for earlier.
And statistically speaking, it increases their chances of converting to 70%.
And here's a pro tip for your Instagram Story ads to create an audience of recent buyers and exclude them from your ad set.
This is so you don't waste money retargeting an audience that's already going back and buying.
If you don't know how to do this, read our Facebook ad targeting post next.
And also, even if you don't sell products online, carousel ads can be used to tell a story.
So for example, if you're a B2B company, consider using carousel ads to tell a story from your buyer's point of view.
This is to capture the attention of your audience and portray your service as a solution.
Step 4: We are going to use a single image format here, so we are going to scroll down to Ad Creative and click on Add Media.
We are going to use this thumbnail we created for the Instagram reel to show you that it is a vertical image.
But you'll want to use a 1080px by 1920px creative that describes your audience's goals or pain points.
It's up to you to get their attention and get them to follow your call to action.
From there, you can add a caption to the primary text box, which is technically required.
But for story ad placement, most people don't even see it, let alone read it.
So don't rely on that lesson to do any of the legwork in converting your audience.
You need to use creatives for all your marketing here.
We usually don't bother to fill in the title for the same reasons.
You need to enter your destination URL; This is where you are sending traffic.
If you are doing dynamic advertising, this will pull the product page URL from your product catalog.
And every time you update something on the left, the preview window on the right will update to show you how your ad will appear to users.
So if there are any errors, you can fix them now.
From there you can choose a call to action from their list of options.
What is Instagram Reels? How to Create Instagram Reels
Be sure to choose the most appropriate CTA based on what your ad says and the objective of your campaign.
One feature that is specific to this placement that you can use here is the interactive poll.
If it makes sense, you can add a question with 2 answers for users to choose from.
This is great for increasing engagement because even if users don't swipe on your ad, they can still engage in your voting and engagement, making it retargetable.
You'll just want to make sure you adjust for this with your graphic.
As you can see, using a pole with the image we selected would look awkward and cover up my existing graphics.
So if you are planning to use a poll, take that into consideration beforehand when creating your image or video.
Step 5: Once you've got everything you want, you can hit publish.
wrapping up
And that's how you create Instagram Story ads!
Instagram Story ads aren't used as much for placements as compared to Instagram feeds.
And so, we think there's a lot of room for small businesses to jump in and outshine their competitors…
…with a placement, their competitors are not using to reach their shared target market.
Then give Instagram Story Ads a try!
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