The Complete Guide to Creating Instagram Ads on Facebook (2024)

Instagram has over 7 million monthly active users now.And that number continues to grow every single month.

Instagram is the place to be when it comes to visual content.

Advertising on Facebook is great. But when you want to focus heavily on the visual aspects, Instagram should be your go-to platform.

How do you even get started creating ads, though?

Instagram used to only let you promote ads from your phone. And that was terrible.It was frustrating to create ads that only lead to wasted time and ad spend.

But today, the game is different. Instagram is now an incredible place to advertise.

And thankfully, we can now create Instagram ads on the Facebook Business Manager. (You can even do it with AdEspresso, too).

In this article, I will walk you step-by-step through the process of how to create Instagram ads on Facebook.

Let’s jump right in.

Why You Should Be Using Instagram to Advertise

Instagram is one of the best places to advertise visual content.

And it’s also one of the best places to drive engagement with your brand, too:

(Image Source)

In fact, average engagement on posts and profiles is vastly surpassing platforms like Twitter.

Instagram also provides one of the best ROI’s in the social media business:

(Image Source)

Instagram is one of the most used social media networks on a daily basis. On average, people are spending over 20 minutes a day browsing photos on it.

And it’s also a new playground for advertisers: there are more than 2 million monthly advertisers on Instagram and the platform brought in more than $2.81 billion in mobile ad revenue in 2017.

If you’re just getting started with Instagram ads, read on to find out how to create ads on Facebook.

Getting Started: Creating Instagram Ads on Facebook

To get started, you need to have a Facebook Business Manager account.

Thankfully, that’s not hard to set up!

You can easily set that up by heading to the Business Manager page:

Simply connect your new business account to your pages and current login during the setup process.

Once you’ve created a business account, you need to head to the Facebook Business Manager dashboard:

From here, you have two options to start creating ads using Facebook:

1. Use the Facebook Business Manager’s Power Editor
2. Use the Facebook Ads Manager

My personal favorite between the two would be the Facebook Ads Manager because it allows you to go into more detail on each ad. It also has more diverse customization options.

But the Power Editor is faster, meaning you save tons of time when creating each ad.

So, let’s jump right into both methods so that you can see which one works best for you.

How to Create Instagram Ads in Power Editor

Here’s how to get started creating your Instagram ads immediately.

Navigate to the Power Editor from your dashboard under “+ Create & Manage”:

Next, click “Create Ad” to start creating a new ad for Instagram.

Next, we need to lay the foundations for our Instagram ads and campaigns with the basics:

Make sure to give your new campaign a distinguishable name and select your objectives.

For the objective section you can choose from tons of different options depending on your goals:

But for creating Instagram ads we can only use the following objectives, so be careful when making this selection to make sure your Instagram options will show up:

• Brand awareness
• Reach
• Traffic (for clicks to your website or the app store for your app)
• App installs
• Engagement (for post engagement only)
• Video views
• Conversions (for conversions on your website or in your app)
• Lead generation

Make sure to select a relevant objective from the list above before continuing.

Reminder: If you don’t select an objective from that list, you won’t be able to create Instagram ads on Facebook.

Next, click to save your campaign draft and then click “+ Create Ad” to begin adding a new ad to your new campaign:

Here, you will be asked to rename your new ad set and will begin editing your ad.

The key here is to immediately connect your Instagram account if you haven’t already:

Simply click “Add an Account” to authorize your Instagram access, or select between different accounts that you might already have connected.

You can also choose here which accounts you want to advertise from if you run multiple accounts.

Now you can start advertising on Instagram via the Facebook Power Editor.

Next, on your Ad Preview make sure to select “Instagram Feed” as your previewed ad:

This will show you exactly what your ads will look like once they are live on Instagram.

To edit the content with new images, videos or text, simply click on the left-hand side to open up your editor:

Here, you can customize every part of your Instagram ad. If you want video, simply select the “Video / Slideshow” option:

When editing your Instagram ads in the Power Editor, make sure you add a website URL if you are attempting to drive traffic back to your site.

You can simply enable it by checking off the box:

Then, type in your website URL and add a call to action button. For this example, I chose “Learn More.” But you have tons of different options:

Select the appropriate CTA based on your Instagram ad and the goal you hope to achieve with it.

Here’s what the finished product will look like in the preview section:

Creating Instagram ads with the Power Editor on Facebook is one of the easiest ways to produce high-quality Instagram ads.

You can easily upload your videos or photos and promote them fast.

If you’re not a fan of the Power Editor, you can simply use the Facebook Ads Manager too.

How to Create Instagram Ads in Facebook Ads Manager

Under your Facebook Business Manager, navigate to the Ads Manager under “+ Create & Manage”:

From here you can choose your advertising objective. Again, be sure to select one of the following, as Instagram ads are limited to the objectives you can choose

• Brand awareness
• Reach
• Traffic (for clicks to your website or the app store for your app)
• App installs
• Engagement (for post engagement only)
• Video views
• Conversions (for conversions on your website or in your app)
• Lead generation

Once you’ve selected a marketing objective, hit save or set up your new Ad Account if you don’t already have one:

From here we want to focus on creating an audience for the ads.

The audience will be a key factor in how well your ads perform, so make sure to tune them to your business’ target audience.

Scroll down to the Ad Set section under your Audience to either create a new saved audience or load up an existing custom audience:

Beyond simple demographics you can also create a saved audience based on various interests and exclusions:

For example, you can target people based on detailed factors like income, hobbies or job position.

Make sure to customize this audience and weed out any accounts that might not convert.

Once you’ve got your detailed targeting options set, you can start to create the ad!

Scroll down to the Ad section under “Pages” to get started:

First, enable your Instagram account if you haven’t connected it yet:

Next, choose your ad format:

Here you can choose from a variety of different options that all work with Instagram ads.

You can do a carousel style ad, which will allow you to add multiple photos to your Instagram ad.

This is an awesome option if you are trying to drive sales to various products.

For example, if you’re selling e-commerce products you can easily add multiple items with their own images.

If you want to keep it simple, select the single video or single image options.

For this example, I’ll show you what a carousel ad looks like on Instagram and how to set it up.

The main focus points for a carousel Instagram ad on the Facebook Ads Manager are as follows:

The 1,2,3 section simply shows how many images you have on the carousel ad. You can add or remove them as you wish!

Next, upload an image for each carousel number.

Then, simply add an individual headline, image or product description, and unique URL for each image.

This allows you to offer multiple links within a single ad and appeal to a wider audience without running multiple ads.

It’s a great way to show off multiple products with a single ad placement instead of wasting money on multiple ad variants.

Lastly, always make sure to select an appropriate CTA.

Simply hit confirm to complete your ads:

Creating Instagram Ads on AdEspresso

If you are sick of the complexity of the Facebook Business Manager, you can easily setup Instagram ads on AdEspresso, too.

Head to AdEspresso and login to your account.

Start by creating a new campaign:

From here, select a marketing objective that will allow you to use Instagram ads, like driving traffic to an external website or building brand awareness:

Once you’ve selected a campaign objective that aligns with your Instagram ad strategy, it’s time to get started in creating your ads.

First, start by choosing an ad format and selecting which page you want to advertise:

Just like on Facebook’s Ad Manager, you can choose between a normal, single image or video format, or a carousel style ad that can feature multiple different images on a single Instagram ad.

For a standard image or video ad, the next step will be to add your text-based description and upload your visual content:

If you don’t have any current images or video to use, you can actually create an ad directly within the AdEspresso app using the Canva integration.

How awesome is that?

If you’re running a carousel style add, you can easily add multiple photos for each carousel slide, and include an individual URL for each image:

So, if you are running a campaign to sell products like you would with a Facebook ad, you can easily do that on Instagram too.

Simply add a few photos of your products and give individual links to each product on your site!

Next, be sure to select a great call to action:

Once you’ve selected the meat and potatoes of your Instagram ad, you can scroll down and see a preview of how the ad will look once you publish it live:

And that’s it! Once you’ve flushed out your Instagram ad, you can publish it live.

AdEspresso’s tool is one of my favorite ways to create Instagram ads with ease.

The Facebook Ads Manager and the Power Editor can be clunky and somewhat tedious.

AdEspresso helps me simplify the process from start to finish.

Heck, it only took me 5 minutes to create a new campaign and ad!

Work with Influencers to Go Viral

Once you’ve created a few Instagram ads, the next step is to get them the reach and viral growth that they deserve.

Working with Instagram influencers is one of the best ways to get your posts to go viral.

And thankfully, there’s an app for that.

I recommend using NinjaOutreach.

You can create a free trial account from their website and start searching for influencers in your niche.

For example, if I wanted to find fashion-based influencers, I can just search for my niche:

And you can even filter the results by how many followers they have on Instagram:

And you can also see tons of data about each influencer, including their website, Domain Authority, Page Authority and Alexa rank (as if this still matters anymore).

It’s an excellent tool that will help you take your Instagram content to the next level.

Influencers may seem like a strategy for big brands only, but the truth is, small brands can utilize them too.

You just can’t target Kim Kardashian and expect a small bill.

Focus on niche level influencers that are reasonably priced. Use them to drive tons of traffic that is relevant.

Conclusion

Instagram is growing every single month.

In fact, currently, it has over 7 million monthly active users.

But for a long time, creating Instagram ads was a long, tedious process.

Instead of being able to edit ads on the Facebook Business Manager, we were forced to use our mobile phones.

But now, most marketers have access to editing and creating Instagram ads on Facebook.

Simply start by using the Power Editor on the Facebook Business Manager to create Instagram ads quickly. You can use the Facebook Ads Manager to access more customization options.

And you use AdEspresso to make Instagram advertising easier, faster, and more profitable.