How to Buy an Instagram Ad
Running your first Instagram ad can feel like a big step, but it’s one of the most effective ways to reach a highly engaged audience directly where they spend their time. This guide breaks down exactly how to buy an Instagram ad, whether you’re a complete beginner using your phone or an experienced marketer looking for more control. We’ll cover everything from prepping your campaign to understanding the results.
Before You Hit 'Promote': A Quick Pre-Flight Checklist
A successful ad campaign starts before you ever open the Ads Manager. Answering a few key questions upfront will save you time, money, and guesswork. Think of this as your strategy session.
1. Settle on a Clear Objective
What is the single most important action you want someone to take after seeing your ad? Simply getting "more likes" is rarely the right business goal. Be specific:
Do you want them to visit your website or a specific landing page? (Goal: Traffic)
Do you want them to buy a product directly from your Shopify or e-commerce store? (Goal: Sales/Conversions)
Do you want them to sign up for your newsletter? (Goal: Leads)
Do you want to build your audience on Instagram? (Goal: Profile Visits/Follows)
Are you a new brand just trying to get your name out there? (Goal: Awareness)
Your objective determines which campaign settings Instagram will optimize for, so choosing the right one is critical.
2. Know Your Audience
Who are you trying to reach? "Everyone" is the most expensive and least effective answer. The more specific you can be, the better your ad will perform. Jot down a few notes about your ideal customer:
Demographics: Age range, gender, location (city, state, or country).
Interests: What hobbies do they have? What other brands do they follow? What topics are they passionate about? (e.g., "yoga," "sustainable fashion," "coffee roasters," "fantasy novels").
Behaviors: Are they engaged shoppers? Are they business page admins? Do they travel frequently?
You don't need a perfect profile, but having a general idea will make the targeting steps much easier.
3. Choose Your Creative and Write Your Copy
On Instagram, your visual is everything. It needs to stop someone mid-scroll. Your creative asset could be:
A striking image: High-quality, vibrant, and contextually relevant.
A short video or Reel: Motion grabs attention. Aim for 5-15 seconds and make sure the first 3 seconds are captivating. Always design for sound-off viewing (use text overlays or captions).
A Carousel: Perfect for showcasing multiple products, different features of a service, or telling a short story.
Your ad copy should be clear, concise, and support your objective. Include a strong call-to-action (CTA) that tells the user exactly what to do next, like "Shop Now," "Learn More," or "Sign Up Today."
4. Set a Realistic Budget and Timeline
Decide how much you’re willing to spend. You can set either a Daily Budget (e.g., $10 per day) or a Lifetime Budget (e.g., $100 spread across 7 days). For beginners, a small daily budget of $5-$10 is plenty to start gathering data. Run the ad for at least 3-5 days to give Meta’s algorithm time to learn and optimize delivery.
Option 1: The Quick Start Method - Boosting a Post from the App
This is the simplest way to run an ad on Instagram and is perfect for beginners who want to get their feet wet. You can promote an existing post or story directly from your app. This isn't the best method, but it's a good first taste of what ads can do.
Choose Your Post: Go to your Instagram profile (make sure it’s a Business or Creator account) and choose an existing post that has performed well organically. Tap the "Promote" button.
Select a Goal: Instagram will prompt you to choose an objective. This will typically be More Profile Visits, More Website Visits, or More Messages. Pick the one that aligns with your goal from the checklist.
Define Your Audience: You'll have a couple of options here.
Automatic: Instagram will target people similar to your existing followers. This can be effective if your follower base accurately reflects your target market.
Create Your Own: This allows for manual targeting based on location, interests, age, and gender. Use your ideal customer profile from your checklist here.
Set Your Budget and Duration: Choose how much you want to spend per day and for how many days the ad will run.
Review and Launch: Give everything a final look, add your payment information if you haven’t already, and tap "Create Promotion." Your ad will then be sent for review.
The Takeaway: Boosting is fast and easy, but it sacrifices a lot of the advanced targeting and optimization features available in Meta Ads Manager. It's a great starting point, but you'll want to graduate to Ads Manager for more serious campaigns.
Option 2: The Professional Method - Using Meta Ads Manager
Meta Ads Manager is the command center for running ads on Instagram, Facebook, and Messenger. It offers far more control over objectives, targeting, placements, and creative. It might look intimidating, but it follows a logical three-level structure: Campaign > Ad Set > Ad.
You can access it by going to business.facebook.com/adsmanager.
Step 1: The Campaign Level (Choose Your Objective)
At the top level, you define your main goal. Click the green "+ Create" button to start.
Ads Manager groups objectives into three categories:
Awareness: Best for reaching a large number of people to introduce your brand (objectives: Brand Awareness, Reach).
Traffic and Engagement: Best for driving actions like link clicks, messages, and video views.
Leads and Sales: This is hyper-focused on results and helps Meta find who's likely to take high-value actions, focusing on getting customers and driving revenue.
For most businesses, especially e-commerce, Sales or Traffic or Leads are the most common starting points.
Step 2: The Ad Set Level (Define Audience, Placement, Budget & Schedule)
Here you tell Instagram who to show your ads to, where to show them, and how much to spend:
Budget & Schedule: Set your daily or lifetime budget and choose the start and end dates for your campaign.
Audience: This is where the magic happens.
Location, Age, Gender: Start with the basic demographics.
Detailed Targeting: This is the core of your audience building. You can add interests, behaviors, etc. A local coffee shop, for instance, could target people who live within 5 miles of their shop and are also interested in “Starbucks,” “Coffee,” and “Local business.”
Custom & Lookalike Audiences: Even for experts, creating these can be challenging as it helps find new potential customers.
Placements: This is where your ads will appear. You can choose automatic placements or select them manually:
Automatic Placements (Recommended for Beginners): Allows Meta to show your ad where it will perform the best, such as on Instagram Feed, Stories, Reels, and other places.
Manual Placements: Control where your ads are seen. For an Instagram-only campaign, deselect Facebook, Audience Network, and Messenger, then choose to appear only in Reels, the Feed, or Stories for the optimal experience to your customer.
Step 3: The Ad Level (The Creative)
This is where you'll upload your image or video and write your ad copy.
Identity: Select your Instagram account (and your Facebook page if the ad will also run there).
Ad Setup: Choose what format works best: Single Image/Video, Carousel, or Collection Ad.
Ad Creative: Add your assets, write the headline & description, and focus on the primary text, which is what users will first read.
Call to Action: Choose the one that best fits your goals. For example, "Shop Now" or "Learn More." Check that the link and text lead to the expected action and destination.
Once you’ve configured everything, click the green "Publish" button. Your ad will be reviewed by Meta (usually within 24 hours, often much sooner) before it goes live.
After You Launch: What Matters and What to Do Next
Publishing the ad is only half the battle. The other half is monitoring performance to see what’s working and what’s not.
Key Metrics to Watch:
Don’t get lost in a sea of data. Here are a few key metrics that can give you most of the insights needed:
CPC (Cost Per Click): This measures the price you pay for someone who clicks on your advertisement's call-to-action. If your CPC is high, then your ad, copy, or targeting might need review.
CTR (Click-Through Rate): This percentage shows how many people clicked your ad compared to how many saw it. A low CTR can indicate issues with the design, targeting, or consistency between the ad content and the action it's prompting.
CPA (Cost per Action): This tells you how much a conversion actually ends up costing. Keeping CPA low is how businesses get profitable ads.
ROAS (Return On Ad Spend): This is the key KPI for Ad Managers worldwide. Calculate how much you made compared to every dollar spent. A higher ROAS than 4x is considered a win.
The Test-and-Learn Mindset
Your first ad won’t always be perfect, and that’s fine! The key is to run two variations against each other with split tests (also known as A/B testing).
This will help you fine-tune and get better results.
Final Thoughts
Running Instagram ads is a potent tool for growing your business, driving sales, and connecting with customers. By starting with a clear objective, understanding your audience, and testing your approach in Meta Ads Manager, you’ll unlock a powerful growth channel. Remember to monitor your key metrics to understand what's resonating and fine-tune your strategy over time.
Tracking the true impact of your Instagram ads can be challenging, especially when connecting ad spend to sales data from sources like Shopify or customer data in your CRM. At Graphed, we automate the hard parts. We connect all your sources in one click, allowing you to instantly build real-time dashboards by simply describing what you want to see - like, "Compare my Instagram ROAS to my Google Ads performance this month." Get the high-level view in seconds, freeing you up to focus on strategy instead of struggling with CSVs.