How to Edit Audience on Instagram Ad
Launched an Instagram ad that isn't quite hitting the mark? It happens to everyone. You set up your campaign, chose what you thought was the perfect audience, and a few days later, you realize the results aren't what you expected. This article will show you exactly how to edit the audience for a live Instagram ad and, more importantly, how to think strategically about your audience targeting to get better results.
Can You Edit the Audience of a Live Instagram Ad?
This is the first question everyone asks, and the answer is: it depends. Instagram's advertising platform, which is part of Meta's Ads Manager, is built around a "learning phase." When you launch a new ad set, the system spends some time and money showing your ad to different types of people within your target audience to learn who is most likely to take the action you want (like clicking a link or making a purchase).
Making significant edits to an ad set's audience, budget, or creative while it's active can reset this learning phase. Restarting the process can hurt your performance in the short term as the algorithm has to start learning from scratch.
Because of this, you generally have two paths, depending on how you created the ad:
For Boosted Posts: If you simply promoted a post directly from the Instagram app, your editing options work a bit differently. You can often pause the ad, make your changes, and resume it.
For Ads in Meta Ads Manager: Best practice is not to edit a live ad set directly. Instead, you should duplicate the ad set, make your audience changes in the new version, and then turn off the original one. This preserves your original data and lets you A/B test if you wish.
We'll walk through both methods below.
Method 1: Editing the Audience of a Boosted Post
If you've boosted an Instagram post directly from the app, the process for making changes is more straightforward but slightly less powerful than using Ads Manager. Here’s how you can typically adjust your audience.
Step-by-Step Guide to Editing a Boosted Post Audience
Go to your Instagram Profile: Open the Instagram app and navigate to your profile page.
Find the Post: Scroll to the post you have promoted. You will see a "View Insights" or "View Promotion" button underneath it. Tap on it.
Access the Promotion Settings: This will open up the performance dashboard for your boosted post. Here, you'll see metrics like reach, impressions, and engagement. Look for an option to manage or edit the promotion. Sometimes you might need to pause the promotion first.
Pause and Edit: If you see a "Pause" button, tap it. Once paused, an "Edit" option should appear. Tapping "Edit" will allow you to go back into the audience settings you originally chose.
Adjust Your Audience: You can now adjust the locations, age range, gender, and interests you are targeting. Take the opportunity to either narrow down an audience that's too broad or broaden one that's too specific.
Save and Resume: Once you’ve made your changes, save your new audience settings. Then, find the option to "Resume Promotion." Your ad will be resubmitted for review with the updated audience.
This method is quick and easy for simple adjustments, but for more advanced control and better long-term campaign management, you should be using Meta Ads Manager.
Method 2: Editing Your Audience in Meta Ads Manager (Recommended)
Meta Ads Manager is the powerful backend platform for all Facebook and Instagram ads. It offers far more control and in-depth analytics. If you're serious about getting a return on your ad spend, this is where you should be working.
As mentioned, the best practice in Ads Manager is to duplicate your ad set rather than editing it live. This protects the learning phase of your original ad set and gives you a clean slate for your new audience.
Step-by-Step Guide to Duplicating and Changing Your Ad Set Audience
Open Meta Ads Manager: Navigate to https://business.facebook.com/adsmanager.
Navigate to Your Ad Set: Ad campaigns are structured in three levels: Campaign > Ad Set > Ad. Find the campaign you want to edit and click into it. Then, select the "Ad Sets" tab. Here you will see the ad set that contains the audience you want to change.
Example: Your campaign might be called "Summer T-Shirt Promo." The Ad Set could be named "US - Ages 18-30 - Likes Fashion." The ads themselves are the specific images or videos people see.
Select and Duplicate: Hover over the name of your ad set and check the box that appears next to it. With the ad set selected, find the "Duplicate" button in the menu bar. Click it.
Edit the Duplicated Ad Set: A new, identical copy of your ad set will be created in a draft mode. The first thing you should do is rename it so you can keep track of your changes. For example, if the original was "US - Ages 18-30," your new one might be "US - Ages 25-40 - Custom Audience."
Adjust The Audience: Scroll down to the "Audience" section. This is where you can make your changes. You can modify:
Custom Audiences: Use audiences you’ve already created from your customer list, website traffic, or Instagram engagers. You can also exclude audiences, like people who have already purchased.
Location: Change from countries to specific regions, states, cities, or even zip codes.
Age & Gender: Adjust the demographic sliders.
Detailed Targeting: This is where you can change interests, behaviors, and demographics. For example, you can switch from a broad interest like "Fashion" to more specific ones like "Streetwear" and "Vintage Clothing." You can also layer interests by using the "Narrow Audience" feature.
Review and Publish: Look over the rest of the ad set settings (budget, schedule, placements) to ensure they are correct. Once you're ready, click the green "Publish" button. Your new ad set will go into review and then start running.
Turn Off the Original Ad Set: Go back to your ad set list and find the original, underperforming ad set. Use the toggle switch to turn it off. Now, only your new, optimized ad set will be spending your budget.
This process gives you a much cleaner way to test, iterate, and improve your targeting without disrupting the algorithm unexpectedly.
Understanding Instagram Audience Types
To make smart edits, you need to know what your options are. In Meta Ads Manager, there are three main types of audiences you can use.
1. Core Audiences
This is audience building from the ground up based on criteria you select. It’s what most people think of when they talk about ad targeting.
Demographics: Age, gender, language, education level, job title.
Location: Country, state, city, zip code.
Interests: Based on the pages people like, topics they engage with, and related interests (e.g., targeting people interested in "Organic food," "Yoga," or "Tesla Motors").
Behaviors: Based on purchase behaviors, device usage, and other specific activities (e.g., "Engaged Shoppers" or "Recent international travelers").
2. Custom Audiences
These are powerful audiences made up of people who have already interacted with your business in some way. It's often called "retargeting." These audiences are typically warmer and convert at a higher rate.
Customer List: You can upload a list of customer emails or phone numbers, and Meta will match them to profiles on its platforms.
Website Visitors: Using the Meta Pixel (a small piece of code on your website), you can target everyone who has visited your site or specific pages in a certain timeframe (e.g., people who added a product to their cart in the last 14 days).
App Activity: Target users who have taken specific actions within your app.
Engagement: This is a very popular one. You can create an audience of people who have liked, commented, saved, or shared one of your posts, visited your Instagram profile, or sent you a DM.
3. Lookalike Audiences
A Lookalike Audience is where Meta uses one of your Custom Audiences (a "source audience") and goes out to find new people who share similar characteristics to them. This is the top way to find new customers who are very likely to be interested in your brand.
For example, you could take your best Custom Audience - say, a list of everyone who has ever purchased from your store - and ask Instagram to create a "1% Lookalike Audience." This tells the algorithm to find the top 1% of users in the country you're targeting whose profiles look most similar to your existing customers. It’s a game-changer for scaling your campaigns.
When Should You Edit Your Instagram Ad Audience?
Don't be too quick to change your audience at the first sign of trouble, let an ad run for at least 3-4 days to gather enough data. Here are common signs that it's time to make a change:
High Cost-Per-Click (CPC) or Cost-Per-Result: If it's costing you too much to get a click or a purchase compared to your other campaigns, your audience may not be the right fit for your offer.
Low Click-Through Rate (CTR): A low CTR means people are seeing your ad but aren't curious enough to click it. This can be caused by the creative (the image/video) or the targeting. If your ad works great for Audience A, it might fall flat with Audience B.
High Ad Frequency: The "Frequency" metric in Ads Manager shows you the average number of times each person saw your ad. If this number gets too high (e.g., over 3-4 in a short period), it means you’re fatiguing your audience by showing them the same ad repeatedly. This is a sign you either need to expand to a new audience or refresh your creative.
No Conversions: If you're getting clicks but no one is converting on your website (e.g., signing up or buying), your audience targeting might be attracting the wrong type of person - people who are curious but not serious buyers.
By understanding your ad performance data and having a plan to test new audiences methodically, you can consistently improve your results and grow your business on Instagram.
Final Thoughts
Editing your Instagram ad audience isn't just about damage control, it's a core part of optimizing for better performance. For quick changes to a boosted post, you can edit directly in the app. For serious, scalable campaigns, the best practice is to duplicate your ad sets within Meta Ads Manager, preserving your data and creating clean tests for new audience segments.
Understanding which ad campaigns and specific audiences are actually driving revenue shouldn't require stitching together spreadsheets from Ads Manager and your sales platforms. At https://www.graphed.com/register, we felt this pain, so we made it simple. We connect directly to your apps - like Instagram Ads, Facebook Ads, Shopify, and Google Analytics - so you can use plain English to ask what’s working. Instead of manual analysis, you can simply ask, "Which Instagram ad audience produced the highest ROI this month?" and get an instant, real-time dashboard that answers your question in seconds.