• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Social Media Marketing - Minneapolis | SND Agency

Social Media Strategy Consulting - Minneapolis

  • About
  • Services
    • Social Media Marketing
    • Social Media Management
    • WordPress Website Design
    • SEO Strategy
  • Blog
  • Free Tips
  • Contact Us Today!

Abby Sorensen / August 29, 2018

The Pros and Cons of Using Instagram Ads

You are here: The Pros and Cons of Using Instagram Ads

Pros and Cons of Using Instagram Advertising

Don’t miss any of our Instagram for Business blog series posts (new posts each week this month). Sign up today to receive email updates for the SocialNicole blog.

If you’ve been using Instagram for a while, you’ve probably noticed advertisements from businesses popping up on your feed – and you may be thinking that using Instagram ads is the next step for your business. Instagram can be a great advertising platform, allowing you to not only grow your brand through visual organic content, but also allowing you to run ads that can increase the number of eyes that see your posts. Instagram ads help to drive traffic to your website and increase brand awareness.

However, there are cons to advertising on Instagram as well, especially when compared to advertising on its big sister platform, Facebook. Instagram ads are less sophisticated than Facebook’s, and linking on Instagram has been shown to be less effective than on Facebook. Instagram’s user base is more limited, which can make it a less productive platform for advertising than Facebook.

Weighing the pros and cons of advertising on Instagram is important before your business makes the leap into Instagram advertising. Read on to see how we unpack the different sides of Instagram advertising to help you make an informed decision for your business.

Pros of Instagram Advertising

1. Instagram Ads Drive Traffic to Your Website

Unlike regular, organic Instagram posts, Instagram ads allow your business to include clickable links as part of a promoted posts. This is a key reason to consider advertising on Instagram. The ability to include a call-to-action with a link in an advertised post is immensely helpful in driving traffic to a your business’s website. Posts that are not boosted as advertisements do not have this ability.

2. Instagram Ads Increase Visibility

The biggest struggle any business has with social media marketing is breaking through the noise of millions of posts to be seen. Pay to play is the quickest and most effective way to do this. It’s imperative that you create compelling Instagram posts that will make people want to follow you and engage. Just because you are paying to get into your target audience’s feed with your post does not mean you will be followed or that people will engage with you. It takes a lot of creativity and commitment to curating an amazing Instagram feed to build an audiences and get the engagement you desire. Instagram ads will help you get there by ensuring people see your posts.

3. Instagram Ads Increase Brand Awareness

When you boost an Instagram post as an advertisement, the post will appear in the newsfeed of your target audience without seeming too out of place or disruptive. If you’re advertising using an Instagram story, the advertisement will automatically be placed in between stories when a user is watching the stories of users they follow. These unobtrusive ads can greatly increase brand awareness for your business.

Just like advertising on Facebook, your business can set its own budget, audience, and duration for an Instagram ad. When you build your audience you can set the demographics such as age range, gender, location, and interests. This allows you to show your ads to a targeted audience and reach the individuals who have the highest chance of being interested in what you are advertising.

4. Instagram Offers Options in Advertising

Another pro of advertising on Instagram is that businesses can use their Facebook Ads Manager account to set up ads on Instagram. Facebook Ads is the most sophisticated social media ad platform available, and Instagram ads are strengthened by piggybacking off of Facebook Ads. Instagram offers the ability to advertise based on goals such as driving link clicks, visits to your business’s Instagram profile, and increasing visibility.

Instagram ads also offer different options for advertisements. Businesses are able to promote videos, individual photos, or multi-photo carousel ads. Advertising within Instagram stories is also an option! Instagram is continually rolling out new features, so the options for advertising on the app will continue to increase over time.

Cons of Instagram Advertising

1. Instagram Links Are Less Effective Than Facebook Links

Instagram is not a click-friendly platform as it does not allow users to place a clickable link in their post. This means that the billion people who use Instagram don’t ever expect to click, but just double tap to show they like the posts they see.

By boosting a post, a business can add a link into the post. This is a huge perk for businesses who want to drive traffic to their websites. But our studies show that currently link clicks are less popular on Instagram than on Facebook. Instagram users tend to scroll through their feed, double-tap to like a post, and move on. The visual nature of Instagram, while helpful in many ways, becomes a double-edged sword when you consider how easy it is to see and like an Instagram photo without reading the caption. Even though advertising on Instagram allows you to place clickable links, those links are less likely to be used than ones placed in an advertisement on Facebook. If your goal is to drive traffic to your website you should test Instagram ads with Facebook ads to see where you have the most success.

2. Instagram Has a Limited Audience

Instagram is a widely-used platform, with over one billion active monthly users – which can be looked at as a reason to advertise on Instagram. Why not, when so many people are on the platform engaging, right? Perhaps, but it is important to look a bit further into the data. Even though Instagram has a huge user-base, the vast majority of these users are between the ages of 18 – 29. This is great if you are a brand looking to engage with young people.

But brands targeting an older audience might be hesitant to invest in Instagram advertisements, as the reality is that many of their potential customers are not using the app, at least not actively. These businesses may find it more worth their while to invest more time and resources in advertising on other platforms, like Facebook. Our advice is to test Instagram ads and see if you get the best results reaching your target audience by comparing to similar ads placed on Facebook or other platforms.

3. Instagram Ad Features Are Less Advanced

Advertising on Instagram is pretty straight-forward, which makes it easy – this is a pro, right? Not always, as the flip-side of this is that the more simple Instagram ads don’t have all the capabilities of Facebook ads. With Facebook, you can set up a Like ad campaign that will build your page followers directly – there is no such option on Instagram. Facebook ads also allow for more detailed targeting than Instagram ads do.

Although your business can use Facebook Ads Manager for Instagram advertising, the options of what can be done on Instagram are more limited than Facebook at this time. Instagram ads can still be helpful and effective – just maybe not as much as an advertisement on Facebook. So, once again, you’re left considering if maybe your business is better off focusing its energy on other ad platforms.

Deciding on whether or not you want to use Instagram ads can seem like a daunting task given the pros and cons. Our advice is to review the Instagram ads platform and if you feel it may suit your goals, give it a try. Testing is the best way to know if a social media ads platform works for your business goals. Regardless of any list of pros or cons the only real way to know if a platform is for you is try it out. Have fun!

In the meantime, if you need any Instagram assistance, contact us and make sure to sign up now to receive our new blog posts, full of great social media tips and advice in your inbox!

It's only fair to share...Share on Facebook
Facebook
Tweet about this on Twitter
Twitter
Share on LinkedIn
Linkedin
Pin on Pinterest
Pinterest
Share on Reddit
Reddit
Share on Tumblr
Tumblr
Email this to someone
email
Buffer this page
Buffer

Filed Under: Digital Advertising Tagged With: Instagram, Tips & Tricks

Previous article: How to Build An Instagram Following For Brands and Businesses
Next article: How and Why: Using Instagram Stories For Marketing Your Business

About SocialNIcole

I believe in helping people to change the world! Helping others bring their passions and purpose to the world is what I do. My goal is to help you build the business of your dreams by leveraging social media and digital marketing.

Learn how to build an online community, increase brand recognition and grow your business.

Sign up for the SocialNicole monthly newsletter and the exclusive Facebook Marketing Success Checklist. There we will help you discover smarter ways to connect, engagement and grow your business using social media and digital marketing.

view raw

Get Updates

Sign up now to stay in the know on all things digital marketing with our SocialKnow newsletter and blog updates delivered right to your inbox!
* = required field

Primary Sidebar

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Search Our Blog

The Art of Being Social: Recent Posts

  • Securing Your Facebook Business Account Against Hacking and Phishing Attempts
  • AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) and Page Experience
  • Google Page Experience Algorithm Update 2021
  • A Guide to Creating Long-Term Marketing Plans During COVID-19
  • HTTP/2, what is it and how does it benefit my website?

Topics Of Interest

  • Blogging (36)
  • Content Marketing (14)
  • Digital Advertising (26)
  • Guides to Social Media Platforms (57)
  • Out (88)
  • SEO (9)
  • Social Media Management (17)
  • Social Media Marketing (48)
  • Social Media Relations (28)
  • Starting a business (17)
  • Wordpress website (8)

Get Updates

Sign up now to stay in the know on all things digital marketing with our SocialKnow newsletter and blog updates delivered right to your inbox!
* = required field

What’s Popular

Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) (1) Audience targetting (34) Branding (12) Campaigns (8) Community manager (2) Contests (4) Covid-19 (9) Customer service (4) Email marketing (3) Engagement (6) Facebook (60) Flickr (1) Google Page Experience Update 2021 (1) How To (72) HTTP/2 (1) Influencer Marketing (1) Instagram (14) LinkedIn (8) Marketing Strategy (16) Minnesota (3) Networking (2) Online Community (13) Online Security (1) Pinterest (11) SEO (9) Social Media agency (7) Social Media Crisis (3) Starting a business (37) Time management (6) Tips & Tricks (52) Tools (12) Twitter (43) Wikipedia (2) YouTube (2)

categories

  • August 2021 (1)
  • April 2021 (2)
  • March 2021 (1)
  • November 2020 (3)
  • August 2020 (2)
  • July 2020 (2)
  • June 2020 (2)
  • May 2020 (1)
  • April 2020 (1)
  • March 2020 (2)
  • February 2020 (1)
  • January 2020 (2)
  • December 2019 (1)
  • November 2019 (2)
  • October 2019 (3)
  • September 2019 (2)
  • August 2019 (1)
  • July 2019 (3)
  • January 2019 (1)
  • December 2018 (1)
  • November 2018 (2)
  • September 2018 (4)
  • August 2018 (3)
  • July 2018 (1)
  • June 2018 (3)
  • May 2018 (1)
  • April 2018 (3)
  • March 2018 (1)
  • October 2017 (1)
  • June 2017 (3)
  • May 2017 (4)
  • April 2017 (4)
  • March 2017 (5)
  • December 2016 (1)
  • October 2016 (1)
  • September 2016 (1)
  • August 2016 (1)
  • July 2016 (2)
  • June 2016 (1)
  • May 2016 (2)
  • February 2016 (2)
  • December 2015 (1)
  • September 2015 (3)
  • August 2015 (1)
  • July 2015 (2)
  • June 2015 (3)
  • May 2015 (2)
  • April 2015 (1)
  • March 2015 (5)
  • February 2015 (6)
  • January 2015 (1)
  • November 2014 (1)
  • October 2014 (1)
  • September 2014 (1)
  • August 2014 (10)
  • July 2014 (3)
  • June 2014 (2)
  • May 2014 (3)
  • April 2014 (6)
  • March 2014 (4)
  • February 2014 (2)
  • January 2014 (8)
  • December 2013 (11)
  • November 2013 (10)
  • October 2013 (9)
  • September 2013 (6)
  • August 2013 (9)
  • July 2013 (9)
  • June 2013 (8)
  • May 2013 (9)
  • April 2013 (10)
  • March 2013 (10)
  • February 2013 (9)
  • January 2013 (5)
  • December 2012 (3)
  • November 2012 (6)
  • October 2012 (6)
  • September 2012 (9)
  • August 2012 (6)
  • July 2012 (3)
  • June 2012 (3)
  • May 2012 (2)
  • April 2012 (5)
  • March 2012 (3)
  • February 2012 (4)
  • January 2012 (5)
  • December 2011 (1)
  • November 2011 (7)
  • October 2011 (4)
  • September 2011 (6)
  • August 2011 (2)
  • March 2011 (2)
  • February 2011 (2)
  • January 2011 (3)
  • December 2010 (1)
  • November 2010 (3)
  • October 2010 (1)
  • September 2010 (1)
  • July 2010 (1)
  • May 2010 (1)
  • April 2010 (1)
  • March 2010 (4)

Tags

Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) Audience targetting Branding Campaigns Community manager Contests Covid-19 Customer service Email marketing Engagement Facebook Flickr Google Page Experience Update 2021 How To HTTP/2 Influencer Marketing Instagram LinkedIn Marketing Strategy Minnesota Networking Online Community Online Security Pinterest SEO Social Media agency Social Media Crisis Starting a business Time management Tips & Tricks Tools Twitter Wikipedia YouTube

Footer

Contact Us

5500 Nicollet Ave South
Suite 19413
Minneapolis, MN 55419

612-670-0337
info@sndigitalagency.com

About Us

SND Agency is a social media and digital marketing agency founded in 2009. The agency was built from the ground up with a the focus on social media as the central core of all digital marketing. We are experts at strategy, management, campaign development, and paid digital ads (with advanced expertise on audience development and strategic targeting).

Learn More

Follow Us

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Copyright © 2022 SocialNicole.Com