How to Get a Sponsored Instagram Ad
Thinking about running a sponsored ad on Instagram but not sure where to start? You're in the right place. Creating an ad on one of the world's most popular visual platforms is a powerful way to reach new customers, drive sales, and grow your brand. This guide will walk you through everything you need to know, from setting up your account to launching and monitoring your first campaign.
What is a Sponsored Instagram Ad?
A sponsored Instagram ad is simply paid content that a business promotes on the platform to reach a wider, more specific audience. Unlike a normal post, which is only shown to a fraction of your followers, a sponsored ad appears in the feeds, Stories, Reels, or Explore pages of users you specifically target - even if they don't follow you.
It's important to distinguish between two common terms:
Influencer Sponsored Posts: This is when you pay a creator or influencer to post about your brand on their own account.
Instagram Ads: This is when you pay Instagram directly to show your post or a new creative to a targeted audience. This article focuses on this second type, which you control entirely.
The main benefit of running these ads is precision. You stop relying on the algorithm to hopefully show your posts and instead pay to get your message directly in front of the people most likely to become your customers.
Before You Start: Setting Up for Success
A little prep work goes a long way. Before you spend a single dollar, take a few minutes to ensure your foundation is solid. This setup phase is what separates successful ads from wasted budgets.
1. Switch to a Business or Creator Account
You can't run ads from a personal Instagram account. You'll need to switch to either a Business or Creator account, which is free and only takes a minute. Doing so unlocks access to ad tools, detailed analytics (Insights), and a contact button on your profile.
How to switch: Go to your profile > Tap the hamburger menu (☰) in the top-right corner > Settings and privacy > Account type and tools > Switch to professional account. Follow the prompts to categorize your business.
2. Define Your Ultimate Goal
What do you want this ad to achieve? Being specific here will guide every subsequent decision you make, from the ad's objective to the call-to-action.
Common goals include:
Brand Awareness: Getting your brand name and message in front of a new audience.
Website Traffic: Sending users to a specific blog post, landing page, or product page.
Lead Generation: Collecting email addresses or contact info for potential customers.
Engagement: Getting more likes, comments, and shares on a specific post.
Sales: Driving direct purchases of your products or services.
3. Know Your Target Audience
Who is your ideal customer? The more clearly you can picture them, the better your ad targeting will be. Think beyond basic demographics and consider their passions and digital habits.
Demographics: What is their age range, gender, and location?
Interests: What hobbies do they have? What other brands, creators, or topics do they follow on Instagram? (e.g., interested in "hiking," "sustainability," or "small business").
Behaviors: What are their online activities? Are they recent online shoppers? Do they engage with certain types of content?
4. Prepare Your Ad Creative and Copy
On Instagram, visuals are everything. Your ad content needs to be eye-catching enough to stop someone from scrolling, but also authentic enough to feel like it belongs in their feed.
For your visuals (image or video):
Use High-Quality Assets: Blurry or poorly lit photos and videos won't perform well.
Capture Attention Fast: For video ads, hook the viewer in the first 3 seconds. Viewers decide to keep watching almost instantly.
Make it Look Native: Overly polished, corporate-style ads can stick out in a bad way. Content that looks like a high-quality user post often performs best.
Keep Text Minimal: Don't cram too much text on your image or video. Let the visuals do the talking.
For your caption (the ad copy):
Lead with the Hook: Put the most important information in the first line.
Keep it Concise: People scan on Instagram. Get straight to the point.
Include a Clear Call-to-Action (CTA): Tell people exactly what you want them to do next, like "Shop Now," "Learn More," or "Sign Up Today."
Method 1: The Easy Way - Promoting an Existing Post
The quickest way to get started with Instagram ads is by "boosting" a post you've already published. This method is incredibly user-friendly and can be done directly from the Instagram app in just a few taps.
Step-by-Step Guide to Boosting a Post:
Choose Your Post: Go to your Instagram profile and select a post that has already performed well organically. High engagement is a good sign that the content resonates with people.
Tap "Boost Post": Below the image or video on your selected post, you'll see a blue "Boost Post" button. Tap it to begin.
Select Your Goal: Instagram will ask you what results you'd like from this ad. Your options are typically:
More Profile Visits: Good for increasing followers and overall brand visibility.
More Website Visits: Great for driving traffic to your online store, blog, or landing page.
More Messages: Encourages users to start a conversation with you via Instagram Direct.
Define Your Audience: You have two choices here.
Automatic: Instagram targets people similar to your existing followers. This is easy but less precise.
Create Your Own: You can build a specific audience by defining their location(s), age range, gender, and interests. This gives you much more control.
Set Your Budget and Duration: Decide how much you want to spend and for how long. You can set a total budget or a daily budget. For example, you could spend $10 per day for 5 days, for a total budget of $50. Instagram will provide an estimated reach based on your selections.
Review and Launch: Give everything a final look-over. If it all looks correct, tap "Create Promotion." Your ad will be submitted for review and will typically go live within a few hours.
Method 2: The Pro Way - Using Meta Ads Manager
While boosting is easy, Meta Ads Manager (the platform that manages ads for both Facebook and Instagram) is where the real power lies. It offers far more sophisticated targeting options, detailed analytics, and control over every element of your campaign. If you're serious about advertising, this is the tool you should learn to use.
Step-by-Step Guide to Using Ads Manager:
Navigate to Meta Ads Manager: Open a web browser on your desktop and go to ads.facebook.com. Make sure you have previously connected your Instagram account to your Facebook Business Page.
Create a New Campaign: Click the green "+ Create" button. You'll first be asked to choose a campaign objective. This choice aligns with the goal you defined earlier. The main categories are:
Awareness: To reach the maximum number of people.
Traffic: To send people to your website.
Engagement: For post likes, comments, and shares.
Leads: To collect info via an on-platform form.
App Promotion: To promote app installs and engagement.
Sales: To drive conversions like purchases or add-to-carts. (requires a Meta Pixel installed on your website)
Configure Your Ad Set: This is the level where you define your targeting, placements, budget, and schedule.
Audience: This is the killer feature of Ads Manager. You can go incredibly deep with targeting. Create a Detailed Targeting audience based on interests and behaviors, or use more advanced options like Custom Audiences (to retarget people who have visited your website) or Lookalike Audiences (to find new people who are similar to your best existing customers).
Placements: This is where your ad will appear. If you only want your ad to run on Instagram, select "Manual Placements" and uncheck Facebook, Messenger, and Audience Network. You can then choose specific Instagram placements like Feeds, Stories, Reels, or the Explore page.
Budget & Schedule: Just like with boosting, set a daily or lifetime budget and choose the dates you want your campaign to run.
Design Your Ad: Now you create the ad itself.
Identity: Select your Facebook Page and Instagram Account.
Format: Choose your format, like a single image/video, a carousel (multiple scrollable images), or a collection.
Ad Creative: Upload your photo or video, write your Primary Text (caption), and create a Headline.
Call to Action: Select a button that matches your goal, like "Shop Now," "Download," or "Contact Us," and enter your destination URL.
Publish Your Campaign: Review your entire setup one last time. If everything is configured correctly, click the green "Publish" button. Your ad will go into review before going live.
After You Launch: Measuring Your Success
Your job isn't done once the ad is live. The key to effective advertising is monitoring performance and making adjustments. Ads Manager provides a wealth of data to help you understand what's working and what isn't.
Key metrics to watch:
Reach: The number of unique people who saw your ad.
Click-Through Rate (CTR): The percentage of impressions that resulted in a click. A low CTR could mean your creative or copy isn't resonating with your audience.
Cost Per Result (CPR): This is arguably the most important metric. It tells you exactly how much you're paying for each desired action (e.g., cost per click, cost per lead, cost per purchase).
Frequency: The average number of times each person saw your ad. If this number gets too high (e.g., above 5-6), your audience might be experiencing ad fatigue, making your campaign less effective.
Don't be afraid to experiment. Test different images, captions, and audiences to see what performs best. Pause what doesn't work and allocate more budget to your winners.
Final Thoughts
Launching a sponsored ad on Instagram is a straightforward process that offers any business a chance to reach a massive and engaged audience. By starting with a clear goal, understanding your audience, and choosing the right campaign method, you can effectively use Instagram to grow your brand.
As you scale your campaigns, understanding the true return on your ad spend means connecting your advertising data with your sales data. Manually comparing reports from Instagram, Google Analytics, and Shopify can quickly become overwhelming. At Graphed, we solve this by syncing all your critical data sources in one place. You can use simple, natural language to build real-time dashboards - for example, "show me a dashboard comparing Instagram Ads spend vs. Shopify revenue by campaign" - and get an instant, clear view of what’s truly driving your business forward. You can try Graphed for yourself.