How to Make an Instagram Ad

Running an ad on Instagram is one of the most direct ways to reach your target audience exactly where they spend their time. This guide will walk you through the entire process step-by-step, from initial setup in Meta Ads Manager to launching your campaign and understanding its performance. We'll cover everything you need to know to create ads that actually work.

Before You Create Your Ad: Laying the Groundwork

Jumping straight into ad creation without a plan is like taking a road trip without a map. Before you spend a dollar, a few preparatory steps will dramatically increase your chances of success.

1. Have a Professional Account and a Linked Facebook Page

To run ads on Instagram, you need to switch your personal profile to a Business or Creator account. This is a quick, free change you can make in your Instagram settings under "Account type and tools." This unlocks professional features, including the ability to run ads and access performance insights.

You also need to link your Instagram account to a Facebook Page. Since Meta (Facebook's parent company) owns Instagram, all advertising is managed through its central hub, Meta Ads Manager. Linking the two is a requirement. You can do this in your Facebook Page settings or through the Meta Business Suite.

2. Define Your Campaign Goal

What do you actually want to achieve with this ad? A vague goal like "get more followers" isn't specific enough. Ads Manager organizes campaigns around concrete business objectives. Think about what action you want a user to take after seeing your ad. Common goals include:

• Brand Awareness: Show your ad to people most likely to remember it. This is great for new businesses wanting to get their name out there.
• Traffic: Send people to a specific destination, like your website, blog post, or app.
• Engagement: Get more likes, comments, shares, or video views on a specific post.
• Leads: Collect information from potential customers, like email addresses for a newsletter.
• Sales: Drive purchases of your products or services directly from your website or online store.

Choosing the right objective is critical because Meta's algorithm will optimize your ad delivery to find users most likely to help you achieve that specific goal.

3. Know Your Audience

Who are you trying to reach? The more specific you are, the better. Instagram's targeting options are incredibly powerful, but they only work if you know who your ideal customer is. Think about:

• Demographics: Age, gender, location, language.
• Interests: Hobbies, pages they follow, or topics they engage with (e.g., "organic skincare," "marathon running," "digital marketing").
• Behaviors: Purchase behaviors, device usage, or life events (e.g., "frequent travelers," "small business owners," "recently moved").

For example, a high-end coffee shop in Brooklyn might target men and women aged 25-45 who live within 5 miles of the store and have shown interest in "specialty coffee," "Stumptown Coffee Roasters," and "baristas."

Choosing Your Method: Ads Manager vs. Boosting a Post

You have two main paths to creating an Instagram ad: tapping the "Boost Post" button directly in the Instagram app or using the full-featured Meta Ads Manager on a desktop.

Boosting a Post on Instagram

The "Boost Post" button is the simple, entry-level option. It's incredibly convenient for turning an existing, well-performing organic post into an ad to reach more people. However, this simplicity comes at a cost.

• Pros: Quick and easy to do from your phone in under a minute. Great for increasing engagement on a popular post.
• Cons: Limited campaign objectives, fewer targeting options, and minimal control over ad placements (where your ad shows up). You can't A/B test creatives or run more sophisticated campaigns.

Using Meta Ads Manager

Meta Ads Manager is the professional-grade command center for all Facebook and Instagram advertising. It offers complete control over every aspect of your campaign. While it has a slightly steeper learning curve, it’s the recommended tool for anyone serious about getting results.

• Pros: Access to all campaign objectives, incredibly detailed audience targeting, control over placements (Feed, Stories, Reels, etc.), A/B testing capabilities, and in-depth performance analytics.
• Cons: Can feel overwhelming for absolute beginners. Requires a desktop computer for the best experience.

Our recommendation: While boosting is fine for a quick engagement push, always use Meta Ads Manager for serious campaigns. The control and data you gain are invaluable. The rest of this guide will focus on creating an ad through Ads Manager.

How to Make an Instagram Ad: A Step-by-Step Walkthrough in Ads Manager

All Meta ad campaigns are broken down into a three-level hierarchy: Campaign, Ad Set, and Ad. Let's walk through creating each level.

Level 1: The Campaign

At the Campaign level, you set your main advertising objective. This is where you tell Meta your primary goal.

1. Navigate to the Meta Ads Manager dashboard and click the green “+ Create” button.
2. Choose a Campaign Objective: You’ll see a list of objectives like Awareness, Traffic, Engagement, Leads, App Promotion, and Sales. Select the one that matches the goal you defined earlier. For this example, let's choose Traffic, which aims to send users to a website.
3. Name Your Campaign: Give your campaign a descriptive name you'll easily recognize later, like "Spring Sale - Website Traffic - Apr 2024."
4. Skip the Special Ad Categories and A/B Test options for now. You might consider turning on Advantage Campaign Budget if you plan to run multiple Ad Sets (audiences) and want Meta to automatically distribute your budget to the best-performing one. If you're only running one audience, you can set the budget at the Ad Set level. Click "Next."

Level 2: The Ad Set

At the Ad Set level, you define your targeting, placements, budget, and schedule. This is where you tell Meta who you want to reach, where you want to reach them, and how much you're willing to spend.

1. Name Your Ad Set: Be descriptive here, too. Name it after the audience you're targeting, e.g., "Women 25-45 - Yoga/Wellness Interests - NYC."
2. Conversion Location: Since our objective is traffic, it will ask where you want to drive it. Select "Website."
3. Budget & Schedule:
4. Audience: This is the core of the Ad Set.
5. Placements: This is where your ad will appear.

Click "Next" to move on to the final level.

Level 3: The Ad (The Creative)

This is the fun part - creating the actual ad that people will see. Here, you'll upload your visuals and write your ad copy.

1. Name your Ad: Again, make it descriptive (e.g., "Blue Dress Video Ad - CTA Learn More").
2. Identity: Select the Instagram account (and corresponding Facebook Page) you want the ad to run from.
3. Ad Setup: Choose your ad format.
4. Ad Creative:

Finally, review everything carefully in the preview pane on the right. When you’re confident that everything is set up correctly, hit the green "Publish" button. Your ad will go into a review process (usually a few minutes to a few hours) and will start running once approved.

Monitoring Your Performance

Your work isn’t over once the ad goes live. The key to successful advertising is monitoring performance and making adjustments. In Ads Manager, you can track dozens of metrics, but focus on the ones that matter most for your campaign objective:

• Impressions: The total number of times your ad was seen.
• Reach: The number of unique people who saw your ad.
• Link Clicks: How many times people clicked the link in your ad.
• Cost Per Result (CPR): How much you paid for each desired action (e.g., Cost Per Link Click).
• Return On Ad Spend (ROAS): For e-commerce, this is the most important metric. It tells you how much revenue you generated for every dollar you spent on ads.

Final Thoughts

Creating your first Instagram ad can feel intimidating, but running a successful campaign comes down to a simple formula: a clear goal, a well-defined audience, and compelling creative. By using Meta Ads Manager, you gain a powerful set of tools to bring those three elements together and drive real results for your business.

As you scale your advertising, you'll find that tracking performance becomes more complex, especially as you add more channels like Google Ads, TikTok, and your e-commerce platform. Instead of creating manual reports by exporting CSVs from each platform, we built Graphed to be your AI data analyst. You connect all your sources in seconds, and then we help you create real-time dashboards using simple natural language, so you can see your full campaign ROI in one place - without all the busy work.