In today's world, if a business is not on social media, then there is no confidence in it either. Users are increasingly assessing the age of the last message on a company profile, rather than the date the site was last updated. Placing an order and getting advice through Direct is easier and more convenient. Especially young people who spend half of their lives on a smartphone screen.
Using Instagram, the fast-growing social media platform has become a necessity. Particularly interesting are its advertising opportunities - the publication and promotion of paid content, which is displayed along with organic content in news feeds and user stories.
How expensive is it to run ads on one of the most popular social media platforms in the world? It all depends on several factors, including the cost per click and interaction with the publication. Read more about pricing and factors that affect advertising budgets in this article.
One factor in the calculation of the cost of advertising is the number of advertisers that enter the auction to attract the attention of the same audience. So, with the advent of the pandemic, when the entire business was forced to "go" online as soon as possible, there were even more such players. On the one hand, the competition indicator has grown, but on the other hand, we only benefit - Facebook algorithms have received a huge amount of data to analyze, optimize processes and build more accurate forecasts of effective advertising campaigns.
Instagram ads are bought as part of an auction, which ultimately determines their price. You, as an advertiser, can only specify the budget for your advertising campaign and the minimum/maximum bid for achieving the advertising goal. The rest of the process is no longer up to you - Instagram's algorithms independently determine which ad will bring the most benefit to users from the required target audience, and choose the winner based on this.
(according to wordstream.com)
Important! All ad clicks are counted, including link clicks, likes, reactions, comments, and posts.
It is noteworthy that the CPM on Facebook is almost 2 times higher than on Instagram, but the CPC is almost 2 times lower. That is, if your goal is to show ads to as many representatives of the target audience as possible at the lowest price, choose Instagram. But, if clicks and transitions to the site are more important, be sure to use Facebook ads as well.
We understand that you want to spend money on advertising predictably and concerning the results obtained. Therefore, most companies plan advertising activities for periods, they need to understand how much Instagram advertising will cost for a month.
When you run ads through Facebook Ads Manager or directly through Instagram, you have the option to choose a daily budget or amount for the duration of the ad campaign. By the way, we wrote a detailed guide for launching an advertising campaign.
You determine how much you are willing to spend per day and the advertisement system will automatically stop showing your ads when the limit is reached. A new day starts at midnight, according to the time zone of your ad account.
Facebook Ads Manager has minimum budgets (according to strikesocial.com):
If you are using any other currency, the values may change according to the conversion rate.
If you decide to set a budget for the entire duration of your ad campaign,
Facebook will still average it out for each day. The minimum values shall also be taken into consideration.
Even though Facebook and Instagram use the same Ad Manager, they have different ad costs. This is because Facebook's advertising algorithms have more data (because they exist longer). Therefore, if you compare these two advertising tools, Instagram is often a bit more expensive.
More specifically in terms of cost, according to the blog www.wordstream.com, the average Facebook CPC across industries and campaign objectives in 2024 will be $0.97. But this is a very average cost, therefore, information segmented according to different advertising purposes will be more indicative. Here the cost already appears in the range from 0.25 to 3.30 dollars.
This data is rather averaged. Of course, the figures can be used as forecasts, but the real picture may be completely different. Everything is important here - the audience, the launch time of the advertising campaign, budgets, and many other factors (which we will talk about a little later).
We recommend using both ad networks - Facebook and Instagram to get the most out of your ads.
Advertising on Instagram is an order of magnitude cheaper than other marketing tools. Therefore, it is worth using this platform, at a minimum, to test whether your audience responds to such activities. At the same time, the budget that will be needed is only 1 dollar per day. Where else can you test marketing hypotheses so inexpensively?
Is Instagram advertising right for your business? If the platform is popular with your target audience. Or your business targets the 25-34 age group (according to Statista, 33% of all Instagram users are in this group). A social media can be a powerful communication tool with your potential buyers.
In total, you can serve ads to over 1 billion active users on the platform (according to business.instagram.com).
As mentioned earlier, budgets and bids are not the only factors that affect the cost of an advertising campaign. The algorithms work very efficiently and offer advertisers to target their costs based on average CPCs, app downloads, or video views.
Let's look at what these average costs mean and how they are measured. Several factors affect how much Instagram ads cost for different business categories. In addition, there is some terminology that is important to know before getting started with Ads Manager.
Factors that determine the cost of advertising (according to neilpatel.com):
There are different types of ads on the Instagram platform, respectively, they solve different marketing goals. It is important to remember that the style of Instagram is live and quality content. A fake photo downloaded from stock will only stand out against the background of other publications, and even then - in a negative light. And most likely, advertising will not work as well as we would like.
To make your mockup or video stand out in the user feed, be prepared for the fact that it will take time to create. By the way, it is not at all difficult, and sometimes - even interesting, it will be to use a special service - BannerBoo. This is a simple and convenient designer for creating any visual layouts, GIF banners, or videos, which will simplify the process of creating quality content for your business. The service has a large library of useful materials and a step-by-step guide for creating a selling visual.
But, back to the types of ads on Instagram. Here are the main ones:
In the advertising launch guide, there is no exact cost information for each format separately. There is a slightly different ratio here - the kind of advertising and its quality affect the costs of an advertising campaign. You should test different types of ads to see which ones work best and are more effective for you.
Different strategies determine the degree of readiness of the audience to buy. For example, if the targeting audience is “cold” and doesn’t know about your product or service at all, it makes no sense to use the “get a conversion” strategy. Here information and non-aggressive persuasion will be much more effective.
You can use different bidding strategies when setting up your Instagram ads and align them to run your ad campaign.
There are four types of bidding strategies in total:
Choose the type that best matches the purpose of the ad. Only in this case, you will get the most effective results, which can then be scaled.
The ad network offers a complete set of targets to use. They take into account the different audiences, the different levels of preparation of customers for the purchase and are adapted to receive different performance measures. They will help you make more informed decisions and see if Instagram ads are working for your business.
These goals can be:
Advertising success is not always determined by sales. It could be an increase in the number of subscribers, an increase in the level of engagement, an increase in reach, a high click-through rate (CTR), or an improved conversion rate.
Who do you target in advertising and how strong is the competition in the desired audience? How much does advertising on Instagram cost, if the audience is narrowed, and if it is expanded?
The more concentrated the set of interests and the more specific the targeting audience, the higher the cost of your advertising. If you remove or add a parameter, the cost of the ad changes.
What targeting options are available?
The level of spending also affects the price of advertising. If the budgets are minimal, it will take more time for the system to study, understand your company and predict how the selected audience interacts (or does not interact) with such advertisements.
The more the ad message matches the target page, the higher it's ranking in the internal ranking system. The fewer scrolls, the better for you and the final price.
When setting up, you can choose whether to show your ads only on Instagram or on Facebook too. In fine settings, you can also choose devices, OS, or platforms that are of interest to you.
Instagram evaluates the likelihood of how the audience will interact with the content. If the ad network has data that these users have successfully interacted with these types of ads in the past, then the prices may become lower. It is believed that your ad will be relevant.
The received click-through rate (CTR) for the conducted advertising campaigns also has weight in pricing. On the other hand, if there are ineffective ads in the advertising account, this can work against you.
If you advertise consistently to the same audience, you will likely run into a lot of competition over time. This also includes all the “peak” periods of sales - holidays, industry events, and seasonal purchases.
The wider and larger the targeting audience, the cheaper the advertising. The smaller and narrower - the greater the costs.
The industry of the business also affects the cost. For example, complex B2B products have a longer decision-making period than B2C companies. Accordingly, the cost of such a lead can be very high. The more competition (as in the women's clothing market) or the more complex the product (such as IT solutions), the higher the prices.
There is no single answer about what the advertising budget should be. We recommend running multiple ad campaigns as a test to track performance and be able to understand average spend data. It is only at this point that you will have a good understanding of the average budget. That's just for your company.
It is recommended to start with the minimum budget. And only then progressively scale.
When it became clear “How much does Instagram advertising cost?”, it's time to understand how to optimize costs so that the result remains as effective as possible.
Don't be afraid of high stakes on Instagram. They are often easy to optimize:
● Grab the audience's attention
Remember that Instagram is first of all a visual platform. Use bright and creative videos, GIF banners, and visual effects to instantly hook the audience in the first two seconds of viewing. Add text to video (the vast majority of users don't watch videos with sound), test different CTAs, and try different formats. Analyze all the data so that the next advertising campaign is even better than the previous one.
● Use the right hashtags
In adequate quantity and with maximum quality, common hashtags can attract more potential customers who may be interested in your brand. Be sure to research all the hashtags around your industry and use them.
● Find the perfect time to post
Try to track the periods of the most interactions with ads (Breaking - Performance - Overtime). Try posting around this time. This strategy will reduce your Instagram ad spend while achieving optimal results.
Optimizing Instagram advertising takes time and requires much experimentation. If you need quick results, this is a reason to turn to specialists in setting up advertising campaigns on Instagram.
To launch an advertising campaign, you need to enter the details of an active bank card. Advertising costs will be automatically charged in the currency of your ad account.
Next, you have two options:
If you suddenly run into cash flow issues, all advertising campaigns will be suspended. Advertising will resume only after payment.
Your business must use Instagram ads. Here are just some compelling statistics from the latest Hootsuite blog :
Whether your advertising goal is to acquire new customers or increase your social media following, the Instagram platform can bring you quick results.
Any advertising activity is a paid service. The free launch is not possible.
Some people don't use Instagram for business because they think they don't know anything about the platform. Others believe that advertising on Instagram is very expensive. Many free resources will teach anyone how to run ads on Instagram.
Every marketer around the world agrees with one fact - it's just impossible not to use such an effective platform for communication with the target audience. Particularly now that you know the price of advertising on Instagram.
