If you want your marketing efforts on Instagram to be worth the while, you need to take into account more than your content creation strategy. Budgeting, no matter how off-putting it might sound, needs to be one of your top priorities. And don’t tell us it’s not a stress-point on your daily schedule. We bet you constantly dwell on questions like:
- Am I investing too much money in my Instagram campaigns?
- What are the average fees for micro and mega influencers?
- How should I split my marketing budget between different content types and ads on Instagram?
- How to adjust my marketing budget on Instagram?
Well, this is your lucky day! Without spending a dime, we’ll help you find out how to make the most of your marketing budget, no matter how big or small it is. Actually, after reading this article, you’ll be able to save yourself some well-deserved money from your marketing budget for Instagram.
Carefully define your goals
A great budget strategy is closely connected to a well-thought content strategy. Because your marketing budget for Instagram doesn’t solely include ads. It also includes any content creation you might think of: from designers, photographers, influencers and social media managers. All these costs are part of your marketing budget. So plan accordingly.
Start by defining exactly what goals you want to hit with your Instagram presence. This step will then take you to the types of campaigns and content you need in order to make the magic happen. And then, once you dive in all the details, you’ll be able to list the resources you need to create those exact pieces.
Don’t make the mistake of only thinking about your ads and promotions as the big budget eaters. Actually, a big chunk of your marketing budget for Instagram is going to go to content creation. Along with other valuable resources such as time. Hence, make a list and keep track in time to see if your initial costs are worth it.
Do an audit of your past ads
If you’ve been advertising on Instagram for a while, you must already have a valuable set of un-researched data. It’s high time you compare the results of each of these campaigns and put them head to head. By seeing how a cost per result for ads with the same objective fluctuates, you’ll gain valuable insights into your targeting methods, timings, and creative message.
Thus, if the cost for a conversion suddenly goes up from one campaign to another similar campaign, you might want to check your targeting. Have you thought about the right audience or can you tweak it so that the ad perform better? Is your copy easy to get? How about your visual? Is it appealing enough or the quality of the photo/illustration is pretty shaky?
Of course, these numbers are not bulletproof. You must view them as a good starting point to adjust your future campaigns, but do consider that their variations are also influenced by outside factors you cannot control.
Check your campaign objective
While this might seem like rookie advice, it’s not. Many times, you might have an objective in mind and create a campaign that’s not suited for it, believing that it actually is. Or, the content you create fails to live up to your desired objective. So, what’s there to be done?
As you already know, there are basically 2 ways of creating an Instagram ad:
- Directly from Instagram for simple, promoted posts
- With the Ads Manager or Business Manager from Facebook
And here’s where things start to complicate. A great campaign needs to have more than a killer ad, but a series of ads that make sense together. And they also have to match your objectives. For example, a traffic campaign will definitely need to have different content from a conversions campaign, from your CTA to your visual ads identity. Thus, if things are starting to go downhill with your marketing budget, try seeing first if your creative ads are doing your objective justice. Also, be sure to match your copy with the image. Of course, considering your target audience!
Play with A/B Testing
This is the mother of marketing budget optimization! A/B testing will let you invaluable insights and tips not only for the campaign you’re running at the moment but for future campaigns as well. Fact is, if you’ve never run A/B testing, then you most certainly are paying too much for your campaigns.
The fun fact about A/B testing is that you can play with various ad options to see which suits you (and your budget and results) best:
- test different images, but with the same copy
- test different versions of copy, but with the same image
- use the same ad, but tweak your target audience
- play with ad placements (try Instagram Stories and regular feed ads)
The above are just a few starting points to play with your ads and refine them to their best form. This way, you’ll be able to reach the lowest costs and the maximum results.
Adjust and perfect your target audience
Oh, this is the Holy Graal of your ads and the fastest way to reaching the sweet spot in your marketing budget. The better your audience is, the better the costs. That’s why targeting to perfection should constantly preoccupy you.
Also, if you find a receptive audience, don’t get fixated. Targeting the same people over and over again won’t get you the desired results. On the contrary. People will soon get fed up with your ads and have negative reactions. Thus, try to target different audiences and put a decent time frame between ads directed to the same people.
The second rule of thumb is to target as good and as narrow as you can. But not too narrow. We know, we know, we’re picky. But these are the rules. If you target too many people, your message will get lost. If you target too few, your ads won’t get displayed as much as they should.
The bottom line
The secret to optimizing your marketing budget on Instagram is to have a flexible mindset. Always check your Instagram Insights and Analytics to see if your content is performing as it should. And always keep track of your ads, adjusting them on the way. By checking past campaigns you can have a benchmark and figure out what might be wrong if a cost spikes up too much. And, as with all good things, practice makes perfect.
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