How to advertise on Instagram, step by step

How to advertise on Instagram: the two routes

To advertise on Instagram, first switch your profile to a business or creator account, which gives you access to features that help you create ads. Then pick one of two routes: boost a post you have already shared, from the Instagram app or instagram.com, or build a campaign in Meta Ads Manager, where you can create ads for all Meta apps.

Boosting is the shorter path for a first test. Ads Manager gives you more control over the objective, placements and format, and its structure lets you test different audiences, budgets, and creatives within a single campaign objective.

What you need before your first Instagram ad

Set these up before your first ad.

• A professional account. Instagram lets you change a personal account to a business or creator account. If your personal account is private, switching to a professional account will make it public.
• A decision about Facebook. Connecting a Facebook Page during setup is optional. On your first boost, Instagram asks you to pick an ad account: you can choose an existing Facebook ad account, or keep your Facebook and Instagram accounts separate.
• A payment method on the ad account. With PayPal or most credit and debit cards, Meta uses automatic billing and charges you when you reach your payment threshold, and again on your monthly bill date.
• If you sell on your own website, the Meta Pixel, which is a piece of code that you put on your website. It measures the actions that people take on your website, and Meta also recommends the Conversions API alongside it.

How to boost a post on Instagram

Boosting turns a post you already shared into an ad. In most regions, adding funds in the Instagram iOS app may carry an Apple service fee of 30% of your total ad payment, before any taxes and local fees, so on an iPhone, use instagram.com instead of the Instagram iOS app.

1. Pick the post

   Go to your profile, tap the post you want to boost and tap Boost below the post's image. On instagram.com, select the post and click Boost.

2. Choose a goal

   Boosting from Ad tools lets you choose a goal of more profile visits, website visits or messages. Pick website visits if you want people on a product page, or messages if you sell through direct messages.

3. Choose the audience

   Choose who you want to reach. Start from what you know about the people who already buy from you.

4. Set the budget and duration

   Enter how much you want to spend daily and how long the ad should run. For a first ad, Meta recommends starting with at least $5 for your budget and a duration over six days.

5. Preview and boost

   Tap Preview ad to check the placements where the ad will run, then tap Boost post. The ad goes to review and begins running after it's been reviewed and approved. Its results appear in the Ad Tools section.

How to create an Instagram ad in Meta Ads Manager

Ads Manager builds every ad in three levels: campaign, ad set and ad. The campaign holds the objective, the ad set holds the audience, placements, budget and schedule, and the ad holds what people see.

1. Create a campaign and choose an objective

   In Ads Manager, create a campaign and pick one of the six objectives, explained in the next section.

2. Answer the Special Ad Category question

   When you create a campaign, Meta requires you to specify if you are running an ad to promote a Special Ad Category. The categories cover ads about employment, housing opportunities or financial products and services, which get limited audience selection tools, and ads about social issues, elections or politics, which carry authorization and "Paid for by" disclaimer rules.

3. Set the budget and schedule

   Choose a daily budget, which is an average daily spend over the course of a week, or a lifetime budget, which is a hard cap, not an average. Then set the start and end dates.

4. Define the audience

   Choose who you want to see your ads. The options include demographics, interests, behaviours, custom audiences.

5. Choose placements

   Turn on Advantage+ placements to let Meta choose, or pick placements yourself. The Instagram placements are Feed, Stories, Explore, Reels and Search.

6. Build the ad

   Choose the identity, which sets which Facebook Page and Instagram account represent your business in the ad. Pick a format: single image or video, carousel, or collection. Then add the creative, meaning the images, videos, text, headlines, and links that people see.

7. Publish and wait for review

   Check the preview for each placement, then publish. The ad runs once Meta's review approves it.

Which Instagram ad objective to choose

The objective is the overall goal you want to achieve, such as increasing website traffic, generating leads, or boosting brand awareness. The descriptions below are Meta's own.

Instagram ad sizes and specs

The table shows Meta's recommended specs for three of Instagram's placements: Feed, Stories and Reels. Stories and Reels are vertical, so make a 9:16 version of every image and video as well as the feed version.

In Reels, Meta suggests leaving at least 14% of the top, 35% of the bottom, and 6% on each side of the video free from text, logos or other important elements, so they are not covered by the profile icon or call-to-action. Reels ads should not contain licensed music: Meta recommends original audio or royalty-free music from the Meta Sound Collection instead.

Meta's general advice is that mobile-friendly creative with short copy and videos under 15 seconds does best.

How much Instagram ads cost and how Meta charges you

Instagram ads have no fixed price. Meta ads use an auction system where ads compete for impressions based on bids and performance, and you control how much you spend through your budget. Usually you are charged for the number of impressions your ad receives, unless you chose a different charge when you created the ad. If your budget is below Meta's minimum for the settings you picked, you see an alert in Meta Ads Manager.

A daily budget is an average daily spend over the course of a week, not a ceiling. On days with better opportunities, Meta may spend up to 75% over your daily budget, and less on other days; its help center says this flexibility is being introduced gradually to some Meta Ads Manager accounts. Over a week, Meta does not spend more than seven times your daily budget. Example: with a $10 daily budget, one day can run above $10, but the week stays within seven times $10. A lifetime budget is a hard cap, not an average, which suits a fixed amount for a launch or a sale.

Meta says an ad should run for at least 7 days so its system can learn from the results. To follow what you have spent, open Ads Manager on a computer and look under the Amount spent column.

Ad review and the rules your ad must follow

Before ads run on Facebook or Instagram, Meta reviews them against Meta Advertising Standards. The review may look at images, video, text and targeting, as well as the ad's destination. Most ads are reviewed within 24 hours, although some take longer. You can see an ad's status in the Delivery column of Meta Ads Manager.

Changing a scheduled or running ad's targeting, creative, optimization or billing event starts a new review. Changes to the bid amount, budget or ad set schedule do not. So you can adjust a budget without a new review, while new images or text are best added as a new ad next to the one that is working.

If you believe an ad was rejected by mistake, you can request another review in Meta Business Support Home.

A simple first Instagram campaign for a small shop

Example: a shop that sells hand-poured candles from its own website, with no ad history.

1. Install the Meta Pixel and set up a purchase event, so you can measure actions such as making a purchase.
2. From instagram.com, boost one post that got more saves and shares than usual, with website visits as the goal.
3. Run it for at least 7 days without edits while it learns.
4. Compare the cost per website visit with what a visitor is worth to you. If visits turn into orders, build a Sales campaign in Ads Manager with two or three versions of the ad.
5. Add new ads next to the one that sells, rather than editing its creative.

Where Nation fits

Questions about advertising on Instagram