In March 2017, Instagram release the Instagram Story ads feature to all business accounts. Hootsuite’s social marketing team quickly ran a series of tests using the new ad format. In this post we share with you what our team learned so that you’re set up for success when you give it a try.
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Running ads on Instagram Stories: 7 lessons from Hootsuite’s social team
1. It’s best to start with existing content
Creating high-performing Instagram content is about trial and error. It can be expensive if you don’t know what your audience wants.
Before you put time and effort into creating Instagram-specific ads, repurpose content that you’ve shared organically so you have an idea of what kind of engagement it will get. Trying running a few tests with different types of repurposed content. Define a set of criteria for each ad so you understand exactly what you’re testing.
We used graphic videos as our first set of ads because we already had that content on hand. After seeing that they weren’t performing, we switched up our strategy—but having that initial test helped us understand what our audience wanted and why.
2. Live action videos convert better than graphic videos
The vast majority of Instagram Stories feature real life scenes (i.e. live action). Graphic videos break up this user experience. It didn’t match the aesthetic of what people were seeing in other Stories, and as result, clearly stood out as an ad.
When you’re creating your story, think about user experience. What would they expect to see? Make sure you create ads that…
