Instagram is the new market for all the social media happenings. It boasts billions of followers and is the major social media networking site, only after Facebook. Therefore, building an effective ad funnel on Instagram can help you get popular on Instagram. It will boost your business in all the right ways.
Instagram ad funnels is a collection of ad campaigns carefully designed to track a buyer’s journey, from strangers to engaging shoppers, all the way to paying customers. An effective and powerful Instagram ad funnel reaches the right users with appropriate ad messaging and promotion at the right moment.
It helps to acquire popularity on Instagram and gain wider reach on Instagram as well. Following are some major tips to follow when creating an effective Instagram ad funnel.
Tips for creating an effective ad funnel on Instagram
Filling up the TOFU stage
TOFU or the Top Of The Funnel stage is the widest stage filled with cold audiences. They are completely unaware of your brand and are new to your site. The first step involves attracting these new audiences and keeping them engaged with interesting content.
A robust Instagram profile, bio and website lay the foundation for this stage. As these audiences are new, they would not necessarily contribute to your revenue. But you have to realise that some of them eventually translate into potential buyers.
They may have stumbled upon your page while browsing memes or pictures of celebrities or just looking for some inspiration. Thus, you need to keep them engaged with scroll-stopping ads. Through a variety of formats, you can showcase your ads. It can be through stories, video, collection, image etc.
Among them, story ads are an instant hit. The reason lies in its layout. It fills the whole screen and instantly grabs users’ attention. Also, there are no other posts or distractions which is why they are perfect for TOFU campaigns. They are fast-paced, only for 15 seconds.
Thus, a 15-sec thought-provoking stories ad should captivate the audience’s attention. One may add playful poll stickers to increase the time for a user to focus on the story. Collection ads are designed to maximise the mobile user experience.
Implementing the MOFU stage
Once the users have become accustomed to your brand and are now no longer strangers, you enter the middle of your Instagram ads funnel. This stage is also known as the consideration stage. Why? Just read on. The once strangers are now slowly transforming into prospective shoppers.
They are appraising your offer and considering if it’s worth the purchase. Here, you’ll use ads that will highlight the key features and benefits of your brands. You’ll lure them to avail the interesting offers and share their email addresses or contact information.
Your goal is to increase the traffic with more clicks to your dedicated website or e-commerce store. At this stage, you can roll out offers that resonate with audiences familiar with your products. These include free samples, product demos, discount codes, downloadable content, giveaways, contests and free online assessments.
The essence of the BOFU Stage
BOFU or the Bottom of the funnel stage is also known as the conversion/purchase stage. Here, you want to target the customers who are serious enough to drive sales on your ecommerce store. Therefore, you need to choose an Instagram Ad campaign that directly optimizes for sales such as catalogue sales, conversions or traffic.
Here, you’ll need integration of the product catalogue to your ads manager. At this stage, the target audiences should be existing leads and e-commerce visitors. It would be efficient to set up a custom audience to reach leads and people that visited your online store in the previous funnel stages.
You can also decide to upsell and cross-sell products as well as create a custom combination for audiences based on the interaction people have with your products. The ad in the BOFU stage can take the help of the following offers and ad messaging like discounts, free shipping, price drops, gifts with a purchase, risk-free purchase and easy financing.
Tracking and testing Instagram ad placements for cost return
The next step involves monitoring for the places where your Instagram ads get the most interaction and then optimising the placements accordingly. There are three placements for ads- Instagram feed, Instagram stories and the last one is the Instagram search and explore tab.
To find out the placements which get the most interactions, one can use the breakdown tool in the Facebook ads manager. After assessing it, you can optimise your campaign accordingly.
Conclusion
Thus, one can say that the Instagram Ads funnel allows the brand to attract new customers, then warming them and keeping them engaged with a series of campaigns and finally pulling them deeper enough to buy your products. This funnel should not end with just a single purchase but you have to keep your customers re-engaged with future MOFU campaigns.
One must be patient and realise that each customer will go through these stages at their own pace and different phases.
