In March, Instagram Story ads launched! These immersive, full-screen ads on the platform’s stories integrated a new approach for brands to advertise outside of the feed. The original intent of these ads was to measure one objective: reach. With 150 million active daily users, the potential for a brand’s growth through Instagram is virtually limitless, so reach became a comprehensive metric.
(Image via valoso.com)
Since their launch, Instagram Story Ads have quickly become a great way for small businesses to share their brand, connect with their customers and build awareness. Due to this overwhelming success, Instagram will introduce new objectives: video views, traffic and conversions. Today, we’ll be sharing some ways to use these new objectives to help your brand on Instagram.
Video Views
(Photo via Instagram)
Video is an important part of driving user engagement, and it’s important to showcase videos to the correct specifications. So be sure to reference Instagram’s guidelines when deciding how you will format these videos. As far as content goes, it’s important to tell a brand story, or highlight a direct benefit to the end-user.
Michael Kors executed this strategy well by creating a 30-second, horizontal product video telling the story of a featured model using a smartwatch in different situations throughout her day. The video ran for an entire month in varied length formats, resulting in a 24-point lift in ad recall and 8.8-point increase in favorability.
Traffic (Formerly Website Clicks)
(Image via Instagram)
When using Instagram ads for the purpose of increasing website traffic, it’s important to focus on one specific product or product line. Simply focusing on the objective of brand awareness without a call to action (CTA) will make it difficult for users to interact with the ad to result in website traffic. Have a catchy and engaging CTA that speaks to your target audience. Beats by Dr. Dre executed a traffic ad strategy with a CTA to “Find your perfect pair [of headphones]”.
This ad was unique in that it gave users the option to swipe up to shop for a new pair of headphones directly from the app. The results were astounding with a 29% rise in purchases, 11x more traffic to their websites, a 15% higher click-through rate compared to other channels and 16x lift in user engagement.
Conversions
(Image via Instagram)
Conversions on Instagram are a bit different than other platforms, especially when it comes to stories. A conversion can be set by the creator. For example, if a viewer watched a video all the way through, then “swiped up” for more, it is counted as a conversion. By following the steps to create a successful view and traffic objective video, you will result in more conversions. Make sure you’ve set your conversion to match your CTA.
Airbnb’s successful campaign did not include the option to “swipe up for more,” but rather their CTA was to introduce viewers to their latest offering: Experiences. By leveraging a “storytelling” approach of showcasing “local experts” through multiple videos, they were able to enable travelers to book experiences. Their ads had a 15% higher click-through rate compared to other channels, a 26% increase in purchase lifts, 1x lift in traffic to website and a 16x lift in unique user engagement.
Agency Entourage’s video and branded entertainment capabilities can help you create videos with powerful brand messaging. Our team of visual media experts integrate graphic and motion-based elements to tell your brand’s story and increase Video Views, Traffic and Conversions. If you’re in search of great visual content for Instagram Story ads and other platforms, give us a call at (214) 414-3035 today to begin your brand’s creative journey!
