How to Become an Advertiser on Instagram

Running ads on Instagram is one of the most direct ways to get your brand, product, or service in front of people who are likely to become customers. This guide breaks down exactly how to get started, from setting up your account correctly to launching your first campaign using Meta's powerful Ads Manager.

First Things First: Setting Up Your Business Profile

Before you can spend a single dollar on advertising, you need to switch your Instagram account to a Professional Profile. This is a non-negotiable first step because it unlocks the tools you'll need, including performance insights, contact buttons on your profile, and, most importantly, the ability to create ads.

If you're still on a personal account, making the switch takes about 60 seconds:

1. Open your Instagram profile and tap the hamburger menu (three horizontal lines) in the top-right corner.
2. Go to Settings and privacy > Account type and tools.
3. Tap Switch to professional account.
4. Choose a category that best describes what you do (e.g., Entrepreneur, Clothing Brand, Restaurant). This helps Instagram understand your business.
5. Select whether you're a Creator (best for public figures, artists, and influencers) or a Business (best for retailers, brands, and service providers). For most advertisers, Business is the right choice.

During this setup, you'll be prompted to connect your Instagram account to a Facebook Business Page. Do not skip this step. Linking these accounts is essential for using the full-featured Meta Ads Manager, which is where you’ll run campaigns much more sophisticated than simple post boosts.

Two Ways to Advertise on Instagram: Boosting vs. Ads Manager

Once your professional account is ready, you have two primary ways to run an ad. One is incredibly simple and can be done right from your phone, while the other is a powerful, professional tool that offers complete control.

The Quick and Easy Method: Boosting a Post

Boosting is the entry-level form of Instagram advertising. You take an existing post from your feed and pay to show it to a wider audience. It's an excellent option for beginners or for when you have a piece of content that's already performing well organically and you want to give it some extra reach.

How to Boost a Post:

1. Choose a Post: Navigate to the post on your profile you want to promote and tap the Boost post button beneath it.
2. Select Your Goal: Instagram will ask you what result you want. The most common options are:
   • More Profile Visits: Great for growing your follower count and building brand awareness.
   • More Website Visits: Ideal for driving traffic to your blog, online store, or a specific landing page. You’ll add a URL and choose a call-to-action button like "Learn More" or "Shop Now."
   • More Messages: Encourages users to start a conversation with you via Instagram DMs, perfect for service-based businesses or lead generation.
3. Define Your Audience: This is where you decide who sees your post.
   • Automatic: Instagram will target people similar to your existing followers. It’s a good hands-off option.
   • Create Your Own: This gives you manual control. You can target people based on their location (country, city, or even a local radius), interests (based on accounts they follow and content they engage with), age, and gender.
4. Set Your Budget and Duration: Decide how much you want to spend per day and for how many days the ad will run. Instagram will give you an estimated reach based on your investment. A good starting point is often $5-$10 per day for 3-5 days to gather some initial data.
5. Review and Launch: Give everything one last look, add your payment information if you haven't already, and tap Boost post. Your ad will go into a short review process and then go live.

The bottom line on boosting: It’s fast, accessible, and great for simple goals like increasing reach and engagement. However, its simplicity comes with limitations in targeting, creative control, and optimization.

The Power User Method: Meta Ads Manager

If you're serious about getting a return on your investment, you’ll quickly outgrow boosting. Meta Ads Manager is the professional control center for running ads across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and a network of other apps and websites. While it looks more complex at first, its power lies in a three-level structure: Campaign, Ad Set, and Ad.

• Campaign: The top level where you set your main advertising objective (e.g., sales, traffic, leads).
• Ad Set: The middle level where you define your targeting (audience), placement (where the ad appears), budget, and schedule.
• Ad: The base level where you design the actual creative - the images, videos, captions, and links that people see.

This structure gives you the ultimate control to run sophisticated, A/B tested campaigns that are scientifically optimized for your specific business goals.

Your First Campaign: A Step-by-Step Guide to Using Meta Ads Manager

Once you’re ready to move beyond boosting, it’s time to create a proper ad campaign. Navigate to the Meta Ads Manager in your web browser and click the green “+ Create” button to get started.

Step 1: Choose Your Campaign Objective

The first thing Ads Manager will ask is what you want to achieve. This is the single most important choice you'll make, as Meta will use its algorithm to find people most likely to perform your desired action. Think beyond likes and follows and choose an objective tied to a real business result.

Common objectives for Instagram advertisers include:

• Awareness: Use this to get your ad in front of as many people as possible in your target audience for a low cost. It’s about being seen, not necessarily about clicks or sales.
• Traffic: The goal here is clicks. This objective optimizes for people likely to click a link to your website, landing page, or app store.
• Engagement: Perfect for getting more comments, shares, event responses, or page likes. It's often used to build up social proof on specific posts.
• Leads: A powerful objective for collecting contact information directly. You can create an on-platform form that captures names, emails, and phone numbers without users ever leaving Instagram.
• Sales: If you have an e-commerce store with the Meta Pixel installed, this objective is your moneymaker. Meta will find people with a history of making online purchases and show them your ad.

Step 2: Define Your Audience and Placements (The Ad Set Level)

After choosing your objective, you’ll move to the Ad Set. This is where you tell Instagram who to show your ad to, where to show it, and how much you're willing to spend.

Audience Targeting

Ads Manager opens up a world of targeting that boosting only hints at.

• Core Audiences: This is where you manually build an audience based on demographics, interests, and behaviors. You can layer targeting to get very specific. For example, a yoga studio in Brooklyn could target women ages 25-45 who live within a 5-mile radius, and are interested in yoga, wellness, or Lululemon.
• Custom Audiences: This is where advertising gets smarter. You can upload a list of your existing customers or use data from your Meta Pixel to retarget people who have already interacted with your business - like visitors who abandoned their shopping cart or people who watched 50% of your last video ad.
• Lookalike Audiences: Meta can analyze your Custom Audience (e.g., your best customers) and build a new, larger audience of people who share similar characteristics but haven't heard of you yet. It’s an incredibly effective way to find new customers.

Placements

Placements are simply the places where your ad can appear. For beginners, it's best to stick with Advantage+ placements (formerly Automatic Placements). This allows Meta to show your ad across all available spots on Instagram (and Facebook) where it’s most likely to perform well, such as:

• Instagram Feed
• Instagram Stories
• Instagram Reels
• Instagram Explore Page

As you get more advanced, you can manually select placements if you have creative assets designed for a specific format, like a vertical video just for Stories and Reels.

Budget & Schedule

Here, you’ll decide between a Daily Budget (a set amount to spend each day) or a Lifetime Budget (a total amount to spend over the entire campaign). A daily budget is simpler for ongoing campaigns, while a lifetime budget gives Meta more flexibility to spend on days when opportunities are better.

Step 3: Design Your Ad Creative (The Ad Level)

This final step is where you upload your video or images and write the copy that everyone will see. Your creative needs to stop the scroll and feel authentic to the Instagram experience.

Ad Formats

• Single Image or Video: The classic, most common ad format. Clean, simple, and effective.
• Carousel: Lets you showcase multiple products or tell a sequential story with up to 10 scrollable images or videos in a single ad.
• Stories & Reels Ads: These need to be vertical, full-screen videos or images that blend in seamlessly with organic content. Keep them engaging, use sound, and add interactive elements like polls if possible.

Ad Copy & CTA

No matter the format, your ad needs a clear hook in the text, a concise description of your offer, and a strong call-to-action (CTA). The CTA is the button users click, so make sure it matches your objective (e.g., “Shop Now" for a sales campaign, "Sign Up" for a leads campaign).

Beyond the Launch: Measuring Success and Making Adjustments

Your job isn't over when you click "Publish." True success in advertising comes from analyzing your results in Ads Manager and optimizing. Don't feel overwhelmed by all the columns of data. Instead, focus on a few key metrics relevant to your objective:

• Cost Per Result: This tells you exactly how much you paid for each of your desired outcomes (e.g., $1.50 per click, $15 per lead, or $30 per purchase). This is arguably the most important metric.
• Click-Through Rate (CTR): The percentage of people who saw your ad and clicked on it. A low CTR often suggests your creative or offer isn't resonating with your audience.
• Reach: The total number of unique people who saw your ad.

Advertising is a process of learning. Run small A/B tests - try one ad with two different headlines, or test the same creative on two different audiences. Use the data to turn off what's not working and put more budget behind your winners.

Final Thoughts

Instagram advertising gives brands of all sizes powerful tools for growth. Whether you're starting with a simple post boost or building a full-funnel strategy in Ads Manager, the key is to set a clear goal, define your ideal audience, and create compelling content that feels native to the platform. Don’t be afraid to experiment, analyze your results, and refine your approach over time.

While ads are a fantastic tool for growth, they work best when they complement a strong, consistent organic social media presence. Running great organic content builds trust and community, so that when someone sees your ad, they're more likely to connect with an already vibrant brand. To simplify that organic strategy, we built Postbase to make planning, scheduling, and engaging with your audience on Instagram a seamless experience. Our visual content calendar helps you organize your posts, Reels, and Stories, so your paid campaigns and organic content always work together in perfect harmony.