How to Boost an Instagram Post from Ads Manager

Instead of just tapping the blue “Boost Post” button directly on your Instagram profile, you can unlock a whole new level of control and precision by using Meta Ads Manager. While the in-app boost is quick, Ads Manager is where you get access to the professional tools that drive serious results. This guide will walk you through exactly how to promote an existing Instagram post from Ads Manager, giving you better targeting, more placement options, and clearer results.

Why Use Ads Manager Over the Instagram "Boost Post" Button?

You might be wondering, "Why bother with the complexity of Ads Manager when I can boost a post with a few taps on my phone?" It’s a fair question. The native “Boost Post” button is designed for speed and simplicity, making it perfect for beginners. However, that simplicity comes at a cost: a significant lack of control.

Think of it like this: the "Boost Post" button is like cooking with a microwave - it's fast and gets the job done. Ads Manager, on the other hand, is like having a fully equipped professional kitchen. You have access to better ingredients (targeting options), more cooking methods (campaign objectives), and can craft a much more sophisticated final product (ad campaign).

Here’s what you gain by making the switch to Ads Manager:

• Advanced Targeting Capabilities: This is the biggest advantage. The in-app boost offers basic audience targeting (location, age, gender, and some general interests). Ads Manager lets you go deeper with detailed demographics, life events, specific behaviors (like online purchasing habits), and hyper-specific interests. More importantly, it allows you to use your most powerful assets: Custom Audiences and Lookalike Audiences. You can target people who have already visited your website, engaged with your Instagram profile, or find new people who are statistically similar to your existing customers.
• Specific Campaign Objectives: When you hit "Boost Post," you're most likely optimizing for more engagement (likes, comments, shares). But what if your goal is to drive traffic to your blog, generate leads, or secure sales on your e-commerce site? Ads Manager lets you choose a specific objective - like Traffic, Leads, or Sales - and Meta’s algorithm will work to find people most likely to take that specific action, leading to a much better return on your ad spend.
• Placement Control: The native boost gives you limited say in where your ad appears. In Ads Manager, you have full control. You can choose to run your ad exclusively on Instagram Stories, the Explore page, or Reels. You can also prevent it from showing up on platforms or placements where your audience isn't active, which helps you use your budget more efficiently.
• Creative Control and A/B Testing: Ads Manager allows you to test different components of your ad. While you're using an existing post in this case, you can still test different audiences against each other to see which one performs better. For other ad types, you could test different headlines or call-to-action buttons. This data helps you optimize your campaigns over time, something the simple boost feature doesn't facilitate.

Getting Started: Your Pre-Flight Checklist

Before you jump into Ads Manager, you need to have a few things set up correctly. If you've already run ads before, you can likely skim this section. If you're new, getting these foundations right is essential.

1. An Instagram Business or Creator Account: You can’t run ads from a personal Instagram account. If you haven't already, switch your profile to a Business or Creator account in your Instagram settings. It’s free and only takes a minute.
2. A Connected Facebook Page: All Meta advertising is managed through a Facebook Page. You must have your Instagram account connected to a Facebook Page to run ads in Ads Manager. You can do this in your Instagram settings under Settings and Privacy > Account Center > Accounts.
3. A Meta Ad Account: Your Ad Account is where your billing information lives and all your advertising activity is organized. You can set this up through the Meta Business Suite.
4. Choose the Right Post: The best posts to boost are the ones that have already performed well organically. Look at your Instagram Insights. A post with high engagement (likes, comments, saves, and shares) is a strong indicator that the content resonates with people. Putting money behind a proven winner will almost always give you better results than trying to revive a post that fell flat.

How to Boost Your Instagram Post from Ads Manager: A Step-by-Step Guide

Ready to get started? Let's walk through the process, click by click. It might seem like a lot of steps at first, but once you do it a couple of times, it becomes second nature.

Step 1: Navigate to Meta Ads Manager

You can find Ads Manager by going to adsmanager.facebook.com or by navigating through the Meta Business Suite. This is your central hub for all advertising activities on Meta's platforms, including Instagram.

Step 2: Create a New Campaign

In the main Ads Manager dashboard, look for the green “+ Create” button on the left-hand side and click it. This will open a new window where you’ll choose your campaign objective.

For boosting an existing post, your most likely choice is Engagement. This tells Meta’s algorithm to show your ad to people who are most likely to like, comment on, or share your post. Under the Engagement objective, you’ll be asked to specify the type of engagement. Choose "Post engagement."

When to choose other objectives:

• Choose Traffic if your post has a strong call-to-action to visit a link in your bio and your main goal is getting clicks to your website.
• Choose Sales if you're a product-based business and you want to drive conversions through an online store.

For this tutorial, we will proceed with the Engagement objective.

Step 3: Set up the Ad Set

After you choose your objective, you will move to the next level: the Ad Set. This is where you define your budget, schedule, audience, and ad placements. This is the most crucial step for the success of your campaign.

Budget & Schedule

Decide whether you want a Daily Budget or a Lifetime Budget. A daily budget gives Meta a set amount to spend each day, while a lifetime budget allows the algorithm more flexibility to spend more on days with better opportunities. If you have a specific end date in mind, a lifetime budget is often a good choice. Set your start and end dates for the campaign.

Audience

This is where Ads Manager truly shines. Scroll down to the Audience section. Leave "Advantage+ audience" for later and click on "Switch to original audience options" to see the full suite of tools.

• Custom & Lookalike Audiences: If you have them, this is where you can select a Custom Audience (like website visitors or an email list) or a Lookalike Audience (people who are similar to your best customers). These are your highest-value audiences.
• Location, Age, Gender, and Language: Set these basic demographics to match your target customer profile. Be specific. A local handmade pottery shop in Brooklyn should target people living in specific zip codes, not just "New York."
• Detailed Targeting: Click on "Edit" next to Detailed Targeting to open a world of options. You can target people based on their interests (e.g., “sustainable fashion,” “specialty coffee,” “home decor”), demographics (e.g., “newly engaged,” “parents with toddlers”), and behaviors (e.g., “engaged shoppers,” “small business owners”). Combine these to build a precise picture of your ideal customer.

Placements

Next up is Placements, which determines where your ad will be shown. You have two options:

• Advantage+ Placements (Recommended for Beginners): This option gives Meta permission to show your ad across all its available placements (Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Audience Network) where it’s likely to perform best.
• Manual Placements: If you want to run your boosted post only on Instagram, choose this option. You can then uncheck all platforms except Instagram and further refine whether you want your post to appear in the Feed, Stories, Reels, Explore page, etc.

Step 4: Select Your Existing Instagram Post

Finally, we’ve reached the Ad level. This is where you’ll connect your campaign to the specific post you want to boost.

1. Make sure your Facebook Page and Instagram Account are correctly selected under the Identity section.
2. Under Ad Setup, choose the option that says “Use existing post.” This is the key step.
3. Below that, under Ad Creative, click the “Select Post” button.
4. A window will pop up. Click on the "Instagram" tab to see a grid of your recent Instagram posts. Select the one you want to boost and click “Continue.”

Your chosen post will now appear in the ad preview. You’ll notice that you can't edit the caption or creative since you're using an existing post. You may have the option to add a Call-to-Action (CTA) button like “Learn More” or “Shop Now,” but this depends on the post format.

Step 5: Publish Your Campaign

Give everything a final review. Check your budget, audience, and placements. Make sure the ad preview looks correct. Once you’re satisfied, click the green “Publish” button in the bottom right corner.

Your boosted post will go into a review process, which usually takes anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours. Once it's approved, it will start delivering to your target audience!

Final Thoughts

Boosting an Instagram post through Ads Manager gives you far more control than the simple in-app button, allowing you to reach the right people with the right message at the right time. By moving beyond basic promotion, you gain access to powerful targeting and optimization tools that can deliver a much higher return on your investment and drive real business results.

After all, identifying your top-performing organic content is the first step to a successful ad campaign. For us, having all our analytics in one clean dashboard simplifies this entire process. With Postbase, we can quickly see what’s resonating with our audience across all platforms, making it easy to pick the perfect post to put ad spend behind without getting lost in complicated native analytics.