How to Buy Instagram Ads

Thinking about running Instagram ads to grow your brand? You're in the right place. Putting money behind your best content is one of the fastest ways to reach new customers, drive traffic, and make sales. This guide breaks down the process, showing you how to buy Instagram ads in two ways: the quick, simple method directly in the app and the more powerful approach using Meta’s Ads Manager.

Before You Begin: The Pre-Launch Checklist

Diving straight into ads without a little groundwork can lead to wasted money and frustration. Make sure you have these three things squared away before you spend your first dollar.

1. Switch to a Professional Account

You can't run ads from a personal Instagram account. You need to switch to either a Business or a Creator account. If you haven't done this already, it’s a quick fix.

• Go to your profile and tap the menu icon (☰) in the top-right corner.
• Tap Settings and privacy.
• Scroll down and select Account type and tools.
• Tap Switch to professional account and follow the on-screen instructions.

This not only enables advertising but also gives you access to Instagram Insights, a must-have for tracking your performance.

2. Connect Your Instagram to a Facebook Page

Instagram is owned by Meta, so its advertising platform is deeply integrated with Facebook. To unlock the full power of Instagram ads, you need to connect your Instagram professional account to a Facebook Business Page. You can create an empty page for this step, so don’t worry if you don’t plan to use it.

Go to your Instagram profile >, Edit Profile >, Under "Public business information," tap Page. From there, you can either create a new Facebook Page or connect an existing one you manage.

3. Know Your Goal: What Do You Really Want?

This is the most important step of all. Before you touch a single setting, you have to decide what success looks like. What are you trying to accomplish with this ad? Instagram ad objectives generally fall into a few key categories:

• Brand Awareness: You want more people to know your brand exists. This is about reach and getting your name out there.
• Traffic: You want to send people from Instagram to a specific place, like your website, a product page, or a blog post.
• Engagement: You want more people to like, comment on, and save your post. This is great for building social proof and community.
• Leads: You need to collect contact information from potential customers, like email addresses for your newsletter.
• Sales: The most direct goal - you want people to buy your product or service.

Having a clear goal will dictate every other choice you make, from the ad creative you use to the audience you target.

Two Routes to Buy Instagram Ads: Simple vs. Powerful

Meta gives you two main ways to run ads on Instagram. One is incredibly simple and done right from your phone. The other offers a massive amount of control and is managed from your computer.

Method 1: The Easy Way - Boosting a Post from the Instagram App

This is the starting point for most beginners. You take an existing post on your grid that's already performing well and "boost" it to reach a wider audience. It's fast, straightforward, and a good way to dip your toes in the water.

How to Boost a Post:

1. Pick a High-Performing Post: Find a photo or video on your feed that has already received good organic engagement (likes, comments, shares). This is a sign that the content resonates with people.
2. Tap "Boost Post": Below your chosen image or video, you'll see a blue "Boost Post" button. Tap it.
3. Select Your Goal: Instagram will ask you what you want to achieve. The options are usually "More Profile Visits," "More Website Visits," or "More Messages." This aligns with the goal-setting we just talked about.
4. Define Your Audience: You can let Instagram automatically create an audience of people similar to your existing followers, or you can create your own by targeting specific locations, interests, ages, and genders.
5. Set Your Budget &, Duration: Decide how much you want to spend in total (or per day) and for how many days the ad will run.
6. Review and Launch: Give everything a final look, add your payment info if prompted, and tap "Boost Post Now." Your ad will go into a quick review process and then go live.

The Takeaway: Boosting is perfect for simple goals like increasing engagement on a particular piece of content or driving a little quick traffic. Its main drawback is the lack of detailed targeting and customization options you get with the pro method.

Method 2: The Pro Way - Using Meta Ads Manager

Meta Ads Manager is the command center for all Facebook and Instagram advertising. It can seem intimidating at first, but this is where you can build highly specific, effective, and scalable campaigns. While boosting is like driving an automatic car, Ads Manager is like driving a manual - you have way more control over the machine.

Before creating your first ad, it’s helpful to understand the structure:

• Campaign: The top level. Here, you set your overall advertising objective (e.g., getting Sales).
• Ad Set: The middle level. Inside a campaign, you create ad sets. This is where you define your targeting (who sees the ad), budget, schedule, and placements (where the ad appears, like in Instagram Stories or the Feed).
• Ad: The bottom level. This is the actual creative - the image, video, and copy - that your audience sees. You have one or more ads inside each ad set.

Step-by-Step: Creating an Ad in Meta Ads Manager

Ready for more control? Head over to Meta Ads Manager on your desktop and let's build a proper campaign.

Step 1: Choose Your Campaign Objective

Once you click the green "+ Create" button, the first thing you’ll do is choose an objective. This should be based on the goal you defined earlier. The main choices are:

• Awareness: Show ads to the maximum number of people.
• Traffic: Send people to a destination like your website.
• Engagement: Get more post engagement, Page likes, or event responses.
• Leads: Collect leads for your business through forms.
• App Promotion: Get people to install and use your app.
• Sales: Find people likely to purchase your product or service. (Also called "Conversions").

Step 2: Build Your Audience (at the Ad Set level)

Here’s where the real magic happens. In the "Ad Set" settings, you'll find the Audience section. This level of detail is why Ads Manager is so much more powerful than boosting a post.

Core Audiences

This is where you build an audience from scratch based on traits:

• Location: Target by country, state, city, ZIP code, or even drop a pin on a map. Perfect for local businesses.
• Age and Gender: Straightforward but fundamental.
• Detailed Targeting: The goldmine. Target people based on:
  • Demographics: Their education level, job industry, relationship status, etc.
  • Interests: Pages they’ve liked and topics they engage with, like "organic food," "hiking," or "minimalist fashion."
  • Behaviors: Their purchase activity, device usage, and more. For example, you can target "Engaged Shoppers."

Think about your ideal customer and use these filters to describe them to Meta.

Custom Audiences

This is where you target people who already know you a little. It's incredibly powerful for re-engaging a warm audience. You can create audiences of people who have:

• Visited your website (requires the Meta Pixel to be set up).
• Engaged with your Instagram profile (liked a post, sent a DM, viewed your profile).
• Subscribed to your email list (you can upload a customer list).

Lookalike Audiences

Once you have a high-quality Custom Audience (like your best customers), you can ask Meta to create a Lookalike Audience. Meta's algorithm will analyze the traits of your source audience and find millions of new people who share similar characteristics but haven't discovered your brand yet. This is one of the most effective ways to find new customers at scale.

Step 3: Choose Your Ad Placements

Placements are simply where your ad will appear. By default, "Advantage+ placements" is selected, meaning Meta will automatically show your ads across Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and its Audience Network wherever they're likely to perform best.

Alternatively, you can choose "Manual placements" and select specific spots. For an Instagram-only campaign, you could uncheck everywhere else and pick from placements like:

• Instagram Feed
• Instagram Stories
• Instagram Reels
• Instagram Explore page
• Instagram Shop

Targeting specific placements is useful if you have creative assets designed just for that format - like a 9:16 vertical video for Reels and Stories.

Step 4: Design Your Ad Creative and Copy

This is where you build the ad itself. At the "Ad" level, you'll choose your format, upload your media, and write your text.

Ad Formats

• Single Image or Video: The classic, most common format.
• Carousel: A scrollable ad with multiple images or videos, each with its own headline and link. Great for showcasing a range of products or telling a step-by-step story.
• Collection: An instant, full-screen mobile experience. When someone taps a collection ad, it opens a mobile landing page (called an Instant Experience) directly within Instagram, allowing them to browse multiple products without leaving the app.

Creative Best Practices

• Go Vertical: Design for the phone screen. Use 9:16 aspect ratio for Reels and Stories and 4:5 for the Feed.
• Grab Attention Fast: You have about three seconds to stop the scroll. Make your intro count with motion, a bold visual, or an intriguing question.
• Use high-quality video: Short-form video rules Instagram. A simple, well-lit Reel showing your product in action can outperform a slick, overproduced commercial.
• Add Text &, A CTA: Write a clear, concise headline and primary text. Most importantly, choose the right Call to Action button (e.g., "Shop Now," "Learn More," "Sign Up") that aligns with your ad's goal.

Final Thoughts

Diving into Instagram ads might feel like a lot at first, but it follows a clear logic: know your goal, find the right people, and give them something interesting to look at. Start simple by boosting a successful post, and once you're comfortable, move into Ads Manager to take full advantage of the platform's incredible targeting capabilities.

Once your ads start driving new eyes to your profile, the organic side of your social media has to keep up with the new attention. We built Postbase to make managing your content and engagement simple. Our visual calendar helps you plan and schedule posts consistently, while a unified inbox makes it easy to handle every comment and DM that comes your way. It really streamlines your workflow, helping you turn all that new ad-driven interest into an actual community.