Amy Porterfield: Are you really ready?
Rick: Yes. I’m going to be tripping you up here in the beginning because I’m super wired and
I’m ready to go.
Amy: You may need to settle down just a little bit.
Amy: Welcome back to another episode of the Online Marketing Made Easy Podcast. I’m your host, Amy Porterfield, and it is a good day because I have my friend and paid-marketing expert on the show yet again, Regis to my Kathie Lee, Rick Mulready.
Rick: Stop.
Amy: Rick, welcome back to the show.
Rick: You know I don’t like that intro but thank you. I’m so pumped to be back on here.
Amy: I love when I call you Regis and I love being Kathie Lee.
Rick: Do I sound better, by the way?
Amy: You do. Why? You sound way better.
Rick: We took the microphone to another level over here. I’ve finally jumped up to the Cadillac of microphones, the Heil PR-40.
Amy: Okay, how could it take you this long? You’ve been podcasting for a very long time.
Rick: Yeah, I’ve been podcasting for over three years now between the two podcasts. AOPT
(Art of Paid Traffic) has been going for almost two years. In January it will be two years.
Amy: You know people don’t know your podcast by those letters. That’s very confusing. Say
the real title.
Rick: The Art of Paid Traffic.
Amy: There you go.
Rick: AOPT Nation as I am starting to refer to it.
Amy: Sure it is. You’re trying to get that going, I know.
Rick: I’m trying. I’m really trying. I have in the past few episodes.
Amy: That is a very confusing group of letters. Anyway, moving on.
Rick: AOPT what? Yes, I’m glad I sound better. I’m really liking this microphone.
Amy: I’m very glad you finally got the Cadillac of all podcasting microphones.
Rick: Went up to varsity.
Amy: Very cool. Welcome to the group. I’m very excited for you.
Rick: Thank you. Thank you.
Amy: Today’s episode is a little bit different than we typically do together. Usually, as everybody who follows this podcast knows, Rick and I are always talking about Facebook ads. Don’t worry, we’re not abandoning our beloved Facebook ads but we are changing the conversation today. We’re talking about Instagram ads. I’m really excited. This is going to be one of our “over coffee” conversations type of thing. Pretend we’re in Starbucks right now because we’re just going to talk about all things Instagram ads. We are going to talk about what we’ve learned, what we’ve seen, research. Rick has done a lot of research for this podcast episode and that’s why I love him. Do you want to just dive right into it?
Rick: Yeah. Let’s do it. This conversation, like you just mentioned, we’re going to cover a lot of different things from stats and stuff like that, best practices to what you can and can’t be doing with it. Like you said, we’re going to talk about what we’ve seen with it from our own ads. I’m excited because it’s going to be a big, encompassing conversation.
Amy: Cool. Let’s start right at the top. Talk to me a little bit about Instagram demographics. Before we even get into paid ads on Instagram, who’s there? Who is spending time on Instagram?
Rick: I think that’s a great way to start because it sort of sets the foundation that we are going to be talking about ads but you have to understand you don’t want to be advertising on Instagram if your audience isn’t there.
As with any platform you want to make sure your audience is there before advertising. In some of the stats I did on this research I was really surprised that I actually didn’t know some of this myself. As a baseline, there are 800 million users on Instagram now, 500 million of which are active on a daily basis. That’s a huge audience and it’s growing really, really fast.
Amy: Crazy.
Rick: Thirty-eight percent of online women use Instagram, 28% of online men use Instagram. It’s skewed more toward women. From an age breakdown, 59% of internet users between 18 and 29 are using Instagram and 33% of users between 30 and 49 are using Instagram. I thought those were really, really interesting.
Amy: I’m actually surprised. I didn’t know there was such a young demographic on Instagram. I actually felt so many more people were in their 30s and 40s age range. So no, there is a young demographic.
Rick: Yep. So, again, of course these are just broad numbers here from a demographic standpoint but if you’re trying to figure out if it’s right to advertise on Instagram for your business this would sort of start that ball rolling to figure out if your demographic is even there.
Amy: Cool. So that is really good information there. Let’s talk stats, especially around best practices, when to post, and all that good stuff.
{5:00}
Rick: This is some of the stuff that really surprised me and I wasn’t aware of it. As you mentioned, I was doing research and Monday through Friday are the best days to post on Instagram to maximize engagement. I’m saying “post” whether you’re just posting a post or putting an ad on there.
If you post on Instagram the data they have gotten in these studies shows Monday through Friday works the best and gets the most engagement. They break it down even further saying that Mondays show the strongest correlation to engagement overall.
Amy: What?
Rick: Monday posts were getting the best engagement. Yes. Can you guess what the least
optimal time of the day to post on Instagram is? What do you think it is?
Amy: Least optimal time of the day, around 5 p.m. when people are getting off work. I don’t know.
Rick: Three o’clock. Amy: It wasn’t far off.
Rick: Three p.m. The rationale is that people are catching up. They are finishing things up in the day and are like, “Holy cow, I’ve got to finish this up before I leave,” and they are getting ready to leave so they are jamming through all of their work stuff in the afternoon to get ready to leave. That’s why they are showing the least engagement at that time of day.
Amy: That’s so eye opening. We recently had a situation where we had to send two emails out on a certain day during a promo. Chloe and I were talking about when we should send the second email and we both thought we should do it around 3 o’clock when we feel like people are getting sick of working and are just checking theire mail and playing around. Bad decision. Maybe we’ll change that next time.
Rick: On the flip side, there are three times of the day, according to the data, that are the most recommended times to post. Can you guess on those?
Amy: Three times during the day, the best times to post?
Rick: Yep.
Amy: I’m going to guess 10 a.m. Is that one of them? Rick: Nope.
Amy: Am I even close?
Rick: Yeah.
Amy: So tell me them. I’m not going to get these right.
Rick: One of them was a big surprise for me. It was 2 a.m.
Amy: Why? What?
Rick: Two a.m. Unfortunately, I don’t know which time zone they’re referring to.
Amy: So this is useless to us.
Rick: Throw this out the window. It’s 2 a.m., 8 a.m., and 5 p.m.
Amy: So I was totally wrong about the 5 p.m. saying it was a bad time to post.
Rick: So what is that telling you? People are checking their phones in the car when they are on their commute.
Amy: Yes, during their commute. Rick: Don’t ever text and drive. Amy: Right.
Rick: Anyway, those are the most recommended times, according to this data that I found here. Instagram itself also has a study. I think these numbers are actually a little bit higher now from a few months ago in this year. This study by Instagram found that 60 percent of Instagram users say they learned about products and services through Instagram.
Amy: I totally agree. I have purchased many more things via Instagram than ever on Facebook. I feel it spotlights products, programs, and services so well.
Rick: Then 75% say they take action such as visiting sites, searching, or telling a friend after seeing an Instagram post.
Amy: That’s powerful stuff. When you equate that to advertising it becomes even more powerful.
Rick: Exactly. I’m with you. I learn about a lot of products and services on Instagram. We haven’t really talked about this, actually.
Amy: I’m scared. He’s going to say something he just purchased. I’m nervous.
Rick: No, no, no. I just found a new meal delivery service here in San Diego that I’m interested in learning more about but I just found it on Instagram yesterday. They advertised meals and I thought it looked cool.
Amy: I really think it’s incredibly powerful. I think and I could be making assumptions here but when you get on Facebook one of the things I don’t like about it is that it’s so distracting. This happens to me weekly, I swear, I get on Facebook for a reason whether I am getting into a certain group or I’m going to check something out.
I get on it, look around, and I have no idea why I just got on Facebook. I can’t remember. I’m so inundated.
Rick: Daily basis.
Amy: It scares me. Am I getting that old I cannot remember why I just logged in?
Rick: No. Absolutely. That happens to me all the time. I’m there and then I’m, “Wait, why did I come over here? I know there was a reason. Why am I here?”
Amy: That happens to me all the time on Facebook. It doesn’t happen as much on Instagram because it’s not so busy and I really do stay a little bit more focused on Instagram. I can get sucked into the Instagram vortex, for sure, but I do feel you can stay a little bit more focused and that means you can grab people’s attention more so on Instagram than on Facebook.
I’m making assumptions. I am definitely biased. I love Instagram.
Rick: You bring up a good point. I think we go onto Facebook to visit our groups, whether they are our own group so we go onto interact and stuff like that. At least for me, when we do that you get sucked into other stuff.
{10:00}
Amy: Yes.
Rick: Whereas, that’s not the case on Instagram. Usually when we are going on Instagram we are going to take a little break and check out what’s going on or something like that.
Amy: So very true. We’ve talked about demographics and stats so let’s actually talk about Instagram ads. I know you have a lot of great information around the types of ads you can run, the different objectives you can choose, the placement.
Actually, before we even get there I know I’m jumping the gun and getting us out of order a little bit, but where the heck do you even set up ads? This was surprising to me because now we have two options.
Rick: Yeah, you can set up Instagram ads right there in Pow…Wow, I almost said Power Editor. Power editor and Ads Manager have merged. Don’t freak out, it’s all the same thing in there. But you set them up within Ads Manager. You can set it up and it’s a placement option just like you would set up your Facebook ads. You have all of the same targeting and stuff like that. You can do the same thing for Instagram.
Amy: Great.You were also telling me you can set up Instagram ads inside of Instagram if you have a business account.
Rick: A business profile. If you have a business profile, just like if you are on Facebook and want to boost a post, you an do the same sort of ad set up within the Instagram app if you have a business profile.
I want to make a big caveat. We have a very, very good mutual friend, Jasmine Star, who is the Instagram expert. I’m not the Instagram expert but I felt it would be important for this conversation to talk about the stats and demographics because one you understand that then that helps make the decision whether you should be advertising on the platform. Right?
Amy: Right.
Rick: From an advertising perspective, let’s dive into it. Let’s start talking about the different things you can do, what works, what doesn’t work, how it differs from Facebook. I think that’s a really big conversation we should have when it comes to talking about Instagram ads. When it comes to ad types…Do you want to talk about ad types first?
Amy: Yes.
Rick: Okay. You get your standard photo ad, just the regular type, as you are scrolling through Instagram you see a photo and obviously you can do a photo type ad.You can do a carousel ad that you can swipe through and have multiple images.
You can do video ads of 60 seconds max. Then Instagram recently rolled out the story ads where you can have video ads within Instagram stories that are no longer than 15 seconds.
Amy: Oh, I didn’t know that. If I do an ad inside of InstaStories it doesn’t have to be 15 seconds?
Rick: No, it can’t be any longer than 15 seconds for one Instagram story clip. If you’re doing a video ad like in the actual newsfeed of Instagram it’s 60 seconds max.
Amy: I’m with you. Perfect. So Rick, when you’re talking about these different Instagram ad types they sound very similar to Facebook except for, of course, the story ads. When we’re creating Instagram ads should they look or feel different than those that we’re doing on Facebook?
Rick: This is a great question. This could honestly take up most of our conversation because we have to remember that Instagram is a different platform. It’s a different native platform to Facebook. It looks different. The way people communicate on Instagram is different than Facebook.
Obviously we just talked about the video lengths. There are maxes on the video length you can do. Whereas, on Facebook you can do much longer videos.
There are a lot of differences there, which would make a lot of sense to talk about the types of things to focus on from an image perspective and from a video perspective. But, also when it comes to the placement when we are setting up our ads to get the Instagram placement, it’s within Ads Manager.
It’s the same way we’ve set up our Facebook ads so you’re choosing the placement where the first one is all placements which Facebook recommends or, if you want to edit out individual placements, which is where you’ll find Instagram as well, you’ve got two options. Are you following me there?
Amy: I’m following you there, yep.
Rick: Cool. So Facebook recommends to do “all placements” when we’re setting up our ad. The reason for that is that the Facebook algorithm is designed to find you where the results are happening. Which placement is getting you the best results? Where are the conversions happening? Where are the clicks happening?
That could be in Instagram stories if you’re doing a short video or it could be in the mobile newsfeed or something like that. The algorithm is designed to find you the results where they are happening. Regardless of where the placement is, if your ad fits there spec wise, the algorithm will deliver more of the ad in that placement. Does that make sense?
{15:00}
Amy: It does.
Rick: Cool. However, because of that, when we choose one placement and (let’s say we’re running an image ad) we have a call to action in the ad copy that we want to run on Facebook. It says, “Click here to download/register”.
If that ad runs on Instagram that is not clickable within the ad copy because it’s a different platform. The piece of content we’ve put on Instagram is not native to that platform because the ad copy isn’t clickable at all.
The other thing is that, again, the look of the image might be great for Facebook but might be very, very different from what works on Instagram.
Amy: How so? What do you see as the difference there?
Rick: From a stylistic perspective and from a native contextual, looking at Instagram from the context of the platform, the types of things that work better are bold, beautiful images. It’s very nice coloring. It’s stuff that’s very visually appealing. It’s stuff that is going to be sparking emotion.
You can do quotes over images. Of course you can do that on Facebook as well but it’s really much more of a stylistic type image that is really, really very appealing and eye catching. Of course you want to be eye catching on Facebook. But it’s a different type of image you can get away with and have success with on Facebook than it is on Instagram.
Look at the posts on Instagram that you see that jump out for you and how can you create an image that is similar to that because it’s native to Instagram, native to the platform?
With all of this, this really leads me down to…I understand what Facebook’s algorithm is trying to do when you choose “all placements” but unless the ad you’re putting up is also very relevant and would work well on Instagram I really don’t recommend it.
I recommend breaking that Instagram placement out into its own placement and having the ad that’s going to run on Instagram be native so that it would look native to that platform.
Amy: I feel if you are going to be spending money on Instagram ads, or any ads for that matter, I would be very intentional about making the ad for the platform. I 100 percent would not be posting things on Facebook and clicking “all” and having it go on Instagram.
Even if it was the exact same thing, I would still separate it just to make sure all of the pieces make sense when I place it on Instagram.
Rick: Exactly. If you really want to test it, by all means, I would test it. Have an ad set that is your ad in all placements that includes Instagram. Then have another one where you break it out to just kind of see what happens there.
But, the reason we are talking about this and it’s so important is that you want to make sure what you’re putting on Instagram isn’t just being repurposed for the heck of it just to save time. I feel like you’re wasting your money at that point and it’s not a good reflection of your brand.
The other thing, too, that you can get into with Instagram is hashtags. It’s a very hashtag driven platform; whereas, Facebook is not. You could be including hashtags, emoticons, and emojis. Do we use emoticons or emojis?
Amy: I don’t even know what an emoticon is versus an emoji. Is that the same thing? Rick: It’s the same thing.
Amy: Gotcha. Let’s say emoji. We sound younger if we do.
Rick: Seriously. Using hashtags and emoji and color schemes and that sort of thing is the type of stuff that works better on Instagram as opposed to Facebook. I just feel that’s where you sort of run into, “Well, I know Facebook is recommending I do ‘all placements’.”
If you didn’t understand, like listeners do now, as to why that is, it’s because the algorithm is trying to find you the conversions or results where they are happening. But at the same time we want to make sure our ad is native to the platform we’re advertising on.
Amy: Perfect. Speaking of being native and setting things up, let’s say we were setting up an Instagram ad inside the Facebook Ads Manager and we were only going to place it on Instagram. My question to you is: Does the setup look similar in terms of targeting? Do I have all of the same targeting capabilities?
Rick: Yes, you do.
Amy: That’s huge.
Rick: There’s another one that is newer that Facebook has rolled out. If you have a business profile and, you know how under custom audiences you can create a custom audience based on the people who are engaging with your Facebook page? You can do that with Instagram if you have a business profile.
{20:00}
If you have a business profile you can create custom engagement audiences of those people who are engaging with your Instagram account.
Amy: That’s huge. Now, I’m not an Instagram expert so I might be putting you on the spot if you don’t know this. Some people are going to ask how to know if they have a business profile or not on Instagram. Am I right in saying that if you can see insights from your post that it’s a business profile?
Rick: Yes, exactly.
Amy: I haven’t had a business profile for a long time. I just kept my personal one. Since we started running Instagram ads I noticed that we did switch over and that must be why, so we can actually target those who are engaging with us.
Rick: Exactly. It gives you insights. It gives you more information into the people who are engaging and the audience and so forth. I’m going to switch over myself.
One of the other features, and we’re kind of getting off topic here, but the swipe up feature/ option is something I want. You need ten thousand followers.
Amy: Can you do that with an Instagram ad even if you don’t have ten thousand followers?
Rick: With an ad? That’s a great question. I don’t know the answer to that.
Amy: We’re going to have to find out. We’re going to answer that in the show notes. If you go to Episode #185 at https://amyporterdev.wpenginepowered.com/185 it will be like a little Easter egg hidden in the show notes. We will answer this question because that’s a big deal.
That swipe up is so important. People just swipe up and they go exactly to the page you want them to go to. For those of you who don’t know what we’re talking about that’s what I’m talking about in InstaStories.
If you’re running an InstaStory ad I want everyone to have the capability to swipe up. We’re going to find out if you do.
Rick: Can I do a shameless plug just to follow me on Instagram so that I can get closer to ten thousand?
Amy: Everyone needs to follow Rick Mulready @RickMulready on Instagram. He needs the swipe up feature. He needs to get to ten thousand. So there you go.
Rick: It’s getting me there. Speaking of story ads, let’s talk about that. That’s a newer feature they rolled out recently. I think it’s a super interesting ad type. We have not played around with it yet. I’m going to literally in the next few weeks here because I’m about to go into another launch when we’re recording this.
I know you’ve recently run an Instagram story. How did it go? Neither one of us like being on camera a whole lot but I saw your ad and was really, really impressed with it. I thought it was really well done.
Amy: Thank you so very much. Here are some details about my InstaStory ad I recently ran for my List-Builder’s Lab promo that we did last week at the time of this recording. We did Instagram ads in the newsfeed as well as Instagram ads in InstaStories.
The Instagram ads in the newsfeed performed pretty similar to those in a Facebook newsfeed. Usually, on average, I may pay anywhere from $3 to $6 per lead during my big promos. Overall the average was $4.54 per lead with my Instagram ads. That’s pretty much on par with my Facebook ads.
However, for the InstaStory ads I was actually paying around $3 a lead for the first few days it started to run. If we were making an educated guess, we think the reason is that not many people are running InstaStory ads right now. They are working better because there’s not a lot of competition there.
After a few days the InstaStory ads started to get a little more expensive, getting closer to the $4.50 average range I was seeing across the board. With that we think an InstaStory ad will work well right away but because there’s not a lot of competition right now the frequency could rise really quickly.
People see the ad too often and they aren’t going to be as interested in it. So, if you are using InstaStory ads I think you should run them for a day or two and then switch them up and run a new InstaStory ad (likely just a 15-second video). Remember, InstaStory ads are 15 second videos or images but I think videos work best there.
Instagram ads could be a 60-second video or just an image in the newsfeed. I’m pretty partial with InstaStory ads. I think they are new. They grab attention quickly and if you switch them up a bit I think they’re incredibly valuable to your overall promotions.
{25:00}
Those are my results from my Instagram ads.
Rick: Awesome, good to know. As I mentioned before, I know neither one of us are super psyched about being on camera. But I saw your Instagram story ad and it was really well done. Obviously we just talked about the results. What was that like for you in creating the ad?
Amy: In full disclosure, when I have to do a video ad of any kind (Facebook or Instagram) I do 100 takes. Let’s be honest. Okay, maybe not 100 takes but there are at least ten different takes. We’re talking about a 15-second video and that’s ridiculous.
I am just not comfortable in knowing it’s going into an ad. I want it to be extra good. I always say I’m not a perfectionist but if it ever came out, it comes out when I have to do a video. I did about ten takes of that. It was 15 seconds but here’s something I learned.
I learned that when I sound really excited I actually sound too salesy. When I recorded the video I sent it over to Chloe, my project manager. She then would load it up. She didn’t say, “You sound too salesy.” She was being nice.
She said, “Why don’t you try one where you’re just talking to me? You’re not trying to sell the idea to sign up for a webinar but you’re just telling me about your webinar.”
I did another one and just toned it down a little bit. I took some of the excitement out like, “HEY, you want to sign up for my webinar?” I was more like, “I’ve got this webinar coming up. Here’s what it’s about. I think you’d be perfect for it. Why don’t you swipe up and check it out.” It was something like that.
I was very casual and toned it down. It was so much better. Funny enough, it went live. I already gave you the stats and all that good stuff but there was a guy that actually sent me an Instagram message. It was a rude message and very opinionated.
He mentioned that I am so much better when I’m not overly excited and salesy. He totally picked up on it. He just didn’t say it in a good way. I think he called me annoying but that’s a story for another day.
Rick: Oh. Nice guy.
Amy: Yes. I think this is a good lesson for all of us when we’re making videos and they are going to be ads. Let’s say we’re promoting a webinar or three-part video series, just think about talking to a really good friend and how we would explain the opportunity to them. I think it makes a big difference.
Rick: I would agree 100%. I’ve done that in the past too. Again, I don’t love getting on. It’s so weird because I can get up in front of 3,000 people and talk and I have zero problem with that. But put me in front of my phone to do a video and for some reason I have an awkward super uncomfortableness about it.
If I think about the same thing you just mentioned, like I’m just talking to my friend or my wife or whatever it is, it’s so much easier and so much more natural. People can pick up on that.
Amy: I totally agree. I highly recommend, for everybody who’s listening, that you think about doing an InstaStory ad. Not many people are doing them yet so it’s a good time to jump on it before it gets way too crazy in terms of how many people start doing them.
I think it’s important that you add text and emoji in your InstaStory. I feel ridiculous saying that because I never thought I would be that girl but it does make a difference. It has people, I think, stop and pay attention more versus just a talking head of you on video.
Rick: It goes back to exactly what we were talking about before. That’s what people do on Instagram. That’s native and contextually relevant to Instagram. That’s why it works so well. Emoji up!
Amy: Emoji up, guys!
Rick: #Emojiup!
Amy: That’s really going to catch on.
Rick: Exactly, just like AOPT.
Amy: Yes, yes.
Rick: Oh my goodness. I think we should talk about a couple of objectives. There are certain objectives you can choose from if you want to do Instagram ads.
Amy: Okay, talk to us about those.
Rick: What I’m talking about with objectives is the first thing you do when you create your ads campaign. You have to choose an objective. You could select brand awareness, reach, traffic with clicks to your website or if you have an app you would go to the app store, and app installs. You could do engagement for post-engagement, video views, and conversions.
You could choose conversions on your website or in your app. You can also do Instagram ads, and a lot of people don’t know this, they have their own version of Lead Ads within Instagram.
It’s not as super seamless as it is with Facebook because on Facebook you click the ad and the next screen is auto populated with information. With Instagram it’s a couple of clicks deep. But it’s still a really cool experience. You can do Lead Ads with Instagram.
{30:00}
There are one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. There are eight objectives you can use for Instagram if you want to do Instagram ads.
Amy: Nice! You definitely have some options there.
Rick: For sure. People think, again this goes back to your question about what kind of targeting options you have when doing Instagram, it’s all the same as Facebook. But when it comes to the objectives you don’t have quite all of them. You’ve got eight of the objectives that you can use to set your ads up.
Amy: That’s really good. Okay, I’ve got two final questions for you. The first one, is there anything else that you think our listeners should really know or understand about Instagram ads in general?
Rick: I’m going to throw you a little curve ball here. It’s something we haven’t talked about. It’s a form of Instagram advertising but it’s not the traditional type we’re talking about right now. Leveraging influencers on Instagram.
If there are people in your niche, who are in your space or industry, who are “influencers” and they have a big Instagram following you can reach out to them and see if they’ll talk about or do a placement of your product or service or whatever it might be. That’s another form of Instagram advertising but it’s doing it from an influencer perspective.
If you have no idea how much that would cost, I have no idea either. Each person is going to have a different price for that. Or, you might reach out and they may have never even thought about doing it. They may want you to pay them $200 and they will do it for their audience of a million people.
Don’t hold me to that but the point is that maybe they don’t get reached out to about this sort of opportunity and you could get a heck of a deal on it but this is just a matter of identifying who the influencers are in your space and connecting with them to see if they would be willing to do something like that for your business.
Amy: This is something we’ve never talked about for Facebook. Going back to the whole native thing for each platform do you feel that is something more acceptable or something that’s happening more on Instagram than on Facebook?
Rick:Ido.If you’re asking an influencer to post on their Facebook page without boosting it or anything like that the percentage of people who are going to see it are very, very low. As opposed to having Instagram. Granted, we’re still dealing with the algorithm and so forth as far as what posts are being shown in the Instagram newsfeed.
But, if you have somebody with a huge following like that most of the followers are going to be seeing their content because they are an influencer and people are engaging with their content on a regular basis. That raises their delivery, and so forth, in the newsfeed. I do think it’s very different on Instagram versus Facebook.
Amy: That makes sense. I like the fact that it’s a whole different types of advertising but I have seen it done a lot and it’s incredibly effective when done right.
Rick: Exactly. It’s one of those things that is a form of advertising on Instagram yet a lot of people don’t think about it because it’s a little bit outside the box. It can be a very, very effective way to reach a very targeted audience for a reasonable amount of money.
Amy: Yeah, really good. Definitely. I said I had two final questions to wrap up. That was my first. The second one is, based on a lot of the research you’ve done, I’m curious if you think Instagram ads are here to stay and if you believe they are really worth the effort, time, and money people are putting into them?
Rick: As long as your audience is on Instagram I would 100% believe it’s a platform you should be testing on. Absolutely.
Amy: Great! I totally agree.
Rick: I don’t think they’re going anywhere. We’ve been testing them for a while and are going to have a lot of fun over the next few weeks testing some additional stuff on there. At first, when we were doing it I also had a lot of students doing it. When they first started allowing ads on Instagram the warmest audiences were performing the best.
Cold traffic wasn’t doing very well. But that’s really evolved. We’ve seen where both cold and warm traffic work really well for us. I’ve seen the same thing with students as well. It’s not just a warm traffic sort of play anymore. Again, as long as your audience is on Instagram. If you want to be advertising online you’ve got to be where your audience is.
As long as your audience s on Instagram I would absolutely be testing the different ad formats you can do on there.
Amy: I totally agree. What we’ve done is add a few Instagram ad examples in the show notes. Again, go to https://amyporterdev.wpenginepowered.com/185 to see some examples of great Instagram ads we have pulled. We just wanted to give you guys a bunch of examples as well. Make sure to check out the show notes. Plus, we’ve added a little Easter egg where you will find out if you can swipe up on an Instagram ad.
{35:00}
Rick: As soon as we’re done I’m going to go look that up because I should have known that.
Amy: I know. This i all real time guys.We could have edited this out and said,“Let’s find out” and then not admit we didn’t know the answer.
Rick: But we’re going with it.
Amy: We don’t know everything but we can find out everything.
Rick: Can you put your Instagram story ad that you ran that we were talking about on the show notes page as well?
Amy: Yes, that’ my goal. I’m hoping I can properly pull it and get it into the show notes. As of right now that’s exactly what I’m hoping to do.
Rick: Cool.
Amy: Rick, tell us what you’ve got going on. Before I let you go I really appreciate you coming
on the show. You do this out of the goodness of your heart. It’s so appreciated.
Rick: I love talking. I love talking with you. Your audience is always reaching out. They are amazing. They are always appreciative of the content and always have kind words.
Amy: Cool. I love to hear that.
Rick: I love coming on here.
Amy: I still want you to have the opportunity to tell people what you’re working on.
Rick: I appreciate you asking. When this episode is actually coming out I am in the middle of relaunching my FB Ad Manager program which is my program for people who want to manage Facebook ads for other businesses. If somebody knows Facebook ads and want to add this and start a business managing ads or maybe they don’t know Facebook ads and they want to learn Facebook ads to start a business. Maybe they are already doing this sort of thing and they want to scale. That’s what this program is for.
Actually, when this episode comes out enrollment closes tomorrow.
Amy: Oh my gosh!
Rick: The next day on the 17th. If you want we can link it up in the show notes pages.
Amy: Yep. We’ll put a link there for the show notes so you guys can check it out. You just have to run and go check it out right away.
Rick: The other big thing is another live event. I call it my FBA Live event. It is an implementation workshop. I do this twice a year. I do it in May and December so that is coming up in San Diego on December 7, 8, and 9.
Amy: Oh Cool! So I can link to that in the show notes as well, right?
Rick: Absolutely. Yes, thank you for doing it. And you’re going to be there! Amy: Maybe, if you’re lucky.
Rick: Surprise! You’re going to be there. No, you are.
Amy: I knew this. I kind of forgot for a second but I knew this. I’ll be there. We’re not exactly sure what I’m teaching just yet but we’re going to work it out when we figure out what the audience wants from me. So I’m excited about it.
Rick: It’s so much fun. That’s what I love doing. I obviously love teaching but when I can get in person and this is an implementation. We’re actually creating stuff with people right there. It’s a smaller group. It’s more intimate and obviously you’re coming in Amy.
There are some other guests and I love doing these events. I’m really excited about it.
Amy: Fantastic!
Rick: Thank you for asking about it.
Amy: Yes, I’m so very happy to plug anything you’re doing because the feedback has always been amazing. Rick, thank you so much again for jumping on. I’m glad we got to switch things up today. Instead of talking Facebook ads we went Instagram ads. It’s so incredibly valuable. I can’t wait to have you on the show again.
Rick: Thank you so much, I appreciate it.
Amy: Thanks again. So there you have it. I always have so much fun with Rick. I’m telling you, it reminds me of Regis and Kathie Lee. Maybe my head is so big to think we’re that great and I’m also really dating myself for you young’uns who have no idea who the heck I’m even talking about.
Just ignore the example if you don’t get it. But I still think that together Rick and I have a lot of fun and I hope that you feel the same way and enjoy the episodes I do with Rick.
I’ve got so many great episodes coming your way. I’ve been batching these episodes so I know what’s down the pipeline. I think you are going to love some of these next episodes. Make sure to keep listening. I have a brand new podcast that comes out every Thursday.
Don’t hesitate to check out the show notes for this episode because Rick and I are both sharing some examples from our own Instagram ads that we’ve run during recent promotions. Go to https://amyporterdev.wpenginepowered.com/185 to check out those examples.
Alright guys, I can’t wait to connect with you again next week. Bye for now.
