THE SOCIAL AGENT COURSE
7. Instagram Advertising & Promotions
Learn the different advertising options available on instagram, and how to put together effective promotions to increase visibility and engagement.
Social media advertising basics & different ad types
Lesson Highlights
Targeting options that help you reach your ideal clients
How to put together successful ads that grow your business
While getting organic reach because your content is awesome is super important, it doesn’t hurt to give your posts and Reels a little juice with low-budget advertising that deliver your message to the right people! By leveraging Instagram’s advertising and promotions tools, you can target specific demographics, locations, and interests, getting your content out to potential local leads with the click of a button.
Before we get into the strategy, let’s cover the basics. Instagram offers a variety of ad formats to suit different marketing objectives and budgets. Some of the most common types of Instagram ads for real estate agents include:
- Photo Ads: Simple yet effective, photo ads allow agents to showcase properties through visually compelling images that appear directly in users’ feeds.
- Video Ads: Video ads offer an engaging way to showcase properties through dynamic videos that capture viewers’ attention and convey the property’s features and amenities.
- Carousel Ads: Carousel ads allow agents to showcase multiple properties or highlight different features of a single property within a single ad unit, increasing engagement and interaction.
- Stories Ads: Stories ads appear between users’ Stories, offering a full-screen, immersive ad experience that is highly engaging and interactive.
- Explore Ads: Explore ads appear in the Explore tab, allowing agents to reach users who are actively searching for content related to real estate and home buying.
Targeting Options
One of the key advantages of Instagram advertising is its robust targeting options, which allow agents to reach specific audiences based on demographics, interests, behaviors, and more. Real estate agents can target potential buyers or sellers based on factors such as location, age, income, interests, and online behaviors, ensuring their ads reach the most relevant audience for their listings.
There are special requirements when you’re promoting actual listings, you can’t select any demographics beyond general location and you must select “Special Ad Category” when you’re creating your ad. This is to prevent discrimination. This is something to keep in mind in the future if you ever have listings you want to promote, but for the purpose of this lesson we’re not going to be talking about ads like that. Our ads will be education-focused, so they will not be required to have the “Special Ad Category” box checked.
Best Practices for Instagram Advertising
To maximize the effectiveness of their Instagram advertising campaigns, real estate agents should follow these best practices:
1. Use High-Quality Visuals: Use high-quality photos and videos that showcase properties in the best possible light and capture viewers’ attention.
2. Craft Compelling Ad Copy: Write compelling ad copy that highlights the property’s features, benefits, and unique selling points, or the value in working with you as an agent. Compel viewers to take action. Just like we want our captions to grab their attention and provide value, you want to do the same thing in your ads!
3. Include Clear Calls to Action: Include clear calls to action in your ads, such as “Learn More,” “Contact Us,” or “Book a Viewing,” to encourage viewers to take the next step.
4. Test Different Ad Formats: Experiment with different ad formats, creative elements, and targeting options to see what resonates best with your audience and drives the most engagement.
5. Monitor and Optimize Performance: Monitor your ad performance regularly and make adjustments as needed to optimize your campaigns for maximum effectiveness and return on investment.
How to Run Ads in Facebook
While you’ll be running your ads on Instagram, you’ll still need to create ads within Facebook Ads Manager or from your Facebook business suite (video above) since Instagram is owned by Meta (Facebook).
Note: This doesn’t apply if you’re going to be just boosting a post or a Reel you’ve already posted. We’ll cover that in the next section.
For all other ad types, you’ll need to follow these steps. There are 2 ways to run ads, we’ve made a video (above) on the simplest way, doing it right from your business page/profile. But you can also follow similar steps within Facebook Ads Manager as outlined below:
Step 1: Access Facebook Ads Manager
To get started, log in to your Facebook account and navigate to the Ads Manager dashboard. If you don’t have an Ads Manager account yet, you can create one by visiting business.facebook.com and following the prompts to set up your account.
Step 2: Define Your Campaign Objective
Once you’re logged into Ads Manager, click on the “Create” button to create a new ad campaign. Choose your campaign objective based on your marketing goals, whether it’s to drive traffic to your website, generate leads, increase brand awareness, or drive sales.
Step 3: Set Up Your Ad Set
Next, you’ll need to set up your ad set, which includes defining your audience, budget, and scheduling. Use Facebook’s targeting options to define your audience based on demographics, interests, behaviors, and more. Set your budget and schedule to determine how much you want to spend and when you want your ads to run.
Step 4: Create Your Ad Creative
Now it’s time to create your ad creative. Choose the ad format that best suits your campaign objective, whether it’s a single image or video, carousel, slideshow, or collection ad. Upload your creative assets, including images, videos, and ad copy, and use Facebook’s ad preview tool to see how your ad will look on different devices.
Step 5: Customize Your Ad Placement
Customize your ad placement to ensure your ads are displayed where they’ll be most effective. Choose from Facebook’s automatic placements, which will show your ads across Facebook, Instagram, Audience Network, and Messenger, or select specific placements based on your audience’s behavior and preferences.
Step 6: Review and Publish Your Ad
Before publishing your ad, take the time to review all of your settings and make any necessary adjustments. Double-check your targeting, budget, scheduling, and ad creative to ensure everything is set up correctly. Once you’re satisfied with your ad, click the “Publish” button to launch your campaign.
Step 7: Monitor and Optimize Performance
Once your ad is live, monitor its performance closely using Facebook Ads Manager. Track key metrics such as reach, engagement, clicks, and conversions to gauge the effectiveness of your campaign. Use this data to make informed decisions about what ads are performing best so you know what kind of advertising to do in the future.
Our Favorite Strategy
While we’ve used all of Instagram’s advertising features, our absolute favorite strategy at Restate Social is to simply boost Reels. They get the best engagement, the furthest reach (especially when targeting locally) and viewers tend to gravitate towards videos. After all, they’re more fun to watch than reading a big long carousel post! While we definitely recommend having both types of content (posts and Reels), as far as advertising goes we only boost Reels now. Our advice to you is to start boosting Reels using the strategy below, and evaluating how it’s working for you, in your area to see if it’s something you want to continue!
This strategy focuses on boosting credibility (by driving up those views) and then pivoting to show your Reel to those that it’s really targeting.
Think about it, when you see a Reel with virtually no views or interactions, it doesn’t make you want to click “follow” or interact with it, does it? By first making sure we get the attention our hard work deserves, we increase our credibility in the eyes of the viewer. Then we show the Reel to a local audience where our potential leads are!
Here’s the strategy:
Phase 1: First boost your Reel to the masses by:
1. From within Instagram, click on the Reel you want to boost.
2. Click on the button Boost Post
3. Next select what you want people to do when they see your ad, and select Visit your profile.
4. Now we’ll select our audience, simply select Suggested Audience. This allows Instagram to select who it thinks your audience should be and gets you the most reach possible to increase those views.
5. Set your ad to run for just 2 days at a budget of $3-5/day. This should be enough to get you a few thousand views.
6. Review your ad and then click Next to run it.
7. Then after 2 days, delete your ad and we’re going to start over with phase 2 of this strategy.
Phase 2: Target your local audience
1. From within Instagram, click on the Reel you want to boost.
2. Click on the button Boost Post
3. Next select what you want people to do when they see your ad, and select Visit your profile.
4. Now we’ll select our audience, select Create Your Own. Here is where you’ll put in your location – nothing else, so that it targets people in your area.
5. Set your ad to run for just 3 days at a budget of $5-15/day (you can do more, this is just typically what we do!)
6. Review your ad and then click Next to run it.
Important note: always boost from within the Instagram desktop website on your computer. Mobile now has an additional fee if you boost directly from the app on your phone.
Our Second Favorite Strategy
For this strategy, you will be using Facebook Ads Manager and we’re going to be running a Leads ad. This means we’ll be collecting leads as our goal and we can direct people to our landing page on our website to collect their information, or we can just use the form within Facebook that pops up within your ad (we see better results with this option so we recommend doing it this way).
We’ll be talking more about lead magnets in the next lesson, but that’s the main strategic component behind an effective leads ad. A lead magnet is simply something of value you give away for free in exchange for contact information. At Restate Social, our members use lead magnets like Buyer & Seller Guides, free home evaluations, moving checklists, neighborhood guides and more – just to give you a few ideas.
We’ll be going a lot more in depth about lead magnets in the next lesson, but for now we’ll just be discussing how to put together the leads campaigns for them (while we’re on the topic of advertising).
To run a successful leads ad, you’ll first need your lead magnet (see Lesson 8) and then you’ll want to follow these steps to set up your ad campaign:
Step 1: Access Facebook Ads Manager
Begin by logging into your Facebook Ads Manager account. If you don’t have an account yet, you can easily create one by visiting business.facebook.com and following the prompts to set up your Ads Manager.
Step 2: Create a New Campaign
Once logged in, click on the “Create” button to start a new ad campaign. Select your campaign objective, and in this case, choose “Lead Generation” as your objective. This option is specifically designed to help you capture leads directly within the Facebook platform.
Step 3: Define Your Ad Set
In the Ad Set section, define your target audience by specifying demographics, interests, behaviors, and other relevant criteria. Tailor your targeting to reach individuals who are most likely to be interested in your products or services, ensuring that your ads are seen by the right people.
Step 4: Set Your Budget and Schedule
Determine your budget and scheduling preferences for your lead generation campaign. Choose between a daily or lifetime budget and specify the duration of your campaign. Facebook provides flexibility in budgeting, allowing you to allocate your funds according to your marketing objectives and resources.
Step 5: Create Your Lead Form
Now it’s time to create your lead form, which will capture information from potential leads directly within the Facebook platform. Customize your lead form by adding questions and fields that are relevant to your business and campaign objectives. Keep the form concise and straightforward to encourage completion.
Step 6: Customize Your Ad Creative
Craft compelling ad creative that will entice users to engage with your lead form. Choose visually appealing images or videos that align with your brand and messaging. Write compelling ad copy that clearly communicates the value proposition of your offer and encourages users to take action.
Step 7: Review and Publish Your Ad
Before publishing your ad, carefully review all aspects of your campaign, including targeting, budget, lead form, and ad creative. Make any necessary adjustments to ensure everything is set up correctly. Once you’re satisfied, click the “Publish” button to launch your lead generation campaign.
Step 8: Monitor and Optimize Performance
Once your lead generation campaign is live, monitor its performance closely using Facebook Ads Manager. Track key metrics such as lead volume, cost per lead, and conversion rate to gauge the effectiveness of your campaign. Use this data to optimize your targeting, ad creative, and lead form to improve results over time.
