As of this week, businesses can now use Ads Manager to promote Branded Content Ads as an Instagram Feed ad. Up until now, branded content on Instagram has been entirely organic but now advertisers can use tools in the ads system to drive business outcomes.
In the following article, we explain how Instagram Branded Content Ads work, how to set them up, and what our in-house experts think of this new feature.
What are Instagram Branded Content Ads?
According to the announcement from Instagram:
With creator permission, businesses can use Ads Manager to promote branded content as an ad in Instagram Feed. At Instagram, we’ve heard feedback that branded content delivers significant value to brands, and we’ve seen more and more brands investing in branded content as part of their overall marketing strategies.
Businesses want to share their brand story from the creator’s point of view and use that authentic content in their ad strategies. Now, we’re inviting businesses to promote creators’ organic branded content posts as Feed ads on Instagram. Businesses will now be able to scale these posts beyond a creator’s audience, and will be able to target specific audiences and measure performance using the tools in our ads platform.
What Can Branded Content Ads Do?
There are three major benefits to branded content ads including:
- Reach: Now you can scale Branded Content ads to resonate with everyone in your target audience – regardless of who they follow.
- Optimize: Including the ability to optimize toward your campaign objectives (including Reach, BAO, Traffic, Video Views and Post Engagement) creates new opportunities for your branded content to drive performance.
- Measure: Adding the ability to conduct testing and obtain insights quickly enables you to make more informed decisions on how to execute branded content most effective
More and more brands are partnering with influencers to bring a new voice of authenticity to their advertising. Branded Content Ads on Instagram will make it easier than ever for brands and influencers to partner on the platform. By streamlining the process of connecting influencers directly to the partners they are supporting, brands will now be able to quickly and easily promote the organic content directly from the influencers handle and deliver it to the right audiences.
– Riley Spicer, Sr. Specialist, Paid Social at Tinuiti
How to Create Instagram Branded Content Ads
According to Instagram, there are 2 main steps for creating branded content ads:
Step 1: Getting Started – Access Permissions
Give the creator permission to tag your business in their branded content post.
- Go to your advertiser profile within the Instagram app and select the options wheel above the “edit profile” button and select “Business Settings”
- If the “Require Approvals” is toggled on you can see “Approved Accounts” (if the “Require Approvals” is off, no further steps are needed)
- Select “Approved Accounts” and add the creator’s Instagram handle that you will be partnering with
- Select “Done”
When a creator makes a branded content post on their Instagram Feed and tags your business, they can opt to Allow Business Partner to Promote. This will give you permission to promote the creator’s organic branded content feed post as an ad.
Step 2: Campaign Set Up – Ads Manager
When creating an ad from a branded content post on Instagram, you can use either the Reach, Brand Awareness Objective (BAO), Video Views, Traffic or Engagement objective. Learn more about the different objectives on Ads Manager.
Once the creator has tagged your business in a branded content post and given permission to promote it, follow these steps:
- Go to Ads Manager and create an ad
- Pick one of these objectives for your Branded Content ad: Reach, Brand Awareness Objective (BAO), Video Views, Engagement, Traffic
- Continue creating your ad: At the Audience step set your targeting and at the Placements step select Instagram Feed
- At the Ad level, your Branded Content will appear in the Use Existing Post section. Click into the Use Existing Post section then click on Select Post/Change Post in the Creative section. (Note: During initial setup, the Change Post will appear as Select Post.)
- In the Select Post window navigate to the Branded Content tab and click. You’ll see the list of the branded content posts that a creator has given you permission to promote. Choose the branded content post that you want to promote on Instagram.
- You’ll see a preview of your ad. If everything looks good, finish creating your ad and click Confirm.
Once you’ve created your ad, it will be reviewed by Facebook and you’ll be notified when it’s approved. The ad will then appear in the Instagram feeds of your chosen audience. You won’t be able to manage or delete likes and comments that appear on the promoted branded content post.
Once your ad is live, you’ll have access to all of the standard ad reporting metrics in Ads Manager. Be on the lookout as new Branded content ads for the feed will be available to all advertisers in the coming weeks and for stories in the next couple months.
Click here for more information on how to set up branded content ads.