I pulled some ad benchmarks for Instagram to show you the average cost for these broad goals. You can see that we're just about at $1 per click, slightly less expensive and Facebook when considering cost per 1,000, even the click-through rate for Instagram is higher than other social media platforms. Suggesting that it is a platform where people are engaging with content. Trend experts say that if anything Instagram ads are slowly coming down in price and engagement may be dropping on traditional types of Instagram content such as newsfeed photos. We're striking this out a little bit further, Instagram has been known to A/B test aggressively every feature on the platform, whether it's hiding the likes button altogether or changing the way that the followers button looks. Instagram is constantly A/B testing to see what types of changes they can make to the design of the platform to increase engagement. That being said, when Instagram launches a new ad platform, you can bet that it's been tested and that its engagement rates are probably higher than existing ad platforms. So if Instagram launches a new feature, I thoroughly encourage you to give it a shot. Part of my job is to look at a lot of Instagram ads and I think if I've learned one thing from looking at all those ads, it's that the majority of Instagram ads are product teasers. That is just showing you a product in a pretty photo or in a very vivid and captivating way, and hoping that that will interest you to learn a little bit more about the product. Yes, sales coupons and special offers are very common on the platform and I think that's kind of the icing on the cake to getting someone to engage. But at the very basis of it, a lot of the ads that we see are really around products and ones that are interesting or creative in some way. Remember that just like Facebook, Instagram ads are auction-based. The highest bidder wins. Your bid does not solely consists of the amount you're willing to pay for the advertisement but also dependent on some of those quality factors that we mentioned in the Facebook lecture. I encourage you to bid the maximum amount that you feel comfortable but no more, and I know that sounds kind of loaded to say, but don't be tempted to overspend. There will be times where it is too expensive for you to drive a result, and another marketing tactic should be considered. Overall, Instagram has success with pushing products. So if you're selling coffee, you're selling something that is actually easily sold in transacted over the Internet. Then you're really going to have a lot of success with Instagram ads if your product stands out in unique ways that you can leverage on the platform. View this type of product then the big question you're going to have to answer next is, can you actually we make Instagram ads that will be under that minimum viable CPA that is, is Instagrams cut going to be a small enough portion for you to make an overall profit? There's a lot of anecdotal evidence that small companies are making Instagram ads work, some of the companies that we've mentioned in the lecture today, like all birds. This is their main way in which they're driving revenue, so it can work but that being said, I read a lot of cases where companies are excited about Instagram and they see how the platform can even do the selling for them. But it just comes down to a matter of those costs being too high for them to actually make it work on their budget. At the end of the day, Instagram is a great platform for understanding what users are interested in. If I want to find a passionate group of people that love consumer electronics, I can probably find them on Instagram. And if I want to find a passionate group of people that love Parisian lifestyle, I can find them on Instagram. What I really can't find is this idea of intent. How do I know when someone wants to go to Paris and play on their Parisian trip? How do I know when someone really wants a new pair of shoes? This type of intent is addressed partly through Facebook's outside efforts to collect data on consumers. But again, it still is a major limitation of social media and social media advertising in general. We don't know that magic moment when someone is trying to buy the product, it's just not readily available for us. We're always going to be fighting this, we may find the right person, but we may not find them at the right time. So, how can you overcome this kind of lack of purchase intent? Having a product with key differentiators in conveying that in a straightforward way to consumers can be enough. What makes your brand product or small business successful? If you can convey that in a simple way and audiences will accept that as a factor they care about, then you can do that selling via Instagram, even if you're creative isn't top notch. Of course, time of day matters as well. If you are a coffee shop, you should be advertising in the early mornings to early afternoons. If you're a brewery, you really probably shouldn't be advertising before noon. And if you're a streaming service like Hulu or Netflix, you shouldn't be advertising in the middle of the day. This isn't a way to totally erase your issues with intent but it is a way to hone your precision in finding that. When you serve ads at these times, it's just a higher probability that things are going to be relevant. There are advanced ways to get around purchase intent on social media as well, such as advertising programmatically or leveraging third-party data of consumers that are in market at that moment. Don't be afraid to use your databases in overcoming intent. If you know that someone regularly stops at your website and they go to your store, then you may very well find that that's a good person to advertise to on social media as well. Overall, I think that Instagram is a great platform to drive results for niche products in niche businesses. The next series of videos is going to go back into the Facebook ad manager and give you specific insights into how to drive results for Instagram.
