2X Your Results With Facebook And Instagram Advertising

As you create your ad within the Facebook Ads Manager, you'll have the option to target your ad to appear on either Facebook or Instagram (or both).

Based on the platform, Instagram or Facebook, where your target audience spends their time you may see varying results on your ad spend.

If you're just getting started with Facebook and Instagram campaigns, the creation and tracking of the performance on these ad platforms will be essential to 2xing your results.

Creating A New Campaign For Facebook And Instagram Advertising

When you create a new campaign for your Facebook and Instagram ads. The campaign objective that you choose can apply to both Instagram and Facebook.

It's only once you are deciding on your target audience that you determine if you want the budget to go towards Facebook ads or Instagram ads.

This is because the ad manager uses a tiered system of campaign, ad set, and new ad creative.

If you would like a more thorough review of account structure you can read our short review.

Facebook And Instagram Ad Spend

There are two ways to determine your budget for your ad campaign

The first is at the campaign level.

This is called Advantage Campaign Budget (ACB)

The second is at the ad set level.

This is called ad set bidding.

If you go with ACB you are giving the Facebook ads manager permission to divide the ad spend as necessary to your ad sets. This can be good or bad. At times you may see ad sets with no ad spend as Facebook direct spend towards the best performing ad set.

If you have a vision of testing Facebook ads against Instagram ads evenly, in regards to ad spend, this is not the budgeting option for you.

If on the other hand, if you plan on only having one ad set with both Facebook and Instagram ads in it. This could work for you.

With ad set bidding you have more explicit control over your ad spend.

With this ad spend option, you can choose to create two ad sets one with Facebook ads and the other with Instagram ads and the spend will be divided exactly along the lines you provide.

Ad Platforms And Placements Within The Business Manager

When creating your ad campaigns within the Facebook ads manager, you'll have the option to choose from 4 different ad platforms.

If you would like to run a single campaign for these ad formats with both Instagram and Facebook ads included you can choose manual placements and ensure that the Facebook audience network and messenger placements are off.

Facebook Ads, Ad Placements

Looking to have a Facebook ad set where you are only running ads on Facebook?

Uncheck the Instagram platform option above and your ads will run only on Facebook.

Below are some of the placements where your ads will show up.

If you hover over each image you will get the media requirements on the right.

Instagram Ads, Ad Placement

Conversely, maybe you only want to show up for Instagram users.

Uncheck the Facebook platform to have your Instagram ads shown only to Instagram accounts.

Below I hovered over the Instagram feed ad and it is showing me the media requirements.

Once you've selected your ad placement, you'll need to create your ad content. For both Facebook and Instagram, this will include adding images or videos as well as your ad copy.

Creating Your Social Media Ads

Now that you have determined the target audience for your Facebook and Instagram ads, it is time to build out the ads that will appear in your Instagram or Facebook feed.

First, make sure your Instagram account and/or Facebook page are connected.

Next, add in your creative, this can be a video or an image.

As you create ads keep in mind that these should be the same ad for every placement.

For example, if choose to create an Instagram-only ad set. Be sure that your Instagram stories video is the same as your Instagram ad for the Instagram newsfeed.

Once you add your video to the Facebook ads manager you can edit your Instagram ad and crop it or insert the right-sized video for each placement.

Some placements have the same sizing requirements, so although it says 17 placements below, you usually only need 3 different-sized images.

As a reminder, you can go back to your ad placements and hover over them to see the sizing/media requirements.

Your ad copy should be short and to the point - Facebook users have notoriously short attention spans, so you'll need to make sure your message is quick and easy to digest.

Feel free to use the same copy for both Instagram and Facebook ads. We want these ads to be as similar as possible.

Facebook Advertising, And Measurement Services

The reason we want our Instagram ads and Facebook ads to be similar is that Facebook provides us with the ability to analyze the performance of our targeted audiences in the Facebook business manager.

Once you have published your ads you can go to the Facebook ads manager to track the performance of your Facebook and Instagram ads.

The Facebook ads manager will provide you with some generic reports on performance. You can change these by opening the columns drop-down.

We however are going to open the breakdown and sort by the platform breakdown, as seen below. This will allow us to compare the performance of our Instagram ads versus our Facebook ads.

This trick will work regardless of whether you decided to have one ad set with both Instagram and Facebook or two separate ad sets, one for Facebook ads and the other for Instagram ads.

By comparing the performance on both these platforms we can optimize our ad performance to get better results. After you first test, consider the following if you see a wide difference in performance.

• Does changing the image for Facebook versus Instagram result in different levels of performance?

• Does the type of video you use get better results on one platform?

• What about ad copy? Does your target audience respond differently based on the platform they are on?

• If you have an offer included does your audience respond differently based on the platform?

These discoveries may take some time and testing to find but with patience, you will discover the messaging to reach your target audience and scale your ad spend to 2x your growth.

Next Steps For Your Facebook And Instagram Ad Campaign

Once your ad is created and scheduled, it will then appear on either Facebook or Instagram (or both), depending on where you've chosen to target it. Keep in mind that you can always edit your ad or targeted audience at any time if you need to make changes.

And that's it! You're now ready to start creating and measuring your Facebook and Instagram ads by platform within the Facebook Ads Manager.

If you would like additional help developing your Facebook or Instagram ad strategy we've created a guide to help you create a successful Facebook ad strategy.