Looking to start advertising on social media? Start here.
May the ads be ever in your favor.
Per usual, Triumph received no financial compensation from the companies for writing this article. Straight from the heart, baby.
Welcome to the wonderful world of advertising. Social media advertising, to be exact. Now before we begin, a quick disclaimer regarding what this article is and is not. This article is a super neat cheat sheet to run a simple and cost effective ad campaign on Instagram, Facebook, or Google. This article is not a detailed guide to becoming an advertising wizard. There are entire companies (much less personable than Triumph) dedicated to social media advertising. That’s it, that’s literally all they do. Once you reach the advanced stages of your adventure and store up a generous advertising slush fund, we recommend going to the specialists. But, in the early days of your venture—when advertising budgets can only buy a couple Starbucks coffees, consider the options outlined below.
If your newest project already has an (at least somewhat compelling) Instagram account, that may be the easiest place to start. Instagram’s parent company, Meta, is an advertising juggernaut and offers intuitive and fairly effective campaign options. While Instagram allows users to create new ads directly on the app, the easiest way to build an engaging campaign may be just to start with existing content. Through the company’s “boost post” feature, Instagram essentially allows users to turn their posts into individual ads. This is a slightly different approach than some of the more traditional formats we’ll take a look at later, but, if your account is already cooking up some compelling content, post boosting could be a time- and-cost-effective way to grow your footprint.
The most enticing feature of Instagram ads may be the company’s advanced audience targeting options. In the advertising game, unlike on Saturday’s down south, targeting is an enormous asset. Being able to select what kinds of people (with what kinds of spending habits) will see your ads helps raise your chances of converting eye balls on your campaign to dollar signs in your bank account.
Now, you’re clearly not a dummy (because you use Triumph), but the Instagram advertising process is definitely built for dummies, so we don’t think you’ll have any issue mastering the concept. Boosting posts on the platform is essentially a three step process: target, budget, track.
Circling back to our good friend targeting, begin by simply selecting which post you think best represents your business to the masses. To start an ad campaign with that post, you can either click the “boost post” button available below the chosen content on Instagram or by going go to the ad creation portal on Instagram’s business site. Once that’s out of the way, the real fun begins. Instagram’s proprietary ad settings allow you to select niche market segments, such as gender, age, interests, etc., to help funnel your ad to the right groups.
Now for everyone’s least favorite part of advertising—the budget. However, one of the main reasons we selected Instagram for this article is their low buy-in requirements and how easy their budgeting process is to understand. Would-be advertiser are free to set the duration and spend of their ad campaign on a per day basis. The minimum budget is, well, just $1 and the minimum day requirement is just 1 day. While we don’t recommend investing $1 dollar over 1 day into your ad budget, it is theoretically possible. Who knows, maybe you’ll still pick up a like and a follow (but probably not).
Price per day and duration also have a cap at $1,000 and 30 days, respectively. So, if you were so inclined, you could invest $30,000 into your month-long Instagram ad campaign (or at that point, invasion). However, for most new, small, or even well-established businesses, spending that of dough on Instagram ads simply is not an option. If it is for you, kudos. You’ve clearly been reading Triumph.
Only you can know for sure what mix of daily spend and total length is right for your adventure, so we opt to leave the prescriptions to you. That said, we will offer a small piece of empirical data: we have seen businesses generate some success from campaigns as low as $35 over 6 days. For greater impact, however, you will want to up both the coin and the length.
It’s now time for this article’s healthy dose of data (yay!). Once you’ve targeted an audience and selected your budget parameters, Instagram also allows you to track the success of your ad campaign with advanced analytics. Who you’ve reached, where you reached them, and how they responded to your ad will all be readily available for review. If you take the time to parse through the data, you’ll likely be able to improve future ad campaigns and start getting a little more bang for your buck. The film room is important, never neglect it.
Now, if any of that piques your interest (and your wallet), check out the Instagram business center right here. Oh, and, remember earlier when we said Instagram is owned by Meta, the same parent company that owns Facebook? Well, this familial relationship isn’t without its perks. Let’s take a look at how to expand your existing Instagram campaign to Facebook—seamlessly.
As a platform, Facebook is one of the true OG’s of targeted online advertising. Their algorithms are good, sometimes a little too good, and the company has even found themselves in hot water over it from time to time. That said, Facebook has done quite a bit to clean up their advertising act, and the site still offers one of the most cost-effective mediums on the internet for reaching a massive, well-selected client base.
When it comes to running ads on Facebook, users have two main choices: a Facebook-only campaign or a Meta-integrated advertising campaign. Hopefully you figured out what the first one is, and the second is just a fancy way of saying your ads will show up across multiple Meta-owned sites, most notably Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger. Whether you choose one style campaign or the other won’t have a great deal of impact on the advertising process (but it might up the price a tad). Choosing campaign location is just one click, the rest of the process remains the same for both ad avenues.
Considering they’re both owned by Meta, it shouldn’t come as a shock that Facebook and Instagram have extremely similar advertising interfaces. They do have some nuances tailored for their respective sites but, overall, once you know one, you know both. When plenty of other business concerns are occupying your mind, and you have better things to do than learn the ins and outs of social media advertising, this simplicity can be a Godsend.
Facebook ad campaigns begin by asking you for a main objective (i.e. what do you want to accomplish from this ad). Do you want more clicks on your page? More traffic to your website? World peace? Whatever your goal, Facebook will do it’s best to focus your ad campaign toward those interests.
After your objectives have been set, the process begins paralleling the Instagram model outlined above, and it’ll be time to target, budget, and track. The key difference with Facebook is that at this stage you can also select the option to relegate your ad to Facebook or launch into one of those Meta-wide campaigns we mentioned a moment ago. We’re going to leave this decision up to your own market expertise and where you think the best eyeballs lie. You know your customers better than anyone else, leverage this knowledge when placing ads.
Once you’ve decided how, where, and who (or to whom?) to show your ads, Facebook offers a nice (and slightly wider than Instagram) variety for ad style. All of Facebooks formats look professional, so chalk this choice up as another matter of preference. Before you get in too deep, check out the available ad display options here.
Now that you’ve got all your commercially-inclined ducks in a row, simply sit back and let the clicks come rolling in. For those looking to improve their ad performance over time, Facebook, just like Instagram, gives users access to extensive ad performance analytics.
Ready to take on the (virtual) world? Start your Facebook ad campaign right here.
When your web platform becomes its own verb, you must be doing something right. And, in light of how many people will go “Google” something today, it’s probably not a bad idea to try and get your cut of those eyeballs. Metaphorically, of course. In a literal sense, that would be horrible.
Though most people only think “search engine” when Google comes to mind, one of the companies main (and oldest) value propositions stems from its unparalleled advertising capabilities. In addition to the firm’s advanced (and highly proprietary) ad algorithms, the company also hosts an absurd amount of sheer volume. To put Google’s traffic in perspective, of the billions of internet searches that originated in the United States in 2021, about 76% of them were made through Google. You do the math (because we don’t want to), but that’s a generous potential audience.
Alongside this tremendous volume, one of the most enticing features of Google advertising is where you can target potential customers—right at the point of purchase. Google ads allow businesses (or independent creative artists, musicians, and what have you) to showcase their offering to people already interested in related products or services.
For example, let’s imagine some crazy hypothetical, like Triumph started selling apparel or something (bear with us). If we wanted to take ads out on Google, the company would allow us to purchase ads that only show up when someone is specifically searching the internet for new clothing. When is someone most likely to buy our stuff? Well, when they’re actively looking for it, of course. Very, very, very few advertising platforms can provide that sort of targeted attack. And even though our example is a more traditional one, the power of Google ads is just as real for people trying to find new music, new artwork, and all sorts of other creative expressions.
In addition to the precision placement of ads, Google also allows advertisers to set specific objectives for their ad campaigns (increased website visits, more store visits, greater volume of phone calls, etc.). While this is fairly similar to the ad objective features mentioned above, location is once again what makes Google ads so valuable. Being able to couple precision audience targeting with carefully chosen campaign objectives can make any ad dangerous—in the best possible way.
As is becoming increasingly common across all online advertising platforms, Google also allows users to set highly flexible budget and length parameters. Whether you want to shell out thousands of dollars over several months, or a few bucks over a holiday weekend, Google has you covered. Once again, we are going to avoid the prescriptive element of “how much you should spend on Google ads” in our article (there are plenty of business that live to tell you that very thing), but we can assure you that whatever your budget, you’ll be able to make something happen on Google.
Last, but certainly not least, is Google’s customer support apparatus. The advertising behemoth does not seem to have lost its personal touch. Google still offers potential users free consultations with an ad support technician. In layman’s terms, Google ads experts are standby, ready to help you craft your next custom campaign.
Instead of spending hours planning out your perfect ad strategy, give one of Google’s experts a quick a ring and allow their team to walk you through the best options for your specific venture and its goals. Yours won’t be their first (or five hundredth) rodeo, and access to this kind of inside-baseball help will likely increase the yield of your campaign. Let’s just say, Google is number one in this space for a reason.
Ready to get your adventure on the inter-webs rolling? Check out Google ads right here.
May the ads be ever in your favor
Henry Ford is credited with saying that “stopping advertising to save money is like stopping your watch to save time.” Our translation? “Ads work, dang it.” No matter the budget of your newest adventure, there is some ad scheme that’s right for you. Think of advertising less like a cost and more like an investment. Do it well, and your return will be highly lucrative. Do it poorly and, well hey, at least you still got your name out there.
As always, feel free to Ask Triumph with any additional questions and consider Supporting the Team.
All views expressed in the article are opinions of the author and should not be misconstrued as professional consulting or legal advice. Users are responsible for verifying all information before taking action, and Triumph Group LLC is not responsible for any outcomes. Pursue subjects at your own risk. Seriously, man. It’s your life.
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