How to Set Up Advanced Targeting for Instagram Ads Funnel

Do you want to improve the ROI of your Instagram ads? Are you making costly targeting mistakes in your Social Media? In this article, you’ll discover how to create effective Instagram ad audiences and funnels that attract, nurture, and convert Instagram users.

#1: Think Broadly to Fill the Top of the Funnel with Instagram Ads

At the top of the funnel, you want to attract the broadest and most general audience segment with your Instagram advertising. It’s important to think broadly. But this can mean a few different things, one of which can lead to wasted ad spend.

Why Broad Targeting Can Be a Costly Mistake

Meta often encourages advertisers to use broad targeting, which is the quickest and easiest type of targeting to set up. All you have to do is choose some basic parameters like location or age range. Then you rely on Meta to deliver your ads to the most relevant target audience.

On one hand, automating audience targeting can certainly simplify campaign setup, especially if your offer has a broad appeal. But if your offer is more niche, broad targeting can lead to wasted ad spend. Because broad targeting doesn’t give you much detailed data, you never really get to know your audience.

How to Use Your Buyer Persona Instead

To fill the top of your ad funnel on Instagram without relying on automatic targeting, put your buyer persona to work. Use the interests, pain points, and goals of your ideal customer to create detailed audience targeting.

In some cases, you can also use your competitors’ audiences to target potential customers at the top of the funnel (TOFU). Over the past year, Meta has removed many small businesses and rarely used interests from the detailed targeting list. But if your competitors have a large audience or are often used in Instagram ad audiences, they could be valid targeting options.

How to Target Interactions at the Top of the Funnel

Another TOFU targeting option is to use your brand’s Meta assets to reach potential customers. For example, if you have a relatively large audience on Instagram or Facebook, you can target people who have already shown interest in your business.

But keep in mind that targeting your Instagram and Facebook followers means you’ll reach potential customers at various stages of your sales funnel. To remove current customers from your TOFU targeting and avoid running ads to an irrelevant segment, exclude your customer list from the audience when creating the ad set.

How to Find a Promising Lookalike Audience

The top of the funnel can also be an ideal place to target a lookalike audience. After all, lookalike segments have similarities with your current custom audiences, but probably aren’t yet familiar with your brand.

Even when targeting the top of the funnel, it’s important to create high-value lookalike audiences. When choosing a data source, use a value-based option (for example, your Meta pixel) if possible. Otherwise, use an audience that has already performed well (for example, has generated high ROI or conversion rates) in previous campaigns.

Why You Should Create Interactive TOFU Ads

To reach TOFU potential customers, you’ll likely want to use a campaign objective such as awareness or engagement. Both of these objectives tend to be relatively cost-effective, which is optimal for filling the top of the funnel. But if you stick with the default settings in Ads Manager, you might miss out on some added value.

For example, the brand awareness objective is automatically optimized for reach. While you definitely want as many people as possible to see your ad, a passive impression doesn’t provide much value.

Instead, use a video asset and optimize for an objective like 2-second continuous video views or ThruPlay. When you optimize for views, you can encourage more active brand awareness and also build an audience for retargeting.

Not planning to use a video creative for your TOFU ad? Offer potential customers other ways to engage with your ad. For example, use a carousel that encourages potential customers to swipe. You can also write compelling copy that prompts them to click See More to read the full ad.

If you use the engagement objective, make sure to choose the most relevant engagement type at the ad set level. Remember that because ad-based conversions (i.e., video views and post engagement) happen within Meta apps, they can lead to better retargeting options further down the funnel.

Conversely, using TOFU objectives to drive traffic to your website can hinder your retargeting capabilities. Due to Meta’s third-party tracking limitations, website-based audiences often contribute to higher ad costs and a lower ROI.

#2: Move Engaged Prospects to the Middle of the Funnel with Instagram Ads

After connecting with interested audience segments, it’s time to guide them to the middle of the funnel. Instagram offers several valuable options to re-engage potential customers using Meta’s data sources.

Why You Should Review Instagram Ad Campaign Breakdowns

No matter what type of targeting you used for your TOFU campaign, chances are some audience segments responded better than others. You can use Ads Manager data to ensure your middle-of-the-funnel (MOFU) campaigns reach the potential customers with the most potential, so you avoid wasting ad spend on prospects less likely to convert.

In Ads Manager, create a report that shows demographic data. Then add metrics to help you measure the value of each segment. For example, metrics like Post Engagement and Cost per Post Engagement can help you find the most engaged and most cost-effective segments.

If your TOFU ads used video assets, use the available video view metrics to break down your audience. You can categorize video plays at 25%, 50%, and so on to find the segments that showed the most interest in your ad.

When creating custom audiences for your MOFU ads (see below), keep these breakdowns in mind. You can apply demographic settings to custom audiences to improve ROI and ensure you reach your ideal audience.

How to Create an Audience Based on Video Engagement

If you used video creatives for your TOFU ads, creating an audience based on video views is a great way to reconnect with interested potential customers. When setting up a new custom audience, select Video from the list of Meta sources.

Then choose the level of engagement you want to target. It’s tempting to want to focus on segments who watched nearly all of your video (e.g., 95% or ThruPlay). But if these segments are relatively small, it’ll likely be hard to reach them efficiently or cost-effectively. In other words, they’re likely to be expensive.

Instead, consider targeting segments who’ve watched less of your video, such as 50% or 10 seconds. You can use Ads Manager reports to chart the number of people in each segment, which can help you figure out which combination is likely large enough to be cost-effective.

If you used multiple video assets in related campaigns, you also have the option of combining the segments into a single video engagement audience. After choosing an engagement level, select all the videos you want from the campaign content list or the business Instagram profile.

Keep in mind you can mix and match paid and organic data sources to create a video engagement audience. But it only makes sense if all the segments are likely in the same stage of the funnel.

How to Create an Audience Based on Engagement

You also have the option of retargeting potential customers who have interacted with your ads in other ways. When creating a new custom audience, select Instagram Account from the list of Meta sources.

Then select People who have engaged with any post or ad to target prospects who have swiped through a carousel, liked an ad, or left a comment. Alternatively, you can choose Anyone who has engaged with this professional account to target those who have interacted with your Instagram content or profile.

Remember that creating an Instagram engagement audience gives you much less control compared to what you get with video engagement audiences. With Instagram-based custom audiences, you can’t target people who’ve engaged with specific ads or organic Instagram posts.

To make your engaged audiences more relevant, consider incorporating your TOFU ad analytics results. For example, you can apply demographic settings to any custom audience to improve targeting and increase ROI.

Why You Should Use Instagram’s Native Tools to Drive Consideration

Depending on your offer, you’ll likely want to use the Engagement or Lead objective in Ads Manager to reach your MOFU customers. With these objectives, you always have the option of taking prospects off Instagram and onto your website.

But once again, you’ll likely get the cheapest conversions and build the most accurate retargeting audience if you optimize for conversions on Instagram. For example, you can use the Engagement objective to start conversations with potential customers via Instagram DMs.

At the ad level, you can create a message template that engages prospects and sparks consideration. Your message template can also qualify leads so you can spend resources nurturing people who are a good fit for your offer.

If you choose the Lead objective in Ads Manager, you’ll have two in-app conversion placements to choose from. You can generate leads through DMs, or you can add a native lead form to your ad, giving you another retargeting opportunity at the bottom of the funnel.

#3: Retarget Intent-Driven Prospects at the Bottom of the Funnel with Instagram Ads

After guiding engaged potential customers from awareness to the conversion stages of your ad funnel, it’s time to retarget prospects with intent. Refine and break down your custom audiences to maximize ROI.

How to Retarget Instagram Audiences with Intent

To effectively target bottom-of-funnel (BOFU) prospects, focus on finding segments with purchase intent. If you’ve run video ads for MOFU prospects, use them to create new video engagement audiences for your conversion campaigns. Target people who have watched all or almost all of your videos to make sure you’re spending your ad budget on truly engaged prospects.

If you’ve used DMs or native lead forms to connect with MOFU prospects, you can reuse these segments in your conversion campaigns as well. To retarget people who have messaged you directly, choose Instagram Account from the list of Meta sources and then select People who have sent a message to this professional account.

With lead forms, you can be more specific. Choose Lead Form from the list of Meta sources. Then select a lead form from the list. By default, the segment includes anyone who opened the form. But when you want to reach qualified, high-intent leads, choose People who opened and submitted the form.

Ideally, your team has already contacted leads who submitted the form by email or phone. When prospects see your BOFU ad, they should be closer to making a decision and more prepared to convert.

How to Segment Your Instagram Ad Audiences

The larger your advertising audience, the lower your costs are likely to be. In some cases, it makes sense to increase audience size by using broader targeting or combining segments. However, your BOFU audience will naturally be smaller, and increasing it could compromise your results. If you’re unsure which audience will perform best, use the A/B test tool in Ads Manager.

Select the ad set you want to check and choose the Experiment tool. Pick a second ad set to compare it to or duplicate the ad set for testing purposes. Then choose which variable to test, such as the audience. Choose the metric you want to use to determine the winner and make sure it’s relevant to the campaign. For example, if you’re testing a sales campaign, use a metric like cost per purchase. Choose to include top-of-funnel metrics in the report so you get a complete picture of the ad set’s performance.

Once the test is over, you’ll know which ad set to invest in at the bottom of the funnel. But you can also use the results to improve your campaigns throughout the funnel. After all, if you know which segment is best for conversion, you can determine which MOFU and TOFU campaigns generated the most value.

How to use automated rules to optimize your Instagram ad funnel

Setting up Instagram ads can be resource-intensive. But once your ads are running, you shouldn’t have to spend much time monitoring your ad campaigns. Instead, set up automated rules in Ads Manager to alert you or intervene when ads are underperforming or overperforming.

To apply an automated rule to a specific campaign, select it in Ads Manager before opening the Automated Rules tool. Then set up a custom rule to notify you when performance drops below a certain level.

For example, you might want to know when the cost per lead or cost per purchase exceeds a certain amount. You can choose to be notified so you know to manually review performance. Or you can have the ad set automatically turn off to avoid wasting your ad budget.

If you’re planning to scale your campaigns, you can also use these rules to automate growth. Choose a favorable key performance indicator (KPI), such as when cost per lead or cost per purchase drops below a certain level.

Then set the daily budget to increase by 20% once a week. Keep in mind that scaling campaign budgets by more than 20% per week can put your ad sets back into the learning phase, which de-optimizes the ad sets and can affect results.

Conclusion

If you target a cold audience with sales campaigns, you’ll probably waste your ad budget with poor results. With advanced targeting for your Instagram ad funnel, you can create a seamless funnel that increases your ROI and generates more of your desired outcomes.

Excerpt from socialmediaexaminer