Preparing Instagram ads is complicated especially if you are doing it for the first time. There is an endless list of targeting options, audience characteristics, and placements to choose from. Also, you have to prepare a budget for the campaign.
There are three ways available for advertising on Instagram. They include:
- Managing Instagram ads by yourself
- Hiring a freelancer to do it for you
- Hiring a reputable agency like followers.io to manage your ads.
Each of these solutions has its pros and cons. Finding the perfect balance of these should guarantee you instant views. Here is how each of these works.
Managing Instagram ads yourself
Under this method, you will be the one tasked with managing your Instagram ads. But this can pose a lot of challenges if you aren’t a professional marketer that doesn’t know a lot about content creation, targeting, and coming up with the budget for your ad. But it is not entirely impossible. You can learn how to do it right although this will take some time.
Pros
- No additional costs. You don’t have to pay anyone to manage the ads for you.
- You are fully in charge of the creation of ads and the budget. When working with your materials, and are aware of how you want the creative look to appear, it’s very easy to get whatever you want.
Cons
- Unfortunately, this method is not for those not advanced at planning ads and executing them.
- The following are some of the disadvantages you will have to contend with:
- It can take a lot of time before you know the A-Z of managing Instagram ads, something that denies you the chance to have instant views.
- As you are less experienced, there are high chances that the first few ads won’t be optimized.
- Inexperience also puts you at a higher risk of not attaining the results you desire
- There are chances of overspending as you don’t know about optimizing and assigning the budget.
- You could be unsure about what ad analytics mean.
- This option might work well for small campaigns.
Using an Agency to Run Your Ad Campaigns
Choosing an agency to drive your Instagram marketing campaign has several benefits. Apart from instant views, a good agency like followers.io gives you access to the materials and expertise within their team. Below are more advantages of choosing to work with a digital marketing agency.
Pros
- Running ads by yourself requires that you have experience and know-how, which can make several years to get. With a top-notch agency, you already have these at your disposal.
- Agencies aren’t just adept at using digital marketing tools, but they also are experts at finding the best tools. They also have internal quality controls to help them.
- An agency has superior leverage and experience to engage structured and professional service providers to get you uninterrupted services and niche expertise. This is irrespective of the size of your business.
- When you need to source internal information for use in your campaign, knowing that this information needs to be provided to an external team adds additional accountability to ensure that there is no chance for complacency. In the same way, the internal quality controls of a digital marketing agency assure you they will not become complacent.
Cons
Ceding up control over the marketing process means that a lot of time and several meetings may be needed before the agency can execute your exact vision.
Circumstances to Use a Digital Agency
You are competing against Big Brands
The best luxury brands and retailers in the world rely on PPC advertising from Lever to push sales and grow brand awareness. For that reason, you also need to join the bandwagon lest you be left behind. If you have a smaller company, you need to stretch each dollar for your marketing. Because digital agencies employ proven professionals, they guarantee greater and faster ROI.
You are dealing with Changing Technology
Not so long ago, PPC campaigns were mainly concerned with ads appearing on computers and laptops. Today, however, these strategies must also incorporate mobile technology.
For example, research shows that as much as 8% of mobile device users prefer clicking on PPC ads with phone numbers, or those that have in-built phone-clicking. This is because they can click and call the number immediately. Your company must adapt to meet the user’s behaviors.
You don’t have contacts needed to excel
Chances are that you don’t have the contacts needed to run a proper online advertising campaign unless your business is built around the online marketing space. From affiliates to ad networks, your campaign relies on a network of professionals and services.
The beauty of renowned digital marketing agencies is that they already have these contacts. Even more important, these agencies know the ad networks work for which partners so you don’t waste time pitching for the wrong people.
Further, marketing agencies have powerful resources and tools that cost a lot of money to subscribe to. Instead of paying for a license, you only need to have your PPC campaign outsourced to an agency that already has one.
You have no time to test
One of the hallmarks of a PPC campaign is that it requires consistent management. Whether it is testing landing pages and keywords or tracking clicks and conversions, you do not have the time for collecting the data, analyzing numbers, and then developing fresh approaches.
Established digital marketing agencies like followers.io use sophisticated data analysis and tracking tools to come up with long-term keywords and generate targeted SEO plans.
Conclusion
Small businesses are often tempted to run their ads by themselves. Although it appears to save money, the task is best left to professional digital agencies for many reasons. These companies have the resources and tools at their disposal to guarantee instant views. By choosing them over DIY marketing, you increase your chances of success manifold.