Instagram or Facebook ads: Which is best for your business?
You have a limited budget for social advertising, but you are unsure whether to spend it on Facebook or Instagram. So, which platform should you prioritise? Even while there are users on both sites who overlap, there are differences in the interactions and demographics.
There are numerous advantages to running on each platform or both. The identical advertisement running on both platforms won't get the same results, regardless. Instead, to determine which is best for your business, you must consider elements like your goals, content, and audience.
You can choose the advertisement that is most suitable for you by analyzing its components. Do you want to enter the advertising industry quickly and don't worry too much about the result as long as the campaign is successful? You can use Instagram. Require precise control over every element of the advertisement? Use Facebook. Let's explore these subjects in more detail so you can choose how to spend your social media budget.
Ads management
Facebook's Ads Manager allows users to control Facebook and Instagram ads. This one platform for advertising resources makes it easy for marketers to choose different audiences and locations to put their ads. The results of campaigns are downloadable, and campaigns are readily controlled.
Facebook: its campaign manager includes a wide range of options for goals, ad sets, and advertisements. There are countless combinations you may try out as well as numerous ways to sample all the available adverts.
Instagram: its ads manager chose to keep things simple since it works best. You may link your ad to an existing post or story with only a few taps. Instagram is the greatest ad management tool if you just want the big picture with a simple UI and don't care about the specifics.
Our advice? Start with Instagram if you are new to advertising on both platforms and you have audiences on both. You'll be better equipped to utilise Facebook's features if you have a firm understanding of how they operate.
Demographics & audiences
The audience demographics and current trends are important factors to take into account when deciding which network is best for you. What's the distinction? A network's demographic, which is sometimes used synonymously, typically refers to its whole user base over billions of accounts. But, the audience consists of the followers you may access from your own account.
You must make sure that the members of your chosen target audience are already active on that network if you want to gain new followers or fans, thus you should look at demographics.
The demographics of Facebook are the most diverse of any network, and they have not changed significantly from year to year. At least some of the audience segments for many brands are probably on Facebook.
Yet, Instagram's demographics tend to be younger, and they haven't changed significantly over the past few years.
If you've determined that your target demographics for your ads exist, then you can execute your ad.
You must analyse your audiences if you want to increase engagement or interactions with the adverts. While Instagram's audience can be seen in the app's Insights, Facebook's audience data can be found in the Insights page.
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You need to have some existing followers who will interact with your advertisement for it to be successful and generate engagement. The simplest way to do this is to promote a post, which is available on your profile for both networks and doesn't require an advertisements manager. In this instance, the ease of use of both networks is equal.
Content
Facebook and Instagram offer quite different content categories and user interactions. You have the choice to promote on Facebook using a variety of ad types:
Carousel: two more scrollable images or videos
Single media: image, video or slideshow of images
Existing posts: includes links that you might have shared
The options for Instagram ad types are much the same as those listed above, except you won't be able to make any of the in-caption links clickable. To add a link, you must instead utilise the call-to-action buttons.
Consider your aims while you review your content. No matter how brilliant the copy is, your advertisement won't work if the content doesn't align with your objectives. Facebook users tend to engage with friends and family, share amusing links, and read educational messages. Blog entries, news stories, or case studies that are more substantial and shareable can draw attention to the platform.
The behaviour is much more visually oriented on Instagram. Before developing any other kind of material, you must first consider how to make captivating images or videos. Obviously, news items don't perform well in this scenario unless they're accompanied by an attention-getting image that contributes to the narrative.
Instagram will be a better option for you if you have quality visual content that can be used for advertisements. If you have the money to spare for producing this kind of material, this network will also be beneficial. Facebook might be a better option for your company if your material is more varied or contains more written content.
Objectives
Being aware of your goals has been a recurring theme throughout this guide, and it affects practically every decision regarding where to place your ads. Before moving forward, you should pause and consider whether you have specific objectives in mind for your advertisements. Without clearly defined objectives, it will be impossible to calculate metrics, assess the campaign's effectiveness, or even decide on the desired targeting.
The Facebook Ad Manager makes it simple to choose objectives by requiring you to do so at the beginning. This handles ads on both Instagram and Facebook, though not all of these options are available on Instagram. You have no control over the goal if you were to use the software to advertise on Instagram. As you identify your objectives, keep this in mind.
Brand awareness goals that are combined with attention-grabbing content would succeed on Instagram. On the other hand, Facebook would benefit more from a goal like website clicks combined with a positive news or review item.
Industry
The industry you work in is another factor to compare when deciding whether to advertise on Facebook or Instagram. Food, fashion, and trendy consumer goods are examples of industries that value aesthetics and are stronger on Instagram for this reason. If you already have accounts on both sites, check your social media statistics to determine which is attracting the most natural interaction you want to see. Increasing the number of clicks on Facebook? Consider it as you design an advertisement with similar information.
The cost of the advertisements will also depend on the sector of business you are in. In order to raise consumer awareness of more expensive products, encourage consideration of the purchase, and move buyers down the marketing funnel, multiple advertising campaigns will need to be launched. You may have less advertising competition and a lower cost if the sector doesn't have a significant presence on the network. Given this, you must have a strong target audience for the advertisement as well as a limited industry presence. Your advertisement won't work if this doesn't exist since the audience is too small for it to get any momentum.
Conclusion
Don't be scared to experiment while offering the same audience with different content types and objectives. For this exact purpose, Facebook Ads Manager offers an A/B test. After you have a few ads that are consistently working well, experimenting makes sense.
Both platforms have the benefit of allowing for real-time ad adjustments. Is a campaign spending too much money? Reduce it or cut it short. Is one style of content performing better for an audience than another? Stop the terrible advertisement.
Planning, research, and a little bit of luck go into successful social media marketing. The approach you employed a year ago might not be effective now, and the same is applicable to the future. The networks also frequently change the advertising features and algorithms they use. It wouldn't be shocking to see Instagram's targeting options increase in number or become more similar to Facebook's.
