INTRODUCTION
According to Statista, Instagram has 500 million daily users. More specifically, Instagram announced last year that users older than 25 years old spend an average of more than 24 min. on it each day.
Like other social media platforms, Instagram offers advertising features to help you reach potential guests that you aren’t reaching organically. Here is how to set up Instagram video ads for your hotel, resort or bed & breakfast.
HOW TO SET UP AN EFFECTIVE VIDEO AD
Instagram ads are created on Facebook. Open Ads Manager and click “Create.” Next, choose an objective, likely brand awareness, video views or reach. Now, add a name for your campaign then create an audience (see next section). Then choose a budget and set your ad’s schedule.
You’ll then be prompted to add a name for your ad set, which organizes a group of ads by audience. Choose the type of creative you’d like your ad to include–this is where you select “a single image or video in your ads” and then choose a video from your device.
In the “Creative” section, choose your hotel’s Facebook page to represent your business on Facebook’s News Feed–this is now a required step as proof of your identity. Below the field “Instagram Account,” choose your hotel’s Instagram account, keeping in mind you may need to add your Instagram account through Business Manager if you haven’t already done so.
Next, make the caption short and engaging, preferably 125 characters or fewer. The less people have to read, the better. Here are good examples:
- “Where travel lovers come to explore. #HotelXX”
- “By booking a room at [YOUR HOTEL NAME], you’ll be steps away from the outdoors.”
Lastly, include a call to action button, which moves prospects further along your sales funnel, to help achieve your specific marketing objective. The buttons you’ll likely use are “book now” “shop now” or “learn more.” According to Marketing Land, people are more likely to engage with an Instagram ad if it has a button.
This will bring you to “Ad Preview,” where you’ll see all of the placements (e.g. desktop, mobile, Instagram, etc.) on which your ad will be shown. It will naturally recommend that you run your ads on Facebook, but if you only want it shown on Instagram, click “Remove” next to all of the placements except for Instagram. Click “Confirm” to publish.
KNOW WHOM TO TARGET AND HOW TO TEST RESULTS
As a hotelier, you should know that reaching relevant audiences will help improve booking rates. Facebook allows you to hone your target audience, down to location, demographics, interests, behavior and more. For example, if your hotel is pet-friendly, your Instagram video ad campaign could target families, ages 30-60 who have a pet and live within a 200-mile radius.
It’s important to run A/B (split) tests to find out which ad is most effective. To maximize your efforts, either create multiple ads with different videos in the same ad set of your campaign, or create separate ad sets in the same Campaign, dividing the budget between them and then using the scheduling feature to have the ad sets delivered at different times of the day or different days.
When analyzing your tests, wait a few days (between 3-14) after the ads have been running to gather enough data. You’ll be determining which version of your ad garnered the most clicks, for instance. Keep running that ad and stop or modify the others.