Instagram has more than 700 million users per month, with more than 400 million users per day. When creating ads on Instagram, having awareness of what objectives and formats are available on the platform will help with your ad strategy. Not all ad objectives available on Facebook are available on Instagram, so it's important to know which are available on Instagram when optimizing ads for the Instagram platform. Below we'll cover all the ad objectives and formats that are available on Instagram.

Instagram Ad Formats

Photo Ad Format: Choose a single image to tell your story visually.

Video Ad Format: Choose a single video for your ad campaign. Videos must be less then 60 seconds and must be uploaded with a thumbnail.

Carousel Ad Format: Use multiple photos or videos for your ad. Viewers swipe left of the initial image to view additional images. You must use at least 2 photos or videos, and can't use more than 10 photos or videos for a single ad.

Instagram Stories Ads: More than 250 million people use Instagram Stories every day. Advertisers can post photos or videos (up to 15 seconds long). You can use filters, text, and draw images on the posts. The ads disappear after 24 hours, and the photo or video will appear as a full-screen, immersive story that shows up between other stories. Stories can only be run exclusively and not in conjunction with a Facebook campaign.

Awareness Objectives

Brand Awareness: This objective will help you reach people that are likely to pay attention to your ad and help increase awareness of your brand. For this objective you can choose to use the photo, video, carousel or slideshow format.

Reach: This objective makes your ad available to the widest range of audience, according to the campaign's budget and schedule. This objective is best used when you want to drive audience impact at scale.

Consideration Objectives

Traffic: This objective helps drive people to a website or mobile app.

Engagement: This objective is used to encourage people to engage with your ad post on Instagram (likes and comments). You can use the photo, video, carousel, or slideshow format with this objective.

App Installs: This objective is used to get people to download your app. You can use the photo, video, carousel, or slideshow format with your App Installs objective.

Video Views: This objective is used to get people to watch a video that showcases your brand and products.

Conversion Objectives

Conversions: Use this objective when you want to drive actions on your website or app.

Product Catalog Sales: This objective is used to promote products to shoppers who have visited your website or mobile app.

Store Visits: Use this objective if you want to reach people near your physical business and drive them into your store.

As you've probably noticed, we've been focusing more over the past few months on how you can use advertising to help increase the audience for your video content. If you have any specific advertising-related topics you'd like to see us cover, please reach out to us and let us know!