I strongly assume that you clicked to read this article about Instagram ads cost because you want to place an ad on the platform and want to know how much you need to have in your marketing purse to qualify.
For starters, It does not cost much to place an ad on Instagram. It depends on much the individual is comfortable spending on ads.
You can use as little as $5 to run an ad on the Instagram platform, maybe for a day or a few, and get results, but again, it depends on the kind of result you are looking for. So if you expecting a handsome result, you and I know that $5 will not bring you good conversion rates.
The kind of result you will get largely depends on how much you are willing to invest in your Instagram marketing campaigns.
If your ad objective is conversion then I do not know if I should be happy or sad to inform you that the $5 budget will not lead you anywhere in your ad efforts, but with leads, website clicks, and brand awareness, of course, you will witness results of the $5 value.
If you run a personal brand or a business, and considering using Instagram ads to promote your business in 2023, then continue to read as I will expose all you need to know about Instagram ads cost in 2023.
Factors That Impact Instagram Ads Cost
Before getting into the costs properly, let’s discuss factors that affect the amount of money that businesses are willing to spend to advertise their products on Instagram.
#1. Audience demographics: 71% of Instagram users are below 34 years.
#2. Daily usage: There are over 500 million people that use Instagram every day. At least 63% of these people open the Instagram App once a day, while 42% use the App more than once every day.
#3. Engagement post engagement: The average engagement rate on Instagram is 0.96%, which exceeds Twitter (0.05%) and Facebook (0.13%)
Beyond these key factors that impact your ad cost, several other factors affect how much Instagram ads cost each brand, and you should know them before you start.
#1. Ad Type
One of the first things you might notice is that there are various types of ads on Instagram. Different types may befit different campaigns.
Around the clock, you will want to keep in mind the visual style of Instagram when crafting ads and choosing what type shows off your brand the best.
An inflexible and fake-looking stock photo will stand out from the rest of the high-quality content that Instagram is known for, and it’s likely to perform badly.
Get ready to invest good time and effort into creating ads that suit your branding and follow Instagram’s creative best practices.
Look at the types of Instagram ads:
#1. Stories ads
#2. Photo ads
#3. Video ads
#4. Carousel ads
#5. Collection ads
#6. Ads on the Explore page
There is also no off-the-shelf pricing for Instagram ads. You cannot just look up the cost of an Instagram story ad or carousel ad. Instead, the type of ad and the quality of the ad you create will impact your costs.
#2. Bidding Strategy
You can leverage various bidding strategies when setting up your Instagram ads, and, of course, the strategy you choose for your ad campaign depends on your advertising goals.
There are 4 types of bidding strategies:
#2. Cost per 1000 impressions (CPM)
#3. Cost per action (CPA)
#4. Cost per like (CPL)
Are you looking to boost awareness of your product or brand? You may want high exposure and much of impressions or likes.
If you are aiming to target prospects that are a little lower in the sales funnel and a bit closer to converting to customers, you may want to focus on CPA or CPC.
#3. Metrics
How you measure success in your Instagram ads depends on your goals for your ad campaigns.
Goals for advertising can vary widely depending on whom you are targeting and why, so be sure you are setting clear objectives before getting started.
These can enable you to make better decisions and help you see what is working for your business.
So at this stage, the question becomes “How Much Do Instagram Ads Cost – Meet Your Business Goals?”
Your advertising goals might be:
#1. Boosting brand awareness
#2. Educating your ideal audience about your business
#3. Converting more customers through sales, store visits, or App downloads.
The metrics you leverage to gauge your success could include more followers, more likes, greater reach, improved conversion rate, and higher click-through rates (CTRs). You might also track, measure and compare video views or App installs.
#4. Targeting
Another factor that can impact how much Instagram ads cost is your targeting. Who are you targeting, and how much competition to tackle and outmatch to get to your ideal audience?
How much do Instagram ads cost when you broaden your target audience? How much does it cost when you narrow your targets?
The narrower your targets, the higher the cost of your ads becomes. As you add or remove these parameters, the cost of your ad shifts too.
Instagram offers multiple advanced targeting options:
#1. Location: You can use specific locations to target prospects by states, cities, or countries.
#2. Interests: People with certain interests could be useful to you, so target users who like similar Apps, click on similar ads or follow similar pages.
#3. Custom Audiences: Do you have customer information like phone numbers or email addresses? Consider running ads leveraging this information.
#4. Automated Targeting: Instagram offers an automated targeting option to create audiences who might be interested in your brand using data points like location, interests, and demographics.
#5. Demographics: Use demographic insights like age, gender, or language to narrow down your audiences.
Ads targeting women tend to be more expensive due to the higher chances that they will engage with your content. Ad cost can also vary depending on the age group you target.
#6. Behaviors: Target people based on what they do on and off Instagram.
#7. Lookalike Audiences: Create audiences similar to your existing customers to find potential customers for your brand.
#5. Budget
Your budget can impact ad pricing as well. With a smaller budget, it takes longer for Instagram’s system to learn and understand your ad campaign and measure how your audience engages (or doesn’t engage).
However, this can have the opposite impact you want and boost how much Instagram ads cost you.
#6. Ad Quality and Relevance
The more relevant your ad is to the landing page it leads people to, the higher Instagram scores your ad in its internal weighing system.
Ensure you always direct people to the pages that make the most sense for them to go to. The higher the relevancy, the lower your ad costs can be.
#7. Placement
Where would you like your ad to be shown? During setup, you will be able to choose whether you want your ad to show just on Instagram or on Facebook as well. You can also decide which devices or operating systems you would like to target.
#8. Click-Through Rate
Your click-through rate (CTR) can also impact pricing because a healthy CTR helps show that your ads resonate with your target audience. However, you may see higher costs if your ads aren’t gaining clicks from your target market.
#9. Timing
If you are advertising during a busy time of year for sales, you are likely to have a lot of competition for customers as other businesses try to win their share of the clicks. Holidays, special events, and other peak selling times for your niche can create higher costs.
#10. Size of Audience
Another factor that impacts ad cost is audience size. The larger the audience you target, the less expensive your Instagram will cost. Remember smaller audiences have more competition, which can push your cost up.
#11. Industry
Your Instagram ad costs are also affected by industry. Apparel and clothing brands pay much more due to higher competition. B2B companies also pay more because fewer brands use Instagram than people do.
All things considered, let’s now delve into how much Instagram ads cost.
In 2023 How Much Do Instagram Ads Cost?
#1. Instagram Cost Per Click (CPC)
Cost-per-click (CPC) on Instagram ads commonly ranges from 20 cents to $2. Revealbot study shows that the average cost per click (CPC) on Instagram in the United States (US) in July of 2021 was $1.28, down from the $1.33 CPC in 2022.
Cost per click (CPC) is calculated by dividing the cost of a paid ad campaign by the number of clicks.
#2. Instagram Cost Per Engagement (CPE)
Cost-per-engagement (CPE) to spend on Instagram ads ranges from $0.01 to $0.05.
Cost per engagement (CPE) is calculated for Instagram ads by dividing the ad spend by the number of engagements.
As a platform, Instagram has a correspondingly low CPE, averaging out to just $0.54 for every interaction. From the 2022 average of $0.32 in CPE, this is a 69% increase.
#3. Instagram Cost per Thousand Impressions (CPM)
Cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM) for Instagram-sponsored content cost in the United States (US) in July 2021 was $8.51, down from the CPM high of $10.39 in July 2022.
How to Reduce Your Instagram Ads Cost
Sometimes it may feel as though advertising on Instagram is too expensive. And I know, you like a lot of marketers will like to know if there are ways to reduce the cost of placing ads on Instagram. So are there ways to reduce these costs? The simple but right answer is that it depends.
However, advertising is necessary for promoting your business, so you are better off learning how to manage your Instagram ads properly. This will enable you to enjoy the rewards of effective social media advertising.
You can reduce the cost of your Instagram ads by utilizing careful targeting and having clear marketing goals to keep you on track and prevent overspending.
Try using automatic bidding to help prevent costly mistakes as you learn to use the platform. Once you set a daily budget, your costs won’t go past this set limit. You can also leverage automatic bidding to ensure you stay within fixed costs for Instagram ads per month.
You can also think about creating particular landing pages with highly relevant content to your ad, which can help ensure your quality score remains high.
Testing can also be of benefit to you because nailing relevancy in your ad copy can help reduce costs. Relevant ad copy can help you to gain a higher ad position, reducing your CPC.
How Much Should Your Business Budget For Your Instagram Ads?
So you now know about bidding, how the pricing works, and how to reduce the cost of placing ads on Instagram, but you still don’t know how much to budget for your ad campaign, right?
This is where we bring it all together to tell you how much you should place on the table for Instagram ads.
Let’s look at a typical scenario.
You are a small business owner looking to rake in 1000 unique clicks on your eCommerce website and the cost per click for ads on Instagram is $0.75. In this case, your budget should be around $750 to $1000 per month.
But it doesn’t end there; you must monitor the ad’s performance to spot areas for improvement. And that’s why you should adopt A/B testing practices before wrapping up your daily or lifetime budget.
Other factors to consider when budgeting for your Instagram ad campaign include competitiveness, timing, and the website’s conversion rate. For testing purposes, you can lower the overall ad expenditure by 40%.
Conclusion
Advertising on Instagram is highly competitive because of the number of brands vying for a limited audience pool.
By using the right bidding format and targeting the right audience, you can reduce your costs and increase your ROI.
If you don’t have enough information and experience to configure your bids, leverage automatic bidding settings to your advantage. Most importantly, use automation to test variations of the same Instagram ad to increase your chances of success.
