Can I run Instagram ads without Facebook?

Advertisers on Instagram can now cerate Instagram ads without linking their accounts or having a presence on Facebook.

A marketer who is promoting a post or running ads from the Instagram business account for the first time, will not need to connect a Facebook ad account or Facebook Page.

This feature will only be accessible by the ones running campaigns and promoting posts for the first time. Brands and creators who have already linked their Facebook and Instagram ad accounts will follow business as usual.

The option is currently only available to brands and creators in the US and Turkey. Marketers can manage the campaigns and track performance on Instagram, without having to keep a check on Instagram ads on Facebook Ads Manager.

Also Read: Instagram adds new AR Tools for creators

How to promote an Instagram post without creating a Facebook ad account?

• Go to Profile

• Choose a post for promotion, click Promote (below the post’s image)

• Fill in the specifications such as Destination, Audience, Budget, Duration. Tap Next

• Click Create Promotion

Once this process is finished, the promotion will be reviewed under Facebook ad policies and begin running after it is approved.

Advertisers can also check whether their Instagram account is connected to a Facebook ad account. Under ‘Your Account’ within ‘Settings’, if you see a number, your Instagram account isn’t connected to a Facebook ad account, if you see a name then it is connected.

You may also like:

A social media learning for BFSI brands

Infographic: Snapchat updates in May you need to know of!

Social Media News Round Up: Instagram tools, Pinterest Shopping Spotlights & more

Key Takeaways Facebook Q4 2020 Report: Ad revenues continue to grow

Facebook to monetize its Slack competitor

Facebook hosts India's first SocialForGood Live-athon with Priyanka Chopra

Comments

Next article

Paawan Sunam

A wordsmith by profession who likes art, Beatles, Coffee, DiCaprio and Eminem brings a fresh perspective contrary to existing perceptions and believes in questioning everything, also has a belief that there should be a bigger place in the world for words and not war. He prefers the phenomena of the physical world of plants and animals(especially dogs) over possessions. Reckons moving to the rhythm and moving on.

Instagram ads integrate very nicely with the Facebook ad platform. So nicely, you don’t even need an Instagram account to run Instagram ads. All that’s needed is a Facebook account.

Read next: Should I automatically push my promoted Facebook post to Instagram?

Traditionally, in social media, you must create an account on the network you were running an ad. That would lead to discussions over whether charges were even needed and how to we keep brand names across networks intact.

Should we sign up for this account, and what should we do on that network? As marketing expert Mark Schaefer reminds us, with this busy graphic of social networks, it’s virtually impossible to be on every network you could potentially be on.

Read next: How to combine social media accounts when organizations merge

So, if you don’t want to add a company Instagram account, but want to reach people there, pushing a Facebook ad to Instagram is the way to go.

Facebook ads on Instagram

When people on Instagram click on your name on the ad created on Facebook, it’s not necessarily a perfect user experience, but it’s also not terrible. Here’s how that looks from an example I ran across.

Instagram transparently tells you that the advertiser is not on Instagram but that you can check out their Facebook page.

Is it a good idea to run ads on Instagram without an IG account?

Like anything in digital marketing, it always depends on the goal. If a company doesn’t have an organic network goal but is running paid campaigns, especially when they are running them on Facebook, they can conveniently push them to Instagram. So why not make the process easy? Especially when it’s driving results.

Listen next: 456: How to be a results-driven leader

Subscribe to my newsletter

A definite downfall is that you can lose out on people who want to follow you. I’ve tried to follow an advertiser before when I wasn’t ready to buy whatever they were selling, but I wanted to stay connected. So I clicked on their name in the ad in an attempt to follow them. But since there’s no associated account, it’s not possible.

Personally I haven’t seen much success on Instagram campaigns, way less than I have seen on Facebook, but depending on the campaign, it might be worth trying, and if a company doesn’t have an organic Instagram strategy, it might be an easy way to give the network a shot.