You can promote items from your online store catalog on Instagram, meaning you can showcase products not only to your followers but to a targeted audience, thereby increasing brand awareness.
To promote your products on Instagram, you first need to sync your store products to a catalog on Facebook by Meta since Meta uses Facebook catalog across all its platforms. Once your products appear in the Facebook catalog, it’s possible to promote them either from your Instagram account or Meta Ads Manager.
There are several ways for marketing activities, both free and paid, that you can use to bring your business to larger audiences. That includes tagging products, boosting posts with tagged products, creating ads campaigns with specific products, and so on.
Tagging products on Instagram
After you’ve connected your catalog with Facebook, you can link items from posts and stories to products from your Facebook catalog. This is called product tagging. When people view your post, they tap on the tagged products to see additional information such as product description or price, purchase the product, save tagged products for later or share them with others. You can tag one or several items at once.
For example, you upload a photo of a model wearing your collection. You select items on the photo and then associate them with products that you sell:
Tagging is best to use when aiming for engagement and relationship-building with your key audience that follows you. When you need to reach broader audiences or specific demographics for promotional campaigns, product launches, or events, you can boost post or run an ad.
Learn how to tag products on Instagram →
Boosting posts on Instagram
You can promote any post, reel, or story from your Instagram feed so that it reaches not only your followers but a wider audience. This is called boosting and it’s the simplest advertising option Meta offers. Since boosting is a paid type of promotion, you will need to set up Meta's Ads Manager before making your first boost.
Boosted posts appear in Explore, home feed, Explore feed, profile feed and Stories. You can choose your advertising goal for boosting.
If your post contains product tagging, people can click on the tagged products to get more information about the product and purchase it, save, or share.
Use post boosting as the simplest type of advertising that requires minimum setup. It will help you increase the engagement beyond your current followers, promote specific content or events, drive traffic to your online store, or reach a targeted audience with relevant content.
Learn how to boost an Instagram post →
Creating ad campaigns on Instagram
You can create a full-fledged ad campaign on Instagram. Unlike boosting, you create an ad campaign from your Ads Manager that provides you with a variety of tools to set up your ad. You advertise not your posts, but create an ad from scratch with specific products from your Facebook catalog.
Instagram ads appear in news feeds, stories, or reels. Instagram selects the most relevant audience to show them your ads. You can create ads with specific objectives, such as driving traffic to a website, increasing brand awareness, generating leads, or driving sales.
There are two ways to create an ad for Instagram:
- Create ads from your Facebook Page. If you manage a Facebook Page, you can link an Instagram account to that page to boost posts. When you boost a post, they can appear on Facebook and Instagram.
- Create ad campaigns in Meta Ads Manager. Ads Manager provides comprehensive tools to create ads on Instagram and Facebook.
Learn more about creating ads on Instagram →
Retargeting on Instagram to reach more audience
Retargeting involves showing ads to people who have previously visited your website or interacted with your content. With retargeting, you can re-engage people and encourage them to take further action, such as making a purchase or visiting your site.
Retargeting is a good strategy when you need to keep your brand top of mind and increase a number of return customers. You set up retargeting from your Meta Ads Manager.
To launch retargeting, you have to install a Facebook Pixel to your website so that Facebook can learn who interacts with your content.