Instagram Ads - Are they good value for money with good ROI for a small business?

[Bp5678]

We're a small company and our marketing has to have a really good ROI and value for money as we have limited budgets. We've noticed the Cost Per Click of Google Ads are really high and it seems only the really big businesses with large budgets seem to be paying for these in our area.
We already do a lot of Facebook ads but we wanted to test Instagram ads as we think it's an up and coming market and at the moment there may be good value. Do you have any tips/advice for affordable Instagram ads while getting a good return in terms of conversions/sales? For context we are a family skiing holiday company.

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On a completely separate note, my boss wants me to have a bonus criteria to work towards and we feel Facebook engagement would be a good bonus criteria to strive towards.
We're looking for a really easy way of measuring Facebook engagement (ideally as a percentage). What should this be and more importantly how/where do I find this out?

 

[Roxanne Massey]

I don't have any specific advice on the first part of your question - although keen to know the answer.

Be careful however on choosing only Facebook engagement as a bonus criteria as you will be at the mercy of Facebook and their ever changing systems. One internal change can plummet your metrics outside of your control. I think Facebook has a business manager that may show metrics and reports but I have not yet used it.

 

[Calvin Crane]

As someone who has used google facebook and instagram for clients and myself I feel I can help you with your questions.
Instagram actually is unlikely to differ in cost to facebook by much (and that is not the best metric). It may be more suitable to the kind of traffic however. Instagram is very visual and artsy more than facebook. You have to think about what the user is doing on the platform and what are they doing.

As you are in family travel and ski this could work well on instagram targeting and ad creation is in the same power editor as facebook so you should be ahead of the game for targeting. As it is a big price item just because the cost per click for google is high the intent is key. For facebook and instagram you are interrupting people not thinking about skiing! So while you might get cheaper clicks that may not convert hence the cost per click is misleading you. It's the LTV.

SEO should be high on your list for investing in for your business- you need ads when this is not working well or alongside. But don't ignore SEO especially for your niche. Carve out (pun intended) some long tail keywords.

Can I ask for facebook what are the following metrics for some ad sets and ads

What is your cost per million CPM
What is your ad relevancy score (drill down to the ad level)
Please specify the kind of objective when giving the figures and the kinds of ads used.

Forgive me but it doesn't sound like you are doing it right nor asking the right questions.

You need to be results driven!

So how are you measuring the effectiveness? Is the pixel correctly setup and have you got the custom conversions setup correctly? If yes then you will know if fb or instagram is working and you should be split testing the results so run an adset for facebook directly against instagram and see which wins on an engagement level.

 

[Annoying Donkey]

We're a small company and our marketing has to have a really good ROI and value for money as we have limited budgets.

Perhaps you should look at this article...

Sources of traffic:
promotions on sites - 25.3 percent of traffic.
paid search - 25.1 percent.
natural search - 18.8 percent.
email - 24.2 percent.
Social media drove only 1.1 percent of traffic.

https://techcrunch.com/2018/11/26/cyber-monday-2018/

Social media drives 1.1 % of traffic verses 25.1 % for paid search...

Do you think social media is a good place to spend your "limited budget"...?

 

[StephenSumner]

I'm all for experimenting, however with any paid source of traffic I think it is wise to consider where the users might be in their consideration phase.

If you are going to target users on Facebook or Instagram for a ski holiday, the chances are that they are not actively searching for ski holidays, if they are that's a small stroke of luck. So, I'd consider Facebook and Instagram ads with a little caution and work on the basis they are going to be work in a brand awareness level and might be very "top of funnel" in their effectiveness.

If I were to choose a source with the most bang for the buck it would be paid search, as you are going to be able to target users who are actively looking for a solution with the nature of their searches... i.e someone typing into Google or Bing "family ski holidays in Austria" as an example has much higher intent than someone just browsing their Instagram feed.

I think in your instance, I'd be looking to use Facebook and Instagram to re-market your business to users who had already specifically searched you out and had spent a good amount of qualifying time on your website.

 

[Calvin Crane]

"Social media drove only 1.1 percent of traffic."

That is the FREE side of social media. Social media advertising is in the PPC section. I can tell you it works.
..and that FREE social media is worth 2% of your time.

IT MAKES ME CRY THAT SMALL BUSINESS THINK THEY CAN BREAK INTO A COMPETITIVE MARKET WITH A FACEBOOK PAGE ONLY. STOP RISKING YOUR BUSINESS HAVE A BUDGET FOR MARKETING.

 

[Annoying Donkey]

That is the FREE side of social media. Social media advertising is in the PPC section. I can tell you it works.

Heard this many times, but yet to see any social media outperform pretty much anything else...

So define what "works" means. I can pretty much guarantee you that if you make 10 sales per month on social media. the same offer will make 100 sales on Google. And probably 500 sales on your own in house list of customers... I've yet to see any proven exceptions...

People want to buy, they'll search Google, not facebook, instagram or whatever the latest fad is. At best you get accidental sales... people who are browsing cat videos who just happen to see an ad that appeals...

If you want to make the most of your marketing budget you want to be where your buyers are actually searching and buying...

 

[antropy]

Instagram is great if you have relevant and creative pictures to post. I know this sounds like an odd thing to say but I have seen businesses posting on Instagram for the sake of posting on Instagram and it really doesn't look great. Make sure you post pictures that will draw people in and create an audience. Alex

 

[fisicx]

People will use Instagram to look for ski jackets and accessories. They may look at hotels or lodges or runs. What they won’t be doing it looking for to book a skiing tour. There are much better platforms (such as a search engine) or booking sites for this.

 

[Calvin Crane]

@WeblinkPlus If you saw my original reply I was agreeing with your sentiment. However a lot is written about intent but you need to understand the actual psychology of people and it is counter intuitive and weird. So I go on google a big lie pr assumption is that I have intent. Now I have shopped for family ski holidays myself in the past. I will look first at google and the real organic traffic and also to a degree the ads, if I can't find what I want. I click through and browse. If I am browsing then the intent is less than we imagine because it is where is the customer in the journey? For a big ticket ski holiday I know there is a longer buying process I will check across platforms reviews and check resorts offered chalets named etc..So in the end in fact a facebook Ad has a good chance of capturing me if it targets me correctly. That's where a lot of DIY get it wrong. I don't profess to be a car mechanic but I can say I know the tracking is out- do I try and fix it myself no I am not an expert. Also I value my time.

Social media paid advertising does work for many. I would argue that you are not paying per click either with facebook you are paying CPM Cost Per Million (x1000 impressions) say 10 click if you have the pixel installed correctly then you remarket to them and develop a future customer LTV. The cost per million should be less than 10 pounds with a good Ad and I would expect click through of 20-50 with a good Ad. That is a good deal of exposure to hit your target audience. You track those 20 to your site and try and get a call back or an email address with your funnel or an instant chat. If people are on facebook they are most likely not that busy and bored and more receptive to ads than you think. If it didn't work dropshippers and big brands wouldn't be making huge sums of money.

 

[fisicx]

If it didn't work dropshippers and big brands wouldn't be making huge sums of money.

A number of big brands have cut back on their SM marketing spend because the ROI was so poor.

 

[Calvin Crane]

I will have to take your word for that
I also wouldn't trust anything I hear or read online even here. I do my own testing and the figures I state are from my real efforts and practise.

 

[Bp5678]

People will use Instagram to look for ski jackets and accessories. They may look at hotels or lodges or runs. What they won’t be doing it looking for to book a skiing tour. There are much better platforms (such as a search engine) or booking sites for this.

I disagree completely. SO many people on Instagram are searching travel destinations or looking for desirable and aspirational photos on places to explore and travel. A week-long family ski holiday is no different.

 

[fisicx]

I disagree completely. SO many people on Instagram are searching travel destinations or looking for desirable and aspirational photos on places to explore and travel. A week-long family ski holiday is no different.

Yes - but they then go to a booking site to find the best deal.

If they are looking at pictures of a resort and you have an advert for that resort they may click but then go to booking.com to see if there are any offers. You become a conduit for the booking sites.

 

[Bp5678]

Thanks all for the posts so far (a lot more than expected with many replies coming so quickly).

Our Instagram ads were going to be along the lines of "Family skiing holidays from £XXXX for a family of 4 in XXXX. Includes XXXX, XXXX, XXXX." and then a little about our company written in a way to hook them in with a strong image too.

What are your thoughts on this?

 

[fisicx]

I will have to take your word for that

An example

There are others.

 

[Bp5678]

Yes - but they then go to a booking site to find the best deal.

If they are looking at pictures of a resort and you have an advert for that resort they may click but then go to booking.com to see if there are any offers. You become a conduit for the booking sites.

Not for us. For many holidays, yes, but for us we are so niche that it's not really the case. The typical decision making process families would go through are:

"A) Do I want a convenient holiday [what my company offers] where there are staff that cook and clean for us and do all the typical chores as parents we do at home? On top of this, our children will be looked after and cared for. The week will be simple, stress-free and fun but a bit more expensive choosing this option. Everything is part of a package".

Or

B) Do I want to find a self-service accommodation and book everything ourselves? This'll be cheaper but means we will have to cook, keep our children entertained when skiing and comes with all of the hassle that having children brings. It may be cheaper but probably more stressful and may involve more organising (and therefore as parents we may not be able to relax). Options for this may be Air Bnb for example."


That second example (#B) would be what you're suggesting however my company is option #A).

As I say we are niche. Many skiing tour operators offer childcare as an add-on but for us it's what we specialise in; everything is focused around the needs of children. There is one other company that does this who (without being biased) don't do a very good job at it.

Yes you are right in the respects that some customers are price-led (these are usually ones who book really late and wait for offers). However, with children you usually have to book well in advance and therefore we get many people who book their skiing holiday a year before they go. These people are less price led and more focused on quality/if the chalet/resort/room/dates of travel/business model suits them.

 

[fisicx]

Great. But are those people looking on Instagram for child friendly skiing holidays?

I'm not saying it won't work but you may end up spending a decent wodge only to discover the ROI isn't that good. As long as you have the £1000 budget to do the research (which may take many months) then all is good.

 

[Haindiary]

There is definitely a benefit. But there are 2 aspects of advertising in instagram. This may be an advertisement in the tape, or it may be an advertisement for a travel blogger with a specific target audience, which may be your potential clients.
Try 2, the first will be a lot of transitions and likes, but not customers.

 

[Mitchell Dagley]

Instagram is a fantastic image focused platform, which offers businesses an opportunity to show their audience exactly what they will get or see. In my opinion, your business would definitely see a positive ROI if approached in the right way.

While it's obvious that your sponsored content needs to be very eye catching I would also suggest you choose images which your potential customers can recreate. Younger audiences often choose destinations based on the things they've seen online and particularly like to capture that iconic shot they've seen.

Another thing to consider is how you get the actual details across. Avoid adding too many images which have text on them; Instagram's algorithm doesn't like this content so you won't be favourably ranked.

When choosing the audience to focus on don't forget to analyse your Facebook audience data but bear in mind Instagram is often used by a younger audience.

 

[fisicx]

...but bear in mind Instagram is often used by a younger audience.

And many of those will not have children - or at least children old enough to go on a skiing holiday.

 

[davidlee21]

Instagram is one of the best platforms to run ads. It has a better ROI than Google ads.

 

[stuartm1962]

Reading all these posts on ROI on Social Media/ Google adwords etc, can i ask a quick question? Are there any platforms that would give you a ROI on for example a £20 product, with a 35% GP built in?

 

[Countrymun]

Heard this many times, but yet to see any social media outperform pretty much anything else...So define what "works" means. I can pretty much guarantee you that if you make 10 sales per month on social media. the same offer will make 100 sales on Google.

This is really interesting for us. We do have a very small spend on Google but spend a lot more on FB. We get many clickthroughs - but as others have said - normally the FB users are not looking for a dog wetsuit at the time so although many come (possibly out of curiosity) it doesn't generate the number of sales we would like to see.

Our google ad is a tiny spend - I would love to spend much more of our (very small!) budget on google rather than FB but it's so complicated. I like to think I'm fairly bright but after hours reading google help documents/internet sites about it, I still don't know much at all. Apparently, I really need to sort my negative keywords (a Wordstream check said I needed a lot more) and I find everything very complicated.
Where FB is good is that when people like a post you can invite them to like your page and some of their friends see that. Customers often leave a really good comment on our ad - eg 'I have this and it's fab' etc and that encourages others to buy.
But I have found we can get reasonable engagement with posts that we haven't paid to promote. That's definitely worthwhile since there is zero cost involved.

 

[ethical PR]

Instagram is a fantastic image focused platform, which offers businesses an opportunity to show their audience exactly what they will get or see. In my opinion, your business would definitely see a positive ROI if approached in the right way.

While it's obvious that your sponsored content needs to be very eye catching I would also suggest you choose images which your potential customers can recreate. Younger audiences often choose destinations based on the things they've seen online and particularly like to capture that iconic shot they've seen.

Another thing to consider is how you get the actual details across. Avoid adding too many images which have text on them; Instagram's algorithm doesn't like this content so you won't be favourably ranked.

When choosing the audience to focus on don't forget to analyse your Facebook audience data but bear in mind Instagram is often used by a younger audience.

You clearly haven't read the OPs post - their target audiences are families not younger audiences.

Can you demonstrate how 'in your opinion' the OP would get a positive ROI.

What sort of ROI would it be. What would they have to do exactly to get this?

 

[ethical PR]

Reading all these posts on ROI on Social Media/ Google adwords etc, can i ask a quick question? Are there any platforms that would give you a ROI on for example a £20 product, with a 35% GP built in?

Of course not, there are too many variables that impact on ROI ; quality of your ad campaign, responsiveness to your brand, what other marketing activities you are investing in, how price sensitive your products are, how well you target your ads etc etc.

If there was a way to guarantee ROI everyone would invest in it

 

[stuartm1962]

Of course not, there are too many variables that impact on ROI ; quality of your ad campaign, responsiveness to your brand, what other marketing activities you are investing in, how price sensitive your products are, how well you target your ads etc etc.

If there was a way to guarantee ROI everyone would invest in it

So what is the point in wasting your money then?

 

[ethical PR]

Only idiots promoting whatever sales, advertising or digital channels they sell suggested you should waste your money.
Start by understanding your marketplace. Who are your competitors? how do they market themselves? How price sensitive is your market place? What are the trends?
You then need to carry out your market research to understand which communications channels your target audience read/watch/listen to /engage with.
Once you have understood what your customers want and what sets you apart, you develop a marketing plan with measurable objectives linked to your business plan, identify your. approach and tactics using relevant channels.
You develop your content with a strong call to action and messages relevant to your customers.
You implement your plan.
You evaluate what works well and do more of that, and don't do the stuff that doesn't work as well.
In summary that's in very, very simplistic terms is what marketing and PR is all about.

 

[Haindiary]

If your services can be sold on Instagram, then definitely yes. Now half the world is sitting there. And everyone is on the way home or to work leafing through the tape. If you have a good product, good content and your advertising will flash on the person in the tape. Let not the first time, but he will go. This guarantees you potential customers. And whether they make an order depends on the content of the page.

 

[EmployMe]

Instagram ads makes sense if you sell in Instagram or if you have perfect UX on your website. Also you need to make right targeting and to be sure that landing page corresponds to your ads. I know it sounds simple but I see a lot of incorrect ads made by business owners.
One more thing to consider: What is your industry? How many competitors use Instagram and sell there? For example, I have seen good conversion for bakery and poor conversion for tickets retailer.

 

[justleads]

Large companies do not have just "large budgets" in Adwords, they have better built campaigns! Their CPA (cost per aqusition) is therefore much lower than yours, that's the point. With low costs per order, they obviously increase their budget. Of course, I audited quite a few "biggies" who wasted a lot in their campaigns, but the point is to catch such errors in time (it is impossible to be 100% error free at all times).

I think you are in the catch 22 situation: not enough earnings to pay a proper expert, but without expert input you remain too low with earnings. What do you think?

 

[Oui Madam]

Heard this many times, but yet to see any social media outperform pretty much anything else...

So define what "works" means. I can pretty much guarantee you that if you make 10 sales per month on social media. the same offer will make 100 sales on Google. And probably 500 sales on your own in house list of customers... I've yet to see any proven exceptions...

People want to buy, they'll search Google, not facebook, instagram or whatever the latest fad is. At best you get accidental sales... people who are browsing cat videos who just happen to see an ad that appeals...

If you want to make the most of your marketing budget you want to be where your buyers are actually searching and buying...

I totally agree with your comments around the use of social media for advertising. Deciding on your strategy is key to what you want to achieve and I would use SM for building brand/product awareness. Although slower than other channels, I find it useful for developing networks with brand s and people that i would not have met otherwise as well as driving ops for engagement on platforms like linkedIn

 

[Oui Madam]

Large companies do not have just "large budgets" in Adwords, they have better built campaigns! Their CPA (cost per aqusition) is therefore much lower than yours, that's the point. With low costs per order, they obviously increase their budget. Of course, I audited quite a few "biggies" who wasted a lot in their campaigns, but the point is to catch such errors in time (it is impossible to be 100% error free at all times).

I think you are in the catch 22 situation: not enough earnings to pay a proper expert, but without expert input you remain too low with earnings. What do you think?

The bane of the smaller brand will always be the limited cash flow situation. So, whilst they (we) not in a position to pay the big bucks - how about collaboration???

Are there any genuine experts out there who are willing to work alongside smaller brands purely to help them up the ladder of success. Surely, if the expert is a badass, the rewards will come further down the road and everyone will reap the benefits?

Willing to hear your views on this one.

Cyn

 

[justleads]

Are there any genuine experts out there who are willing to work alongside smaller brands

Cyn

What is your current and (future) planned marketing plan?

 

[Oui Madam]

hi there,
Current plans are SEO focused on ranking and audience reach. Monitoring results with weekly reports across visibility, link building, positioning etc.
Strategy is via weekly blogs and promotion via all SM channels.

Future plans for wider marketing via collaborative networking.
Hope that helps

 

[justleads]

Current plans are SEO focused

What about adwords and other "paid adverts"? what is the top marketing expense still acceptable for you per single order? And how many orders can you process at present, per week/month? For me these numbers are the most indicative, but maybe other experts will need more info? Surely there will be somebody here who can consider entering into some kind of " business collaboration",as your niche market is rather active...
And BP5678 got several very good comments, maybe he too provides more details as other commenters suggested? The level of expertize of most participants is obviously over average, and it is worth to learn from them

 

[mannierichardson214]

There are benefits of Instagram Ads, I know a friend of mine who is a musician and posts mini videos of him playing a song and with even 10$ budget you can get to nearly 5000 people and around 300-400 of which will definitely click on the post and visit the website. Those are not bad results at all.

 

[Annoying Donkey]

There are benefits of Instagram Ads, I know a friend of mine who is a musician and posts mini videos of him playing a song and with even 10$ budget you can get to nearly 5000 people and around 300-400 of which will definitely click on the post and visit the website. Those are not bad results at all.

I recently ran a campaign that resulted in over 9000 sales in 4 days. That's 9000 sales, not views or browsers. So I'd say 300-400 browsers is very poor.

 

[fisicx]

...and around 300-400 of which will definitely click on the post and visit the website.

And then what? How many people then purchased something or now regularly visit or engage?