Instagram ads

What makes Instagram ads different from Facebook

Technically, Instagram ads are bought in the same Meta Ads Manager as Facebook ads, with the same pixel and the same audiences. In practice they behave differently. On Instagram people expect pictures and short videos first, text second. They scroll faster, swipe through Stories in seconds, and judge whether something looks worth their time almost instantly. An ad that works on Facebook with a long, persuasive caption often does nothing on Instagram.

So Instagram ads live or die on the visual. The first one or two seconds of a Reel decide whether anyone sees the rest. The cover frame of a carousel decides whether anyone swipes. That's where I spend most of the planning time.

The audience skews younger too. Instagram tends to reach more people in their twenties and thirties than Facebook does, especially in big cities like Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver. For a business whose best customers are 25 to 40, that alone can justify putting more of the budget behind vertical video, while keeping Facebook placements switched on for the older buyers who still make up a good share of sales.

Which businesses do well with Instagram ads

Instagram suits anything people want to see before they buy:

• Beauty and wellness: lashes, brows, nails, hair colour, skin treatments. Before-and-after clips are hard to beat, within the platform's rules on health and appearance claims.
• Food and drink: cafés, bakeries, restaurants, meal prep. A ten-second clip of food being plated does more than a menu.
• Fashion and jewellery: product on a person, styled outfits, close-ups of detail.
• Interiors and home: kitchens, furniture, renovation reveals.
• Courses and coaching: a short lesson clip, a student's result, a behind-the-scenes look.

If your service is rarely photogenic (accounting, plumbing repairs, insurance), Instagram can still help with remarketing, but I'd usually spend most of the budget on Facebook ads or search.

Creative that tends to work

Polished doesn't mean effective. The ads that often perform best on Instagram look like normal posts from a real business:

1. A hook in the first frame: a result, a question, a surprising moment.
2. Movement early on, so the clip doesn't look like a still image.
3. Captions on screen, because many people watch without sound.
4. A face, a pair of hands or a real place rather than a logo on a background.
5. One clear next step: book, shop, send a message.

I plan ads around these rules and use what you already have where possible. When fresh footage would make a real difference, I can produce it as a separate Reels and Shorts job, quoted individually.

Bookings, sales or messages

For salons, studios and made-to-order products, the most natural next step on Instagram is often a Direct message. An ad can open a DM thread with a pre-filled question, and you reply the way you already do with followers. That only works if someone answers quickly, so for busier accounts I suggest an automated first reply through a Messenger and Instagram chatbot. For online stores the goal is a purchase, tracked with the pixel and Conversions API so Meta learns who actually buys, not who just taps.

Organic posting and paid ads

Running ads doesn't mean you have to post every day, and posting every day doesn't replace ads. They support each other: an active profile reassures people who tap through from an ad, and ads put your best posts in front of people who would never find them. If you want help with the organic side too, that's Instagram management, which I deliver with a trusted partner. The paid side, budget and reporting stay with me, priced together with Facebook under my Meta ads management plan.