The Shift to Instagram Stories Ads and Facebook Messenger Ads

Table of Contents

• Instagram Stories Ads
• How Successful Businesses Leverage Instagram Story Ads
• Facebook Messenger Ads
• Benefits of Messenger Ads

After years of social media marketing and attempting to sell brands through the Facebook news feed, business marketers are shifting their focus to Instagram and Messenger. 

According to Merkle, the increase in ad spend on Instagram has quadrupled (approximately 177 percent), while Facebook ad spending has increased only by about 40%, compared to the data from 2020. 

Facebook Messenger ads are a lesser-known type of ad but continuously outperform other ad types. The Facebook Messenger Ads Case Study has proven this fact. Let us discuss this tectonic shift to Instagram Stories and Facebook Messenger ads by understanding them both. We first start with Instagram Stories. 

Instagram Stories Ads

Instagram is more like a brand-building play with short-form video stories and visual information. Instagram Stories are self-disappearing videos and photo uploads that expire after 24 hours. It allows users to insert short advertisements between the other people’s stories. The advertisements adhere to the story pattern, ensuring that the consumer experience is constant and the flow remains continuous.

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With over 500 million regularly engaged Insta story users globally, your business should undoubtedly deploy ads on stories to promote branding and increase sales. Every month, 60% of brands include an engaging feature in their organic narrative, hashtag, @mention, or poll sticker.

Here’s a sample of a picture ad on Instagram Stories:

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Why should advertisers choose Instagram Stories ads?

In terms of both everyday user engagements and ad inventory increase, Instagram Stories ads are the fastest-growing option for ad placement in social media marketing, according to Social Media Examiner. 

• Genuine content: It has a great deal of genuine content but not as many ads. As a result, for the first time in a long time, there is some accessible ad inventory that has not yet achieved a fever pitch. Story advertisements typically have lower costs and, when done correctly, perform far better than feed advertisements. 

• No competition: Because an Instagram story fills up the entire screen, it has nothing above or below it to compete with. It’s a thoroughly engaging experience. 

• Relatively non-intrusive: They mix in with the organic content and do not feel as intrusive or startling as other types of advertising. When going through your Instagram feed, it’s relatively clear when anything is an ad. 

Users frequently swipe right past feed ads as they immediately know the ad for what it is. When you’re scrolling through a stream of stories, however, the Instagram Stories ads are located in between actual stories, and it takes a few moments to determine what you’re looking at. That is where advertisers have an edge.

Now let’s see how businesses have been successfully leveraging Instagram Story Ads. 

How Successful Businesses Leverage Instagram Story Ads

1. They design story-specific ads.

Many brands and small businesses, in particular, may overlook this part and get lazy in designing an ad specifically for Instagram Stories. Successful businesses leveraging Story ads may not understand Instagram Stories, but they know well that Stories are their own thing. The audience feels much more attracted to them if they feel like the ad belongs in that space. 

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2. They use videos 

Only a few people consider the fact that static images can sit in the Stories for 6 seconds. On the other hand, a video can stay for 15 seconds on Stories. Aside from videos being more responsive and highly engaging, they can help stay visible three times longer than images for the same amount of money.

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3. They don’t confuse the audience.

With Stories, the time to convey the brand message and CTA is really short. For example, people might see the brand on Instagram for the first time, and if the brand is not careful, they’ll exit the Story before the brand can even tell them why they should join the business. 

It’s, therefore, crucial to focus on the offering and why people would want it so that you can maximize the time to tell the brand story and convince viewers to stay through the whole message. 

4. They use micro-influencers for product promotion. 

A new type of influencer has recently become prevalent on social media—the micro-influencer. A micro-influencer has a following of fewer than 10,000 people, but these people are highly targeted. Businesses can talk to these people about the product they offer effectively, but they won’t have to pay through the nose to do it. 

Instead, you can reach out to micro-influencers and make a deal with them where they talk about your business in their Stories and share the product’s USP with the public. Brands can also ask these influencers to review or test it out and then report their honest feedback.

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5. They showcase results

A sure-shot way of getting an audience interested in a product is by first ensuring that their needs are understood. If a product’s instructions are easy to understand and implement, then the people who use it should have no qualms or problems using it for its intended use. 

One way to do this is to emphasize the product’s results or benefits instead of focusing too much on what makes your product unique, as there might be other competing products that offer similar features.

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Facebook Messenger Ads

Messenger is designed for businesses that want to manage their client relationships, which are crucial in this day and age. Customers want to interact with brands in real-time instead of over the phone or email. 

With 20 billion chats every month conducted between brands and Messenger users, it’s easy to see why a company might want to begin a conversation with potential customers through Messenger. When the company understands all about Facebook Messenger, they know how to put it to good use. 

There are two types of Facebook Messenger ads, Click-to-Message ads (pic one below) and the Sponsored Message placement ad (pic two below).

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Benefits of Facebook Messenger Ads

• They stand out

This is especially true in the case of sponsored messages. Users must essentially pay heed. It’s similar to receiving an email in your inbox. To remove the notification and fulfill your curiosity, you’ll need to look at what it says. 

In an era when the feed is more crowded than ever, any tiny edge you have to stand out – or ditching the newsfeed entirely – is worth employing. 

• They focus on the conversation. 

Opening the gates to a conversation can be an effective selling strategy in social media marketing. Many customers may see an ad encouraging them to “shop now,” but they have a few queries or concerns. 

If you enable them to contact you for more information via Messenger, they are more likely to do so. Even if it isn’t the central objective of the ad, Sponsored Messages indirectly increase messages. People are far more likely to communicate directly through Messages because that message box is already available.

• They’re a new way to interact with your audience. 

All marketers do not use Facebook Messenger Ads. You’re instantly doing something unique and giving users another way to engage with you if you do. And because one-on-one conversations are so meaningful in building relationships, that’s a huge plus.

• They help in reaching the target audience more precisely.

Facebook Messenger ads help target Facebook Messenger users who have been in touch with the brand, followed your page, or sent you a message. These users are more likely to be interested in your ads and the kinds of things your company sells and, therefore, will be much easier to advertise to. 

They can even help reach out to those who have engaged with your brand but have abandoned your page by using these ads.

• They help in lead generation.

Click-to-Messenger ads have proven to be one of the best ways for brands to generate leads. By clicking on a brand’s Sponsored Message integrated into a social media post, a customer can engage with a company directly through a private message chat window on Facebook Messenger. 

While there are many types of interactions that can take place, such as responding to surveys and watching videos, this method has been incredibly effective because Sponsored Chat Messaging allows businesses to nurture qualified leads by engaging them in one-on-one communications.

• They boost conversions

Facebook Messenger ads have some of the highest conversion rates available. Many nuances go into a Facebook Messenger ad that many people don’t know about, which helps make the ads more effective. 

Messenger ads act on a CPA basis. Many people think that Facebook Messenger ads work by sending a message to the customer’s inbox. In reality, many people miss the message entirely, making the ad less effective. Getting a response by sending a message to a customer’s Facebook Messenger inbox instead is easier.

In the End

Now that you know how important and beneficial both Instagram Stories and Facebook Messenger Ads are to your marketing efforts learn more, experiment, and have fun! Of course, before that, ensure that your social media game is at its best. 

Key Takeaways

• The shift towards Instagram Story ads and FB Messenger ads shows positive growth.
• Video ads offer a higher ROI than image ads.
• Creating Stories- or Messenger-specific ads is crucial.
• Audience demographics are important for ads’ success.
• The benefits offered by Messenger ads are higher than Facebook post ads.

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