A study found that 31% of people who watch Instagram video ads go ahead and make a purchase. This is why if you want to generate more sales from Instagram, you should combine your organic methods with video ads.

So, here are some top tips for creating Instagram video ads…

Create short videos:

Instagram allows you to create video ads that are up to 120 seconds long. Most people think that they need to include as much information as they can to get the most out of the ad spend. So, they create videos that are over a minute long and stuff their videos with as much information as they can.

But this isn’t necessary. To generate more sales, short videos will work best. This is because when you include less information people will need to visit the landing page to get the rest.

So, create short videos that are 6 to 30 seconds long like Domestika did here.

Longer videos work better when you want to improve your engagement or generate more brand impressions. They can actually be used in the early part of your ad funnel to warm up your audience before you retarget them with short ads.

So, get yourself a good video editing tool and shorten your long video ads.

You can use longer videos to warm up your traffic before you launch the ad. Make sure you use a good social media posting tool to schedule the warming up videos in advance. A series of videos will work better for the warming up process.

You could also run a few live videos to warm up your audience. They can have the same effect as webinars.

Tag products in videos:

Instagram lets you share a call to action link in the ad. But if you are an ecommerce store and are promoting multiple products in the ad, it can be hard to share more links as you can’t add them to the description as you do on other networks. This is why you should take advantage of Instagram’s tagging feature and tag products in your video ad. People can click on them and visit your website directly.

The primary product you are promoting can be placed in the ad call to action link and in the video tags, while the secondary products that compliment the primary product can be placed in the video tags only.

Team up with influencers:

Did you know that you can team up with influencers on Instagram to create branded content ads? When users post an image or video on Instagram, the network gives them the option to make it into a branded content post by tagging a business. The business they tagged can then turn the post into an ad and reach even more people.

Ads that are shown under your account will drive some good results, but those that are published under a third party account will fare even better. As people trust what influencers they know say about you over what you say about yourself.

So, the next time you use Instagram shoutouts, you should get the influencer to turn it into a branded post and then turn the post into an ad and reach more people.

But make sure you only team up with influencers with high engagement levels on Instagram. They should also be relevant to your niche. This will ensure you get the maximum ROI from your ad spend.

Add thumbnails to ads:

Instagram ads normally autoplay videos. But people have the option to turn off autoplay while using data. A lot of people will see a thumbnail with a play button instead of a video that is playing. This is why if you want more people to view your ads you should optimize it for people who have autoplay turned off too.

So, create an enticing thumbnail that gets people to click the play button. You can simply do this by taking a still from the video and then adding some overlay text over it like the ad headline and then adding it as the thumbnail. You can also use a background remover to remove the background from the still image before you add the overlay text.

This will help drive more attention to the important elements of the ad.

Pay attention to the captions:

The video is the most important part of the ad, but the caption plays an important role too. As some users will want to read and learn more. So, accompany your videos with some well-written captions. For best results write captions that are between 1,001 and 2,000 words as a study from Mention found that they drive the most engagement.

Also, simplify the writing level of the captions. As Instagram is full of distractions you need to provide people with something they can consume quickly before they get distracted.

The best option is to just use the product description you included on the landing page, as you have already done the research while writing it.

Create different ads for different audiences:

One of the best ways to boost the conversion rates of ads is to create them for a very specific audience. The more a single audience can relate to your ads, the higher your conversion rates can be. So, do some quality research and create highly targeted ads that are meant for one single audience and then target this audience using Instagram’s targeting settings.

If you have more than one audience, you should create a separate ad for them. You should also be creating warm up videos for different audiences (if you have them). Instagram lets you retarget video views. The warm up video will help you save money as you will only be targeting people who will be interested.

So, create relevant videos all your target audiences will be interested in and then retarget them with matching video ads.

Always experiment:

The thing about creating a successful ad on any platform is that you won’t create the best ad in your first attempt. You might even fail several times before you create a high converting ad. So, you should constantly experiment with ads. Try to change the video style, the length, the captions, and other elements such as the landing page, till you create your successful ad.

Through several experiments, you will create the best version of your ad, which you can scale later. Also, feel free to experiment with even the best version and better results further. This data can also be used to create better organic Instagram posts.

Conclusion:

These are my top tips for getting the most out of Instagram video ads. Implement them today to create successful ads quickly.