Meta has worked hard to equip advertisers and brands with the right tools to reach their audiences through their social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp.
As more and more brands lean towards content creators and influencers for their campaigns, Instagram Partnership Ads make it easier for you to boost content that tags or mentions your brand.
What are Instagram Partnership Ads ?
Instagram Partnership ads, also known as branded content ads, is a practice of boosting collaborative content such as creator posts or influencer content by a marketing team as a part of your social strategy to reach a broad audience of potential customers.
Before the introduction of Instagram partnership ads, the only way to highlight an influencer partnership was to tag them in your caption.
Instagram Partnership ads feature the collaboration through the ad’s header and the partnership label, which reveals both the brand’s and the creator’s account as posters for in-feed ads or includes a label “Paid partnership with (brand)” for Instagram Story campaigns.
Partnership ads also give brands the opportunity to turn unofficial content into a campaign opportunity every time a relevant user mentions or tags them—a benefit for both the brand and the creator. It’s also a good way to boost the business partner’s high-performing content and reach a wider audience of potential customers and therefore achieve business goals.
Why Should Brands Run Instagram Partnership Ads?
Your target customers are more likely to trust user-generated content (UGC) or content by an influencer over regular paid ads. While your audience may be interested to shop, they don’t necessarily want to be sold to. In fact, 69% of consumers trust recommendations given by influencers.
With partnership ads, Instagram has made it easier to launch and manage influencer marketing campaigns. Here’s why you should start running Instagram partnership ads:
- Scale content production – Creating all your content in-house can take a lot of time and resources, both of which smaller brands may not have. Focusing on partnership ads can help you get content at scale and post more content without the burden of creating all the content in-house.
Scaling content production can help you boost organic traffic and, as a result, drive more sales. - Increase brand loyalty and trust – Partnerships can help you build trust with your audience by allowing them to see your product and services in real-world use. Partnering with the right influencer can help your brand appear more relatable and human, providing social proof with the help of authentic content. The best influencers build personal relationships with their audience, making them trusted sources of information. A personal recommendation by an influencer can quickly turn regular followers into loyal customers.
- Reach a wider audience – Struggling to get more views for Instagram? Partnership ads can give you access to a wider, more engaged audience that you otherwise wouldn’t have access to.
- Affect purchase intent – A product endorsement by a trusted influencer is close enough to a recommendation by a friend. Seeing a product recommended by an influencer can be the ultimate push to encourage leads to convert and therefore maximize marketing efforts. Interestingly, a study by a creator marketing platform revealed that 88% of consumers have purchased an item after it was recommended by an influencer.
Now that you see the benefits of Instagram Partnership ads, and if you don’t have the budget to work with popular influencers with solid followings, you can either turn to the pitch deck design agency and attract investors or start with smaller yet loyal influencers who are more cost-effective. If you choose the former, consider looking into pitch deck examples to get an idea.
Here’s how you can create Instagram Partnership ads and start running campaigns that deliver results:
1. Find the Right Instagram Content Creator or Influencer
Every tagged mention is an opportunity for a partnership. However, you must be strategic about choosing the right influencer for your brand. Whoever you partner with will be the face of your business, so it’s crucial to choose someone who embodies your brand’s personality and ideals.
Before you decide on an influencer, you must take a look at their niche, engagement, and audience. It’s also a good idea to create collaboration briefs where you put all important information about the expectations of your campaign, guide to product, and influencer marketing tactics to make the most out of paid partnership ads.
Their niche must be related to your product and services to ensure they can help you reach the right audience through ads, while a high engagement rate can help you determine if the partnership will be worth your time and investment.
Coffee appliance brand Nespresso leverages the partnership tool to feature influencer-created content on its feed. Since Nespresso is very particular about branding and style, the brand only chooses influencers who can replicate it or have a similar aesthetic.
Tip: The post will appear in both of your feeds so the content must feel natural and organic on both sides.
2. Decide on The Instagram Ad Type
Like any regular ad, Instagram partnership ads support all of the existing formats, such as in-feed photos, videos, carousels, Reels, and Instagram Stories. While each format will have its advantages, your choice should highly depend on what feels most natural for you and your chosen influencer partner. However, keep also in mind that the chosen Instagram ad type can affect the Instagram ads cost.
For instance, one creator may be more famous for their Reels, while another may prefer still photographs.
It will help to look at your past content to determine what format performs best. Choosing the right ad format will also depend on your campaign goals. For example, Reels may perform better for engagement as this content type may appear on the explore page and therefore you can get more likes for Instagram Reels. At the same time, Instagram Story ads may be the better option for conversions.
3.Ask Influencers to Test Your Products
Launching a new product? One of the fastest ways to get the word out is to send early releases to influencers. Get partners to test your product and post about it. The more people you tap to talk about your product, the more buzz you get.
It’s a widespread practice among beauty brands who promote beauty products and want to provide a guide to products in a fun and interesting way. The process is simple yet effective: your company connects with the right niche influencers like lifestyle or beauty bloggers and sends products for review. The blogger creates an educational video on how to use your product and tag your company. As a result, you reach a wider audience of potential customers who understand how your product can solve their pain points.
This strategy works well with different niches. Kitchen appliance brand Ninja tapped multiple influencers to create hype around its new slush machine. Even if the post is clearly sponsored, the fact that so many influencers posted about the product at the same time will make audiences curious and increase the chances of conversion.
When you invite influencers to test your products and share genuine reviews instead of asking them to post brand-produced photos, it creates a stronger bond with opinion leaders and results in longer-term collaborations while providing authentic content to their viewers.
4. Take Care of the Visuals!
If you already have in-house creative assets, the best way to get the most mileage out of a post is by turning it into a partnership ad. This way, your content gets posted on both your feeds, exposing it to an audience beyond your followers even before boosting.
Take a look at the example below:
The Reel was posted and produced by the makeup brand Happy Skin. But instead of simply posting it on its wall and tagging its partner in the caption, the brand added influencer Marj Moroket as a Business Partner on the post itself. This automatically shows the Reel on both Happy Skin’s and Marj’s pages, publishing the content to a wider audience.
5. Create an Influencer Discount Code or Offer
Everyone loves a discount, and offering influencer-exclusive or affiliate codes is an excellent way to encourage more people to shop. Since influencers can sway purchase decisions and people trust them more than brands, it’s safe to assume that an influencer-exclusive discount code can perform better than a regular one. That’s why brands often leverage social media influencers in affiliate marketing.
Simply attaching an influencer’s name to your discount code is an easy way to boost sales and increase trust with your audience.
Travel and tours app Klook partners with influencers like Jaz Reyes to promote its products through branded content and affiliate discount codes. This gives the brand access to an engaged audience who otherwise might not have known about Klook prior to seeing it on an influencer’s page.
6. Make Partnership Ads Easy to Shop
It’s no secret that most businesses that have a presence on Instagram want to make money online. The best way to boost sales is to improve customer experience. How? Make it easy to buy featured products.
While Instagram doesn’t allow using its built-in product tags for partnership ads, you can use third-party apps to create shoppable content. Adding product tags to your posts makes it easier for your audience to see which products are featured, learn more about them, and shop.
Product tags create a seamless shopping experience, allowing your audience to discover, browse, and shop without leaving the app. The convenient shopping experience speeds up the buying process and can improve conversion rates.
Having shoppable posts also helps your content stand out, as they immediately let your audience know the intent of your post, even without a CTA button.
To utilize this feature, you will need an active Instagram shop with updated inventory.
Tip: On top of using partner-created posts to promote your product, you can also create limited-edition releases in collaboration with influencers. For example, if you’re a clothing brand, you can create custom hoodies designed by a specific influencer. This can instantly boost your sales and make your brand more relevant. Product collaborations are particularly powerful when trying to reach a whole new market.
7. Invest in Instagram Partnership Ad Promotion
While partnering with an influencer with a large following may already boost your content, social media advertising is still essential for your growth. Boosting the post can amplify your content and get your brand in front of relevant users beyond your shared audience.
According to a study by Instagram, adding partnership ads to your usual mix can increase your click-through rates (CTR) by over 50% while decreasing your costs by 19%.
Malaysian Luxury leather goods brand Bonia ran sponsored ads in partnership with creators to reach its target Gen Z audience. The brand chose three influencers popular with the Gen Z market to help it achieve its goal. The ads included a “Shop Now” call-to-action (CTA) that opened a shopping landing page.
The campaign was an overall success with a significant lift in conversion metrics, such as increased “add payment info” actions.
Conclusion
The power of influencer marketing and content creators needs no explanation. Instagram’s partnership ads make it easier to run effective campaigns that convert while allowing content creators to leverage their influence—it’s a win-win for everyone.
Use these tips to help you maximize partnership opportunities and turn followers into loyal customers.
If you want to run effective Instagram ads and get better Return on Ad Spend, get in touch today!
