How to Create Shopify Instagram Ads That Will Actually Drive Sales

Since it was founded in 2006, more than 1.7 million brands have used ecommerce platform Shopify to sell more than $200 billion in goods directly to consumers. It’s one of the few ecommerce players that can actually make Amazon sweat. It helps that Shopify sellers have many tools at their disposal to advertise online, including the visual social media platform, Instagram. Through Shopify Instagram ads, the social media giant’s large, diverse, and highly engaged user base has been directly linked to both sales and leads for Shopify sellers.

By creating Shopify Instagram ads through Facebook’s ad platform, Shopify sellers benefit from scalable pricing, as well as comprehensive reporting and audience targeting. They can also choose from multiple ad types — from photos and videos to carousels, slideshows, and Stories.

It may seem a bit daunting at first for a small business to create ads on the second-most popular social media platform in existence. But rest assured, there is a rather straightforward process. And it gets even easier when you connect your Shopify store to AdRoll, an ecommerce marketing platform with insights on over 160 million online shoppers that helps brands engage and re-engage customers across channels and devices with ads, email, and product recommendation solutions to grow revenue. 

For more tips on advertising on Instagram feeds:

Create Impactful Shopify Ads That Will Sell on Instagram in 6 Easy Steps 

Step 1: Link your account

For starters, you’ll have to link your Instagram and Facebook accounts by clicking on “Instagram Ads” within Facebook settings. The good news is all you have to do is log in with your Instagram account details — and you only have to do this once.

Once your accounts are linked, you’re ready to create your first Instagram ad campaign within Facebook Ads Manager. (Facebook Power Editor is another option if you’re more comfortable with it.)

And there’s more good news: If you’ve ever created a Facebook ad, the steps for Instagram ads will look very familiar. 

Step 2: Choose your objective

In Ads Manager, click on “Campaigns” and then “+ Create.” You’ll find these tabs in the top left corner. Now, choose one of eight objectives for your campaigns with Shopify Instagram ads:

• Brand awareness
• Reach
• Traffic
• Engagement
• Video views
• Conversions
• App installs
• Lead generation

This is an important consideration as it will determine how Instagram optimizes your ads — and how much you end up paying for them. 

Step 3: Target

Next, define which Instagram users you want to see your ads and how much you’re willing to spend. It’s a good rule of thumb to start low and increase later based on how users respond to your Shopify Instagram ads.

You’ll find Instagram has the same ad targeting options as Facebook, including location, demographics, interests, behavior, lookalike audiences, and automated targeting. If you’ve previously used Facebook Custom Audiences, you can select this as an Instagram targeting option as well. 

For best practices for managing Facebook custom audiences:

Step 4: Add creative

Now for the fun part: Choose your desired ad format, upload your photos or videos, add text, and preview your Shopify Instagram ads. If you’re happy with what you’ve created, select “Place Order.” If not, return to make changes until you are happy.

Step 5: Analyze

After you launch a Shopify Instagram ad, watch how Instagram users respond and test additional creative to find the ideal mix of messaging, visuals, and targeting. This can include changing font, color, image, and calls to action. It’s best practice to run each test for about 10,000 impressions.

Step 6: Repeat

As a consumer, you’ve likely experienced ad fatigue yourself when a brand repeatedly displayed the same ad for the same product. Help avoid this misstep by updating your Shopify Instagram ads every two to three weeks and ensure a positive user experience.

How to Manage Shopify Instagram Ads With AdRoll

By connecting your Shopify store with AdRoll's Instagram advertising platform, it’s even easier to create compelling ads while also finding your best customers to help grow revenue to new heights.

In fact, it takes just three clicks to connect a Shopify store to AdRoll. We ask a few simple questions and import your product feed, which results in dozens of templates for dynamic ads. Your first Shopify Instagram ad can literally be up and running in just minutes featuring products your shoppers have already expressed interest in — and without input from a photographer, graphic designer, or copywriter.

From there, AdRoll makes millions of optimizations each second to ensure all your campaigns work together to grow your business. AdRoll then sends up-to-the-minute updates on ad performance and makes it easy to implement instantaneous changes, as well as to manage all of your ad campaigns from a single dashboard. We continue to analyze data from your store, including shopper behavior, to help your brand personalize campaigns and optimize performance.

As you become more familiar with the AdRoll Instagram advertising platform, you can address more ambitious goals — and even high-level technical needs that might not have seemed possible previously.

Shopify + Instagram + AdRoll = A Perfect Match

Instagram is one of the largest sources of digital advertising inventory on the web. By following these step-by-step instructions — and, of course, integrating your own valuable first-party data and teaming up with leading Facebook partner AdRoll — you’ll be well on your way to Instagram advertising success.

Last updated on April 5th, 2023.