Have you ever considered selling on Instagram? Instagram, one of the Meta platforms, is one of the most used social media platforms in the world with 1 billion monthly active users. 90% of them follow at least one business online. Moreover, two-thirds of the users of this very visual platform are under 35 years old. This type of audience makes Instagram a very interesting place for marketers and sellers. Most of the Instagram users are in the USA and India with 140 million users each. European countries like Russia, Turkey, UK, and Germany are in the top 10 of the world-leading countries by the audience.

Instagram has become very innovative. It began as only an image platform then it allowed you to add videos. It eventually added Instagram TV and invented reels, a video clip feature that has been copied by other platforms, for people online who have become focused on videos. A platform like Instagram is very useful and attractive for businesses because it makes it easy to reach a wide number of possible buyers and broadcast effective messages.

What Are the Benefits of Selling on Instagram?

In other words, why should you sell on Instagram?

• Instagram is very visual, and most of the information that we have in our life is visual. This makes it easier for our brains to process that information and remember it. A platform that uses images and videos to broadcast promotional messages is perfect.
• As mentioned above, the audience is young, so you can show your goods to many people who tend to buy online.
• Instagram’s algorithm shows the products to people based on their interests.

• It is a very engaging platform and it is quite common for people to comment and share information on posts or stories with tags and hashtags. This means that your products could appear on the feeds or storylines of a huge amount of Instagram users.
• User Generated Content is very valuable on Instagram. People that have purchased your products can post your goods just because they are happy with the purchase.
• Once your products are on Instagram it is very easy to make a connection with your audience and entice them to buy your products.
• Brand awareness can reach very high peaks of volume with no borders. For example, a European seller can find customers in the US, which means you’ll be able to boost your sales exponentially.

Things You Need Before Starting the Enrollment Process:

1. Is your business located in a market where Instagram works? Your account must be in one of the countries where Instagram allows you to sell.
2. Do you sell physical goods?
3. Does your business comply with the Instagram commerce Policy?
4. Does your Instagram have a business profile?
5. Have you connected your Instagram account to a Facebook page?

If you can answer all these questions with a “Yes”, you can sell on Instagram.

Things to Consider When You Sell on Instagram:

First, you must have an Instagram business account including a short bio about your store. You need to add the URL of your website, the email, and the contact number. You might also need to use some branded hashtags to help people find your account.

Nest you need to connect your Instagram account to a Facebook catalog that you can create yourself or connect to an existing one. After this, you can sign up for shopping in your Instagram settings.

After the shop is set up you can add your posts and stories with tags, hashtags, and stickers to drive sales. You need to upload high-quality images and videos to have engaging content.

Instagram allows you to tag up to five products per single image, which makes it easy to cross-sell.

Have a look at your Shopping insights to see how your posts and stories are performing. This helps you understand what your customers prefer so that you can propose more relevant products to your audience.

What Can I Sell on Instagram?

As mentioned above, you can sell physical goods but not everything.  Certain prohibited items seem obvious but some can be less intuitive. For example, you can’t sell weapons, animals, or body parts (clearly). It is important to read the full list of prohibited items before starting to sell on Instagram.

Running Ads on Instagram

There are other ways to sell on Instagram using its feeds and stories. This is very helpful if you want to push your products and store. The prices are very affordable, better than Google ads, and you can reach people that don’t know your brand yet.
Even better, you can have an amazing ROI (return on investment) if you do them well.
You can have ads on photos, videos, stories, carousels, explore, and collections.
Moreover, they will help you with brand awareness so your organic posts have broader engagement and benefits.

The Cost of Ads on Instagram

The CPC, meaning the cost per click, can be particularly low, even less than $1.00. The cost per mille, also known as cost per thousand and abbreviated as CPM, can be as low as $3.00, which is even lower than Facebook.
These are extremely good numbers in advertising but they can be affected by factors that can influence the final cost. If you want to attain great performance you need to create your ads in a certain way.
A brand awareness campaign tends to be more convenient than a conversion campaign. This is because the goal of a conversion campaign is down to the funnel which is more difficult to achieve.

A broader audience can become more interested in getting to know your brand better than a specific audience that you have to pay for to reach the conversion goal.
Regardless of the campaign objective, a broader audience usually spends less than a targetted one. This happens because your competition acts strategically in the same way.

The budget is another factor to keep in mind. It takes longer to abandon the learning phase and optimize your campaign if you set a small budget.

The CTR, basically the percentage of times people saw your ad and clicked on it, is very important as well. If it is at least over 2% costs will be low. To achieve that result, you need to prepare an ad that is suitable for your audience to increase your chances of converting and achieve a CTR of over 2%.

How to Save Money on Instagram Ads

Use website traffic campaigns with broad audiences so the pixel can learn what people prefer your products.

Retarget the audience that didn’t convert so you have more chances to get conversions.

The Instagram algorithm is very intuitive so automatic placements are a good way to increase the number of conversions. Instagram will choose the best placement you need to broadcast your ad at the lowest available cost.

Other Useful Information About Instagram

• Having a shop on Instagram is free. Although you might pay a small fee for your sales on Instagram, you need to spend money to make money.
• You do not need any followers to sell on Instagram! Although, if you have at least 10,000 you can link your stories to your store. This is a very powerful Call To Action to generate sales because the users on Instagram love this feature.
• Get an Instagram business account because you can enrich your bio with useful information, and Call to Action buttons. It also gives you access to the strategic insights section where you can view impressions, reach, website clicks, and follower activity.
• Advise your customers they can shop from your business account and remember to add content with more tagged products to capture the multiple interests of your audience.
• You can schedule your posts. There are excellent scheduling apps that can help you with that while you are on holiday. Remember that posting regularly will help with the success of your store.
• Host giveaways and contests. They help with brand awareness and conversions. Influencers can help you to make a giveaway very successful and, more in general, create an amazing buzz about your brand and store.
• Also, schedule some live sessions with your audience. They’re free, and you can have video meetings hosting even thousands of people. They will know more about you, your brand, and your products. It is a fantastic way to generate genuine engagement and let your customers trust you enough to make a purchase. You can make a behind-the-scenes about your products so they will know how they are created. You can invite the buyers to the live sessions so they can witness the amazing experiences with your brand.

Why Is Selling on Instagram With Koongo Beneficial?

Koongo uses a simple CSV product feed to connect with your Instagram shopping and make it easier to sell your products. 

This allows Koongo to upload merchant products from your store to your Instagram catalog and update the stock information regularly. This greatly reduces your risk of being out of stock and even better,  the information is always updated with an unbeatable frequency.

As you may know, Koongo offers full support for more than 500 marketplaces and selling channels worldwide, including Instagram. You won’t regret giving Koongo a chance. It fully supports any existing platform from Shopify, Magento, Prestashop, and CCV Shop to any 3rd party Custom Platform. You just need to sign up to see that Koongo is capable of boosting your sales. There’s no risk associated, 30 days Free Trial period is available.

For more details, check the Instagram integration manual or contact us at support@koongo.com. We will be happy to help you with your Instagram integration.

Continue reading →