The Complete Guide to Instagram Advertising for the Holidays

As a visual-first platform, Instagram is the perfect platform to showcase products and services in captivating and engaging formats. From images and reels of products to promoting special seasonal offers, businesses can elevate their social media marketing and drive heightened interest. That’s why when it comes to planning your Instagram advertising strategy, it is important to recognise the platform as visual-first and to have three essential elements in place for the holidays. 

Understand your audience

Before any marketing efforts can take shape, it is vital to understand and know the target audience and their needs and wants. This means evaluating demographic and geological data to understand what the target customer persona is. For instance, is the brand followed more closely by females or males, what is the main age group range, and in which part of the world are they mainly located? This data can then be evaluated further to understand what type of content is preferable for the target audience, using relevant company and industry insights. For instance, 98.8% of users access social media via a mobile device. This means that any content must be suitable for mobile viewing. Another interesting point is that 40% of users consume social media with sound off, so be sure to include captions. 

Create a holiday Instagram advertising strategy

A successful holiday advertising strategy will then need to have clear objectives and an outlined strategy as to achieve the overall campaign targets. While the overall target for a holiday campaign might be to drive sales and conversions, the initial objective will be to raise awareness or generating qualified leads. Once the objectives are clarified, key performance indicators (KPIs) can be used to set realistic and measurable campaign goals and outcomes for the campaign. When it comes to Instagram, a successful holiday advertising strategy will implement both organic and paid tactics to actively engage audiences and achieve chosen targets.

Prepare your creative assets

Once an informed and measurable strategy is in place, begin preparing the creative assets for the campaign by listing what will be needed for the different moving parts. The number of assets will be dependent on the number of social media posts which are planned to be published across the duration of the campaign, as businesses will need to find the balance between holiday content and ongoing initiatives. Some creative asset ideas include:

• Cohesive holiday branding across all social posts
• Instagram stories and reels with links back to the product page on the website
• Holiday-themed video
• Carousel product photos and videos with a clear theme
• Teaser videos and posts with hints of discount or new product range

A strategic approach to paid advertising on Instagram ensures that the right content is in place to keep audiences engaged. Enabling businesses to garner attention and drive leads. When it comes to paid content for Instagram advertising, it is important to create a funnel which guides the target customers through the customer journey. To implement this, establish a viable timeline that can build up to the chosen holiday period. For instance, Instagram advertising should start with an awareness focus to introduce the target audience to the product or service. Encouraging engagement and visibility of the holiday offers. Then, as the timeline progresses, the focus of the paid content will shift to focus on driving conversions or sales. This could be by using remarketing ads, which allow you to reconnect with users who have already interacted with your brand, prompting consumers to take advantage of the offers available, or by running a consideration-focused ad which targets people that engaged with earlier ads.

Types of Instagram ads include:

• Image ads
• Stories ads
• Video ads
• Carousel ads
• Collection ads
• Explore ads
• IGTV ads
• Shopping ads
• Reels ads

• Ensure to tag items from the product page onto the relevant stories, reels, and posts, with themed CTA buttons
• Feature holiday-related products with the most appeal during the season, collating them into a special ‘holiday collection’ that provides customers with easy access to the storefront