Have you created an Instagram ad yet for the holiday season? If not, now’s the time to get started! Just because you’re a small business owner with a small advertising budget, doesn’t mean that you can’t create a successful ad campaign for the holiday season.

Advertising on Instagram – even with a small amount invested – can go a long way and offer great return on investment for small businesses this holiday season. With over 1 billion total active Instagram users each month and a potential advertising reach of 928 million users, small businesses definitely don’t want to miss out on the opportunity to reach new customers and drive sales this holiday season by testing out Instagram ads.

So, are you ready to create your first Instagram ad for the 2020 holiday season? It’s easy to do, and you don’t even need an Instagram account to create Instagram ads. Simply head to Facebook and log into your Ads Manager, then select Instagram as a placement. And to help you get the best ROI for your Instagram ad campaign, we’ve put together our top seven tips to successfully create your first holiday Instagram ad.

1. Create Engaging Visuals

The most engaging type of visuals for Instagram ads is definitely video content. Small businesses who invest in video content for Instagram ads will get the best ROI – 70% of marketers reported more conversions with marketing videos than any other type of content. Luckily, creating new, custom video content doesn’t need to be expensive or complicated – simply download Boosted, the video making app with ready-to-go templates, stock videos and more for professional marketing videos in just a few minutes.

Here’s an example of the type of holiday content you can create using Boosted:

2. Include Text Overlays

Did you know that 85% of videos on Facebook and Instagram are watched with the sound off? In order to ensure that your Instagram video ads are even more engaging, include text captions in your video content to make it easy for your customers to watch the ad and still absorb all of the info with or without the sound.

3. A/B Test The Content

Once you’ve created a few high-quality marketing videos to use for your Instagram ads this holiday season, be sure to test out more than one piece of content for your ads. To do a proper A/B test, only change one element of the ad at a time – for example, try the same copy with different videos. Learn more about creating A/B tests in Facebook Ads Manager here.

4. Create a Strong CTA

Having high-quality and engaging visuals aren’t enough to create a truly successful ad – possibly the most important thing to include in your Instagram ads this holiday season is a strong CTA. Make it clear exactly what you want the customer to do after watching your ad and how they can do it.

5. Target the Right Audiences

Another super important tip when creating your first Instagram ad is to consider exactly who would like to advertise to. Once you have an idea of your target audience, be sure to create a custom audience segment in Ads Manager to ensure Instagram will show your ads to the right people.

6. Avoid The Actual Holidays

In order to see the best ROI with your holiday-themed Instagram ads, you should avoid advertising on the actual holiday. Why? Many larger companies (with much larger ad spends!) will pay to promote their holiday sales on the actual holidays which means a much higher cost per view. Instead, try to increase your ad spend before and after the holidays to see a higher return.

7. Monitor the Analytics

Last but not least, do not make the mistake of creating an Instagram ad campaign and forgetting to check on it! Once you’ve created your Instagram ads, it’s important to log back in and monitor the ad analytics to see how your holiday Instagram ads are performing. If one of the ads isn’t performing well, consider pausing that ad and increasing the spend of an ad that is doing better. Learn more about monitoring Instagram ad analytics here.

We hope these 7 easy tips will help you successfully create your first Instagram ad of the holiday season! And even if you are only able to invest a small budget on Instagram ads this year, follow these tips to create Instagram ads with the best ROI for your small business and drive more sales this holiday season.