Have you ever thought to sell on Instagram? Instagram that is part of the Facebook group, is one of the most used social media platforms in the world with its 1 billion monthly active users. 90% of them follow at least one business online. Moreover, this very visual platform has two-thirds of its users who are younger than 35 years old. That 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 started as an image platform then it allowed you to add videos. It also added the Instagram tv and now it has recently invented the reels that have been copied by other platforms. Lately, people’s online attention has been focused on videos. Therefore a platform like Instagram is very useful and attractive for businesses who want to sell goods because it is possible to reach a wide number of possible buyers and broadcast effective messages.

What are the benefits to sell on Instagram?

Therefore why should you sell on Instagram?

• Instagram is very visual and most of the information that we have in our life is visual. So our brain can process that information more easily and it will be easier to remember. Hence, 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 based on the interests of the audience.

• It is a very engaging platform therefore it is quite common that people comment and share information on posts or stories with tags and hashtags. Therefore your products could appear on the feeds or storylines of a wide volume of Instagram users.
• User Generated Contents are very valuable on Instagram so it can happen that people who 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 help them to buy your products.
• Brand awareness can reach very high peaks of volume and there are no borders in order to do so. For example, a European seller can find customers in the US as well. In this way, you will 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 your answers are all positive then you can sell on Instagram.

Things to consider when you sell on Instagram:

Firstly, you need to have an Instagram business account and you have to write a short bio about your store. You need to add the URL of your website, the email, and the contact number. Possibly use some branded hashtag to help people finding your account.

Then you need to connect your Instagram account to a Facebook catalog that you can create yourself or connect it to an existing one.

Once they are connected you can sign up on your Instagram settings for shopping.

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 therefore you can cross-sell very easily.

Have a look at your Shopping insights to check how your post and stories perform. You can understand what your customers prefer and therefore you can propose more relevant products to your audience.

What can I sell on Instagram ?

As mentioned above, you can sell physical goods but you cannot sell all the physical goods. It is obvious that you cannot sell certain items but some can be less intuitive. For example, you cannot sell any weapon, nor animals and body parts (obviously). It is important to read the full list of the prohibited items before starting to sell on Instagram.

Running ads on Instagram

There is even an other way to sell on Instagram. You can run ads on Instagram via its feeds and stories. This is very helpful if you want to push your products and store. The prices are very convenient, better than google ads, and you can reach people that do not know your brand yet.
And especially, you can have an amazing ROI if you do them well.
You can have ads on photos, videos, stories, carousel, explore and collections.
Moreover, they will help you with brand awareness and your organic posts will have a wider engagement and benefit.

Cost of the ads on Instagram

The CPC can be particularly low, even less than 1$. The CPM can be as low as 3$, therefore even lower than Facebook.
Those are extremely good numbers in advertising but, obviously, they can be affected by some factors that can influence the final cost. If you want to reach great performances you need to make the 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 all the way down to the funnel therefore it is more difficult to be reached.

A broader audience can be more interested in knowing better your brand than a specific audience that has to pay to let you 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. It takes longer to abandon the learning phase and optimize your campaign if you set a small budget.

The CTR is very important as well. If it is at least over 2% you can have low costs. In order to have that result, you need to prepare an ad that is suitable for your audience so you will have higher chances to convert and get a CTR 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 did not convert, you have more chances to get conversions.

Instagram algorithm is very smart therefore the 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 have a small fee for your sales on Instagram but you need to spend money to make money.
• You do not need any followers to sell on Instagram! Although, if you had at least 10000 you could 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 and, moreover, you can have the access to have strategic Insights section to view impressions, reach, website clicks, and follower activity.
• Advise your customers they can shop from your business account and remember to add the contents with more tagged products to capture multiple interests around your audience.
• You can schedule your posts. There are very good 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 because they help for brand awareness and conversions. The influencers can help you to make a giveaway very successful and, more in general, to create an amazing buzz about your brand and store.
• Also, have some live sessions with your audience. They are free and you can have video meeting hosting even thousands of people. They will know more about you, your brand and your products. It is a fantastic way to generate a genuine engagement and let your customers trust you in order 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 session to witness their amazing experience with your brand.

Why selling on Instagram with Koongo is beneficial?

Here is the moment Koongo can help you with selling products on the Instagram marketplace.
Koongo uses a simple CSV product feed to be connected with your Instagram shopping.
In this way, Koongo is able to upload merchant products from your store to your Instagram catalog and update the stock information on a regular basis. Therefore in this way you do not risk being out of stock and the information is always updated with an unbeatable update frequency.

As you may know, Koongo is offering 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, CCV Shop to any 3rd party Custom Platform. You just need to sign up to check how Koongo is capable to boost your sales. There’s no risk associated, 30 days Free Trial period is available.

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

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