3 Reasons Why Redirecting Ad Clicks to Instagram is a WASTE of Money

There are many ways to run a Facebook or Instagram ad, many goals you can set, and many different directions you can send your potential customers.

"But like everything, not all ads are created equal. And not all ad redirects are going to be the best option for your bottom line or long-term goals."

In this edition of Optimised Digital’s Scale Up Series, we’re looking at (what we can assume is) an organic Instagram post boosted as an ad. This is a common tactic by many small businesses for running ads, so we’re breaking down the creative and copy to give feedback on how you can best optimise boosted posts, should you choose to go down that route.

Especially when it comes to your final call-to-action and ad clickthroughs.

1. Social ad redirects are a short-term goal

The first thing we can tell from this ad is that the final CTA is to drive traffic to their Instagram page, with the ultimate goal presumed to be to boost engagement and traffic (likes, comments, followers, etc).

There are a few reasons why driving Instagram landing page traffic, rather than sending traffic to your own webpage, isn’t a great ads strategy, not to mention won’t result in the best return for your ad spend.

Something we advise against (and rarely like to do ourselves) is using paid advertising to build your following on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, or whatever social platform it is. Not only can spending money to boost your engagement be flagged by the algorithm and have the potential for your ad to be taken down, but it’s also driving traffic that you are paying for, to a platform that you don’t own.

"One of the key goals of paid advertising should be to accumulate potential customers and/or clients whom you can nurture and remarket to, whose data you own." 

If you can grow your email list, that is your asset for the long term. It’s something you can take with you anywhere, so even if something happens to the email platform you use, those email addresses are still yours.

Unless you are working on a fast project or a short-term goal trying to make something go viral and happen quite quickly (which is nearly impossible), we advise against social ad redirects. The only way this COULD work is if it was part of a longer-term retargeting strategy (more on that below).

And if growing your Instagram followers with paid ads IS your strategy, then it’s time to review it completely:

1. Use your money wisely by capturing data that you own for the long term.
2. Drive potential customers and clients to your own platform (rather than a social media profile).
3. You can then use this data to grow your Instagram following down the track (if this is your longer-term goal).

2. Boosted posts can do more harm than good

Don’t get us wrong; there is nothing wrong with boosting an organic Instagram post to use as an ad. Especially if you know it has performed well in the past.

The problem is that boosted ads have not been set up with the same goals to convert as standalone ads. This is why we so often see small businesses and digital content creators losing money on paid advertising and believing that their ads don’t work.

"It’s not that Meta ads don’t work. It’s that your organic content, and ultimately your boosted posts, are not designed to convert in the same way that paid ads do."  

Take the above example. While this content may have performed well to drive engagement as an organic post, as a paid ad it lacks the typical features we’d want to see in the headline, copy, creative, and CTA to make it stand out against the crowd.

And not only that, but it uses hashtags. Which is a big no when it comes to paid advertising.

Hashtags link back to similar posts, which means you are giving people a reason not to click on your CTA. So not only are you paying for an under-performing ad, but you’re also paying for an ad that has several calls to action, diluting your messaging.

This is why separate ads can perform better than boosted organics posts:

1. You can still use your best-performing organic content to help drive ad content and ideas.
2. Make sure you have a clear CTA and direction in the post (that might not have been as clear as an organic post).
3. Remove distractions like hashtags and other links.

3. Your ads strategy needs to do more than just build Instagram profile visits

As we touched on earlier, one of your key goals for any paid ad is to drive potential customers/clients from Facebook or Instagram, and onto your platform so you can capture their valuable data.

This is why your ads strategy needs to do more than just build Instagram profile visits and engagement (such as double-tapping for likes).

"Your copy, creative, and CTA should all link toward who you are, what you are offering, and what you want your audience to do."

The one way boosting a post like this could work is if it was part of a longer strategy. While the short-term goal may be to drive visitors to your Instagram, the long-term goal is then to use those visitors to build a retargeted audience. So anyone who engaged with a post or visited the page could be sent through to your landing page, either with something small to purchase or a free value offer.

However, this can already be achieved by retargeting website visitors while cutting out the middleman of your social platform, so there are definitely more efficient ways to make more conversions from your ad spend (without having to run two ad campaigns).

When planning your ads strategy, think about:

1. What your long-term goals are.
2. What your timeframe and budget is.
3. How your ads can best serve both your parameters and goals.

Running paid ads shouldn’t just be about trying everything until something sticks. To get the most out of your valuable ad spend you should have a goal in place that links to your larger lead generation strategy of nurturing and conversion.

For more Meta ad tips and tricks, make sure you subscribe to our newsletter and keep an eye out for our next edition of the Scale Up Series.