Retargeting is a marketing tool that allows you to show ads to those who have already seen your offer but haven't make a purchase.

In this article, we’ll reveal how to set up Instagram retargeting ads and share the best practices for retargeting advertising campaigns on Insta.

Types of Instagram Retargeting

Based on the audiences.

  • Website visitors

These users have already visited your website, so they're familiar with your brand. You can set up your retargeting campaign, so that they will see your ads on Instagram.

To catch site visitors, you need to create a pixel in Facebook Events Manager and install it on your site. With the pixel, you can track visitors to a specific page and/or people who put an order in the cart but don't complete the purchase.

  • Mobile app users

You can build up a database of people who have used your application or game and set up displaying ads on Instagram for them.

  • Customers lists

Use the Instagram customers list of those who have already made a purchase and make them a profitable offer. Thus, you’ll remind your customers of your brand.

  • Users who engage with your content

In Facebook Ads Manager, you can find them in the Use Facebook Sources section:

  1. Video: show ads to those who viewed your videos on Instagram.
  2. Instagram business profile: find users who interacted with your profile - visited it, texted you in DM, liked or viewed your posts.
  3. Lead generation form: collect a list of people who filled out or just opened the lead form by clicking on the advertisement.
  4. Instant Experience: this is a full-screen format for mobile ads in Stories and Instagram feed. This can be a promotional video, carousel photos, or images tagged with your product. It gathers an audience that has opened the ad on full screen and interacted with it.
  5. Shopping: an audience that interacted with shopping tags on Instagram.

Audiences for Instagram Retargeting: Who You Can Retarget

  1. You can show your Instagram ads to people already familiar with your advertising offer but whose actions didn't result in a conversion.

For example, they visited your site but did not buy anything.

2. People who made a purchase or made another conversion action — your customers.

You can show the ads to them to increase your profit by upselling. For example, you might offer a discount on a new purchase.

How to Create a Retargeting Audience for Instagram Ads

Let's take the website as your audience collecting source. The course of actions for other sources is the same.

  1. Open the Audiences section in Facebook Ads Manager.

2. Click Create Audience, then Custom Audience.

3. Select Website.

The list can include people who meet any specified criteria or all at once.

Also, in the settings, you can collect data from people who have visited certain pages of your site or collect a database based on the time spent on the site.

4. Name the audience, give it a description (optional) and click Create audience.

Finding an audience can take several minutes.

How To Create and Install Facebook Pixel on Instagram

A pixel is a unique HTML code that helps you collect information about site visitors.

  1. To create it, go to Facebook Events Manager in the Facebook Ads Manager menu: burger icon (three horizontal lines,) then Events Manager.

2. Click Connect data sources (green circle with a plus sign).

3. Select Web and click Connect.

4. Next to Facebook Pixel, click Create Pixel.

Ways to Install Facebook Pixel on Your Site

  1. Paste the code manually.

You can use integrations suitable for sites on WordPress, Wix, Shopify, Ecwid, OpenCart, and Magento; more than 30 integrations are available. With this solutions, you won't need to deal with the code.

2. Send instructions to your engineer or any tech-savvy co-worker.

And they will choose a convenient way to install the code.

You just need to copy the code and paste it into the site header before the closing </head> tag to set the pixel manually. The code is placed on all site pages or specific ones — it depends on what information you need to collect.

You can add special commands to the base code to track specific actions. Facebook Pixel can track the following events:

  • Billing information adding;
  • Adding a product to the wish list;
  • Adding a product to the cart;
  • Completed registration;
  • Contact - when the company established contact with the client, for example, per email.
  • Start of order - when the client has clicked the Check Out button. It helps track customers who have not completed the checkout process.
  • Lead;
  • Registration;
  • Purchase;
  • Trial period;
  • Search - search for a product or service on the site;
  • Viewing content - allows you to track a visit to a specific page but does not provide information on the actions performed on the page;

and much more!

Instagram Retargeting: Best Practices

How are retargeting campaigns different from regular ad campaigns?

  1. The main distinction is that retargeting ads are aimed at your audience that is already potentially interested in your offer. Audience that you use in the regular ad campaigns might have not even heard of you.

Thus, retargeting campaigns typically show a higher CTR and, therefore, cost less than regular ones.

2. When setting up a regular advertising campaign, you only guess and assume who your target audience is.

Retargeting means that we already know how to get closer to the client: offer them a promo code, a discount, etc.

3. You can start collecting data about your audience immediately after launching regular campaigns or after analysing the statistics of completed campaigns.

You can also gather your current customers’ data separately and retarget them with loyalty programs to get more sales.

4. In your ad creatives, use bonuses, promo codes, discounts, already-viewed products or those added to the cart, similar or related products.

Some other factors can be quite helpful, so consider adding these into your ad creative:

  • An intriguing headline that instantly draws the attention of your target audience
  • A countdown timer to the sale’s end or its end date to create a filing of limitation.
  • An engaging CTA.