How do you run Instagram ads? 7 steps, from account to first sale

Short answer: to run Instagram ads, you need an Instagram professional account and a Meta ad account with a payment method. Then you create a campaign in Meta Ads Manager: pick a sales objective, set a daily budget, keep the audience broad, use Advantage+ placements and upload 3 to 5 creatives in 4:5 and 9:16. After launch, leave it alone for 7 days, because Meta's delivery needs about 50 results in a week to settle (Meta Business Help Center, About the learning phase).

This guide is the setup, click by click. It does not cover prices: our Instagram ads cost post has the numbers. It also does not plan which angles to test over a month; that is our Instagram ads strategy. Here you get from no ads to a first campaign that can sell.

What do you need before you run an Instagram ad?

You need four things in place before the first click in Ads Manager. Missing any of them stops the campaign at the review or the payment step.

What this means for a small brand: set up the pixel before you spend a dollar. A campaign that cannot see purchases can only optimize for clicks, and clicks are cheap for a reason.

Should you boost a post or use Ads Manager?

Boost a post when you want more people to see one post that already does well. Use Ads Manager when you want sales. A boost has fewer choices: you cannot pick a purchase goal, run several creatives against each other or split budgets.

One cost trap: Apple keeps a 30% service fee on boosts bought inside the iPhone Facebook and Instagram apps, and Meta says boosting from the Instagram.com or Facebook.com website avoids it (Meta for Business, February 15, 2024). If you boost, do it from a browser.

How do you set up an Instagram campaign in Ads Manager?

The 7 steps below take about 30 minutes the first time. Each step has one decision, and we give the default we would pick for a small online store.

Step 1: connect the accounts

In Meta Business Suite, add your Instagram account under Accounts, then the ad account and the pixel. Check that the Instagram account appears as the identity when you create an ad. If it does not, the ad runs from your Facebook Page name.

Step 2: pick the objective

Choose Sales if you sell online and the pixel sees purchases. Choose Traffic only when you have no pixel yet, and treat that campaign as a test of the creative, not of sales.

Step 3: set the budget

Work back from your cost per sale. Meta's delivery needs about 50 optimization events in 7 days to leave the learning phase. If one sale costs you $25, 50 sales a week need about $180 a day. If that is too much, optimize for Add to cart first, which happens more often.

Meta does not publish one minimum budget. It says the floor depends on the bid strategy, the event and the currency, and with a cost per result goal the daily budget should be at least 5 times that goal (Meta Business Help Center, Best practices for minimum budgets).

Step 4: choose the audience

Set the country and the age range you really sell to, and leave the rest broad. On a small budget, a broad audience gives Meta more room to find buyers than narrow interests do.

Step 5: choose placements

Leave Advantage+ placements on. Meta then shows the ad in Feed, Stories, Reels and Explore, wherever it gets the cheapest results. Turn placements off only when you have no 9:16 version of the ad.

Step 6: upload creatives in two shapes

Upload each ad as a 4:5 and a 9:16 version. Name each ad by its angle ("price", "review", "problem"), so the report later tells you which idea won.

Step 7: launch and leave it

Publish, then do not edit for 7 days. Large edits to the budget, audience or ads can restart the learning phase, and the numbers from the first days jump around.

Which sizes should your Instagram ads use?

Use 4:5 for the feed and 9:16 for Stories and Reels. Meta's spec for an Instagram feed image is 4:5 at 1440 x 1800 pixels with a 40-character headline (Meta Ads Guide, Instagram Feed image, 2026). The Stories spec is 9:16 at 1440 x 2560 pixels, with about 14% at the top, 35% at the bottom and 6% at each side kept free of text (Meta Ads Guide, Instagram Stories image, 2026).

Mejuri, the jewelry brand, started all three shapes on the same day, September 2, 2026:

Try on my brand

Try on my brand

Try on my brand

The square ad is a catalog product shot. The 4:5 one is a creator's photo. The 9:16 one keeps the words "No missing pieces" and the logo in the middle of the frame, inside the Stories safe area. Check your own picture before you upload it:

What this means for a small brand: you do not need three shoots. Crop one photo three ways, and move the text into the middle for the 9:16 version. Our Reels safe zone checker shows what the buttons cover.

How many ads should you launch at once?

Launch 3 to 5 ads in one ad set, each with a different picture or a different idea. Fewer than 3 gives Meta too little to compare. More than 5 spreads a small budget so thin that most ads never get enough views to judge.

Olaplex shows what a clean test looks like. On October 8, 2026, it started at least 4 ads with the same text, "Gift healthy hair bestsellers", the same layout and the same shop button. Only the product and the claim on the picture change:

Try on my brand

Try on my brand

Try on my brand

When everything else stays the same, the report can tell you which product sells. If you change the text, the picture and the offer at once, a win tells you nothing you can repeat.

A small brand can test formats the same way. These four static ads, made by Selzee, are four different formats for four different products: a seasonal product shot, a meme, a phone call screen and a side-by-side comparison.

Try on my brand

Try on my brand

Try on my brand

Try on my brand

What should you check in the first 7 days?

Check that the ads deliver, not whether they are profitable yet. In the first week, read three things once a day and change nothing:

After day 7, turn off the ads that cost the most per result and keep the rest running. Put the money into the winner, then make 3 new ads like it. Our ad creative testing post covers how to read a test once the numbers settle. For what a click and 1,000 views usually cost on Instagram, see Instagram ads cost.

How Selzee runs Instagram ads

Selzee is an AI ad generator. It finds ads that are working for other brands right now and remakes them for your brand, with your products, logo and colors, in feed and Stories sizes. You approve the ones you like and publish them to Meta in one click, so step 6 above takes minutes. Every ad on this page carries a "Try on my brand" button. Our Instagram ad maker page shows the formats it makes. If you sell food, our food ads post shows 10 live examples.

How to run Instagram ads: FAQ