Did you know it’s possible to stop relying on Instagram’s algorithm and create a bit of your own luck by using ads?

That’s right.

The limited reach creators have been experiencing on Instagram has been a hot topic online for the past several months.

I’ve personally seen accounts with hundreds of thousands of followers claiming they’re seeing hundreds of views instead of the tens of thousands they were seeing previously.

So instead of waiting on Instagram to push out our content, let’s make our own luck by using one simple ad campaign to reach thousands of new people every day.

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What we’re trying to replace

Instagram’s algorithm (and every algorithm, at that) is a testing ground for new content.

The most engaging and captivating content generally tends to win, while the less polished, poorer quality content tends to disappear into the abyss relatively quickly.

All this, of course, hinges on any given post being given a fair shake in the first place.

Because if no one sees it, it’s not really a fair test, is it?

It’s no mystery that Meta has been pushing toward a pay-to-play model for quite some time, so you’ll forgive me if I’m giving in to this a bit, but I do still believe cultivating an audience on Instagram is important.

And powerful.

So it’s a good idea to stay up to date on the current “rules of the game”.

Now, the fastest, free way to combat a lack of reach can be to simply create and post more organic content, to punch back even harder by outproducing everyone else.

But 99% of people don’t have that kind of time to waste away on Instagram every day.

Fortunately, for only a little bit of money, there’s a better way.

A more efficient way.

We can create our own algorithm of sorts, a place to test our content and ensure it gets a fair shake each and every time.

And we can use those results to further bolster our audience growth over time.

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Creating a reach campaign

The idea here is to use advertising to spread the word as far and as fast as possible.

To do this, we are going to start with the most basic option there is: a reach campaign.

To create a reach campaign, we’ll start with the Awareness campaign objective.

At the campaign level, we can turn on Advantage campaign budget and set our daily budget to $1.

Once we’re at the ad set level, we’ll select “Maximize reach of ads” from the dropdown.

After that, we’ll select our targeting.

I like to include the countries where I want to grow, narrow the age to my chosen demographic, and keep things open from there.

There are multiple options for this, of course.

If you feel like you’ve got a good handle on who you’re after and want to orient the campaign in that direction, feel free to include some detailed targeting.

If you have no clue who you’re after and want a completely unbiased dataset, keep everything open.

I prefer the unbiased method.

I’ve even been re-testing Meta’s Advantage+ audience feature with this setup, and I have to say, the results have actually been good.

I did set age limit suggestions here, and, even though it has once again ignored them, the results are largely in line with what I’m looking for.

And as you can see, I’ve reached over 15,000 people over the past two and a half days for less than $2.50.

Better than what my organic content has done on its own.

I’ll take it.

Back to our setup.

Select the Instagram placements you want to use (I like feed, reels, and/or stories) and move on to set up your ads.

Now it’s just a matter of testing videos at the ad level.

I wouldn’t recommend using more than three videos at a time here (we’re only spending $1 per day, after all), but you can cycle through them.

And there are a lot of ways to do this.

You can include videos up until a certain reach and then pull them, you can keep the winners going and cycle in new competition, or you can include videos for a set period of time and then turn them off.

You can upload videos only as ads or use organic content from your profile.

Both work.

If you want to get more complex than that and add a second ad set, you’ll need to increase your budget.

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Why I like this

What makes this setup so powerful, especially if you’re not using any detailed targeting options whatsoever, is that it is completely uncolored.

There is no behavior preference for any “type” of user when selecting the reach objective.

Simple, clean, unbiased.

Because I don’t want Meta to show my ads to a specific type of person here.

No, I want Meta to show my ads to every type of person, any type of person, and let them self-select with their attention.

If I select ad recall lift, Meta is going to optimize for people who will remember my content.

If I select a video view option, there’s a preference for people who consume video content over those who don’t.

But the point here isn’t just to get views or engagement.

I want to overload my Instagram account with attention so I can use that for retargeting and building lookalike audiences.

The right kind of attention.

By doing it this way, I’m allowing my audience to select themselves.

The people who enjoy what they see will opt in by giving my content their attention.

They will watch and even potentially engage.

The people who don’t enjoy it won’t do either.

Again, simple.

This setup basically allows us to fabricate an “algorithm” of sorts out of thin air.

We can ensure every video we create gets delivered to someone, and it allows us to receive feedback about what people enjoy from us and what they don’t.

The winners win and the losers lose.

And even better, we can create our own detailed targeting with custom audience creation over time, eliminating the guesswork when we create new ad campaigns in the future.

Win, win.

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