As the fourth most-used social platform, Instagram is a goldmine for businesses of all scales. With millions of monthly active users, Instagram is a powerful channel for raising brand awareness and generating sales.
Nearly 80% of marketers have used Instagram as their campaign channel. They agreed that Instagram has helped them reach billions of potential buyers within a click away. Along with that, the exposure from Instagram also increased their website traffic
Leveraging Instagram ads is a great way to broaden your reach. Still, it is challenging as millions of brands do the same thing. To help you stay competitive, we’ve prepared 12 Instagram video ad tips to use in 2025. Read on to explore more!
What are Instagram Video Ads?
Nine out of ten Instagram users watch videos on the platform weekly. Businesses have grasped this opportunity since a while ago. That’s why you may see many video ads on the platform as you keep scrolling.
Instagram video ads are promotional content in the form of videos. You can launch a high-quality explainer video, product demo, teaser, etc. Even though Instagram offers both image and video ads, the latter is more powerful in influencing audiences.
Moreover, there are many types of video ads to choose from based on your needs. You can create video ads on Instagram stories, reels, or feed posts. Each has its specific video dimension, which you can explore more in the next discussion.
Nonetheless, whether you run a small business or a large enterprise, Instagram is a social platform to explore. Moreover, you can explore Instagram insights to find out comprehensive results of your ads.
Further Reading: Instagram Insights: 10 Things to Learn from Them to Improve Your Marketing
How Significant are Instagram Video Ads in 2025?
With various social platforms available, what makes Instagram stand out from the others? As the second most-installed social app globally, Instagram has great potential and abilities to grow your business.
Preferable by Younger Generations
If your business aims to target Gen Z, seek no further than Instagram. A little more than 30% of Instagram users are aged between 18 and 24. Millennials aged 25 to 34 are only slightly larger comprising of almost 32% of Instagram users.
Raise Brand Awareness
Expanding your businesses without raising brand awareness is nearly impossible. And Instagram can help you boost brand awareness.
58% of its users state that they want to learn more about a brand after seeing it in a story. Moreover, one in two people discovers new brands through Instagram.
Sales Generator
Instagram has shoppable features that allow businesses to sell products directly on the platform. Interestingly 44% of users use the platform to shop weekly. Its shopping tags have taken a great role in driving people to purchase.
Better than Facebook
In terms of advertising reach, Instagram outpaced its forerunner, Facebook. The big blue could only increase its advertising reach by 6.5% this year. On the flip side, Instagram’s extended by 20.5%.
12 Instagram Video Ad Tips for 2025
In the competitive nature of Instagram, your video ads must be engaging and attractive to pull in prospects and customers. The following discussions can make the journey less challenging for you.
We’ve pieced together 12 Instagram video ad tips to try in 2025. Keep scrolling to explore some best practices to help you get a fruitful year.
1. Specify Your Target Audience
First and foremost, you need to specify and understand your target audience. Instagram is best for targeting younger groups, but you need to identify what kind of video content they love.
Running audience segmentation by demographic and psychographic aspects can be helpful for you in making decisions. Besides, look over your competitors and study their video content. You can learn many things from them.
Instagram also has interactive features where you can ask audiences directly. You can ask for their preferences using Q&A or post-polling. The more personalized your video ad, the better it will influence audiences.
2. Identify Your Goals with Instagram Advertising
Before launching your Instagram video ads, define the goals you want to achieve. It’s essential to keep you moving and help you track progress. Unclear advertising objectives will only lead you to nowhere.
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Instagram advertisers mainly use the platform to achieve four business goals, which are:
- Brand awareness: You want your ads to reach as many users as possible and make them remember your brand. Story ads are the most suitable to achieve this goal.
- Video views: You target relevant audiences to see your ads as they are likely to stay longer to get the messages you deliver. You can try reel ads for optimum results if you want higher video views.
- Traffic: You want viewers to visit your landing page after watching your ads, resulting in busier traffic rates. Story ads help achieve the goal as users can click on a link or swipe your post.
- Conversion: If you want to generate higher sales, conversion should be your main objective. Shoppable ad posts can bring advantages to pull in customers.
Instagram can also help you grow your email lists. You can put a form link on your profile bio or posts to expand your leads. Therefore, you get a higher chance of closing more deals.
Further Reading: Instagram Shopping Features: A Step-by-Step Guide to Starting and Growing Your Online Store on Instagram
3. Choose the Right Dimension and Ad Type
Generally, Instagram accepts various video dimensions. However, the basic dimensions for video ads on Instagram are square (1:1), portrait (4:5), vertical (9:6), and landscape (16:9). Additionally, use MP4 or MOV file format to save your videos.
You can refer to some points below in choosing the right ad type for your Instagram marketing:
Instagram Story Ads
Ratio: 9:16.
Resolution:1080 x 1920 pixels.
Video length: up to 2 minutes.
Instagram Reels Ads
Ratio: 9:16.
Resolution: 1080 x 1920 pixels.
Video length: up to 60 seconds.
Carousel Video Ads
Ratio: 1:1.
Resolution: 1080 x 1080 pixels.
Video length: maximum duration of 60 seconds.
In-feed Video Ads
Ratio: 4:5.
Resolution: 1080 x 1080 pixels
Video length: maximum duration of 2 minutes.
Instagram Shop Ads
Resolution: 1080 x 1080 pixels.
File format: MP4, MOV, JPG, or PNG.
Video length: 1 – 120 seconds.
Moreover, it’s best to keep your video size below 4GB as it is the maximum video size allowed by Instagram. The bigger your video size, the longer it will take to upload.
4. Optimize Instagram Video Settings
It’s necessary to make Instagram rate your video ads as high quality. It’s one of the factors to make your video ads appear more often to users. To pull it off, you should optimize your video settings.
Optimizing video ads deal with video size, resolution, format, and settings. It’s best to follow Instagram’s guide for video resolutions. Also, avoid having black bars on the screen, as it can downgrade your video.
You can create MP4 or MOV, which are both the most preferred on any social platform. Other technical recommendations are fixed frame rate, progressive scan, and audio compression at 128kbps.
5. Make Your Ad Seem Less like an Ad
While hard-selling practices are becoming irrelevant, you should avoid over-promotional content to engage audiences. Creating valuable content is the only way to get the audience’s attention from the get-go.
You can create a funny or emotional beginning. Another option is to go straightforwardly by pinpointing audiences’ problems and offering solutions to your product. It can be challenging for you, so creativity costs a lot to achieve this goal.
Instagram video ads last no longer than two minutes. Some video examples to try include product demos, animation videos, tutorials, comparisons, try-on, and reviews. You can create other types of video advertising suitable for your business.
Further Reading: How to Sell on Instagram: A Beginner’s Guide
6. Make the First Few Seconds Count
While it’s important to make your video ads not too promotional, it’s also vital to deliver the main message from the get-go. You can also mention your brand or product in the first few seconds.
Short Instagram video ads are preferable by audiences. Besides, they are more significant in increasing brand awareness than long video ads.
A Facebook report reveals that the first three seconds of a video ad are the most effective for mentioning a brand name. 23% of users will more likely remember brands if they mention themselves within the first three to four seconds of video ads.
7. Create a Story-Driven Video Script
Story-driven videos are better than promotional videos. You can get better engagement and drive audiences to follow your video until its last bit. Therefore, you can get optimum results out of it.
There are many ways of creating an engaging video script. You can start by pinpointing audience problems and offering solutions to your products. This plot allows you to make the first few seconds count wisely.
Another way you can create a driving video script is by creating a funny story. Approaching audiences and prospects with humor is a great way to convert them into paying buyers. You can leave a better impression and build stronger relationships with them to gain long-term benefits.
8. Add On-Screen Text Wisely
On-screen texts are important to give a better explanation to viewers. It can be typography, text animation, or subtitles at the below part of your videos.
If you use typography on your video, make sure not to go overboard with it. Your product or service is the main character of your video ad, so ensure that the texts don’t overlap with the product picture.
As for subtitles, it’s better to include them in your video. Video ads with subtitles can reach more audiences and improve view and engagement rates. People can still watch and understand your ads even without sounds.
9. Add a Clear CTA in the Middle
The middle of a video ad is the optimal time to place a clear CTA. You can state what action your audiences should take upon watching your video ad.
A CTA in the middle of an Instagram video ad catches interested viewers immediately. It’s the moment where the peak of engagement is most likely to happen. So, a CTA will encourage them to take action immediately.
Moreover, a study finds that mid-roll CTAs drive higher conversion rates, as many as 16.95%. On the flip side, CTAs at the end or beginning of video ads only result in 10.98% and 3.15% conversion rates, respectively.
Placing CTAs too early will only scare the audience away, leading them to skip your ads. Meanwhile, CTAs at the end of the video may miss the moment to capture prospects.
10. Write Compelling and Actionable Captions
Captions are vital if you’re launching in-feed Instagram ads. Even though Instagram provides 2,200 characters for a caption for your ad, you don’t have to use them all.
Make your captions crisp and compelling and consist of valuable and actionable sentences. You can provide essential information or mention some deals to pull in customers.
Bring the most vital messages to the first two rows of your captions, including a CTA. The first two rows of your caption will be displayed, while the rest will be cut off by the “read more” button.
11. Leverage Instagram Shoppable Features
As a marketer, you need to know to leverage Instagram to the fullest. If your goal is to get high conversion rates, then seek no further than shoppable posts. It allows prospects to purchase within a click away.
It’s been a while since Instagram launched the shoppable feature on its platform. You can use it for in-feed video ads, story ads, or carousel ads. Instagram’s shopping feature works for any post.
Shoppable posts facilitate audiences to get a pleasant experience. They can know the price of a product they’re eyeing just by a click on their screen. In fact, 44% of Instagram users shop weekly on the platform.
Further Reading: Instagram Shopping Features: A Step-by-Step Guide to Starting and Growing Your Online Store on Instagram
12. Test Your Ad
To find out which video ads drive the most results, you should run an A/B test. You can create multiple video ads and track which generates the highest reach, engagement, and conversion rates.
You can try Insta Story ads, in-feed ads, or carousel ads and run an experiment with them. However, you can also make one-type ads but differ in caption copies, CTA, or video content. Which strategy to choose is always back to your brand and target audiences.
Further Reading: The Ultimate Guide to Instagram Analytics and How They Can Help Your Business
Wrapping Up
Instagram will remain one of the top social media marketing channels in 2025. With millions of monthly active users, you can reach more audiences, gather more prospects, and attract more customers.
The above points on video ad tips on Instagram can come in handy if you want to jump into the platform. As Instagram is a visual-based social platform, producing high-quality visuals is of the utmost importance for your video ads.
Author Bio
Andre Oentoro is the founder of Breadnbeyond, an award-winning explainer video production company. He helps businesses increase conversion rates, close more sales, and get positive ROI from explainer videos (in that order).
Hero photo by Eleni Afiontzi on Unsplash
