What Happens When You Spend $100 Promoting an Instagram Post (Experiment)

I am not a financial expert, but I know $100 can get you a lot. For example: $100 can buy you a pair of jeans that your mom thinks are too expensive, or a hundred chewing gums. Or it could buy you some serious Instagram reach.

Promoted posts are one of the many options for advertising on Instagram. You want eyeballs, they want your money, it’s the perfect storm. You just need to set your budget, choose your target audience, and Instagram will deliver your chosen post directly to their feeds.

This is an advertising option that is usually advertised as an inexpensive way to get more subscribers and reach new audiences. After all, even by spending $25, you can allegedly attract an audience of thousands.

But it seems too simple, doesn’t it? Like the Sex and the City superframe, I couldn’t help but wonder: Does promoting an Instagram post really cost money?

Hypothesis: Increasing the number of Instagram posts will improve reach and help you gain more followers

Boost is an easy way to increase the reach of an Instagram post. Of course, you can sit back and wait for the Instagram algorithm to deliver your cute photos to your followers, or use Instagram hashtags to make yourself known. But there’s also a very simple way to achieve in-app reach: just give Instagram your cash.

I think it’s safe to assume that yes, buying my post promotion will reach an audience beyond my existing followers. After all, Instagram is a professional and highly successful brand that relies on effective advertising to function as a business, so it’s in its best interest to deliver on its promise of engagement. There is no reason to think that they will just take my money and run away.

Theoretically, the boost will also generate new followers for my account. But obviously Instagram can’t make promises and users will do what users do. (Obviously, I read about it somewhere in the terms and conditions.)

With these assumptions in mind, and with $100 burning a hole in my pocket, I set to work.

Methodology

Step one: I had to choose exactly which post I would promote.

My Instagram account these days is mostly made up of pictures of my newborn because I really lean towards calling myself a “disappointed millennial mom.”But as much as I thought my baby photo could compete with Ann Geddes for her money, I didn’t quite feel like boosting one of those shots would inspire strangers to hit the subscribe button.

Instead, I decided to post a digital illustration I made a few months ago and upscale it.

It had some success at the time (with supportive comments like “​I wish all those ducks were best friends!!!!”and “one of them is a chicken”), so there was reason to believe that not friends might be I wonder if it would show up in their feed.

Also, I reasoned, by repeating the content, I would be able to see the exact difference between a non-promoted post and a promoted post.

I posted my drawing of a duck and invested $100 (well, technically, CAD 75) in the promotion. I did it directly through the app.

I decided to run a promo for five days, targeting an audience similar to my existing subscribers.

My goal was to encourage profile visits that I hope will lead to new followers.

When the five days were up, I managed to take a break from my latest baby photoshoot (the topic? “Being adorable while sleeping”) to analyze the results and see if that $100 was worth it.

Results

TL;DR: The boost helped my message spread much further, but the conversion rate was not high. And—not to regret it—I blame myself.

After spending $100 on promotion, thousands of new people saw my post: 7447 to be exact. But… only 203 users viewed my ad. Of these visitors, only 10 became new subscribers.

Of course, it was still a huge leap from the original version I posted back in January. Other engagement metrics (like “Like”and “Save”) were also higher with my boosted post.

I would be offended by this terrible return on investment, but it is clear to me that the problem was not the amount of money I spent, but my maintenance.

To be honest with myself, it makes perfect sense that strangers wouldn’t be forced to follow a feed of mostly newborn photos and invitations to impromptu shows. In fact, they may even have been confused to find themselves looking at this kind of content after I lured them in with a stupid bird drawing.

In fact, my $100 gave me a really great opportunity to perform in front of a hyper-specific audience, and I missed it. I had to use an image that would better reflect the essence of my “brand”. I also had to take the time to write a compelling caption or call to action that would encourage people to click to see more.

But that doesn’t mean the money was wasted: I’ve learned at least $100 worth of lessons about using Instagram’s boost feature effectively.

What do the results mean?

Enjoy my newfound wisdom!

Boosting is a hack to hack the Instagram algorithm

While Instagram has brought back the timeline as an option, the app experience is driven by Instagram’s algorithm by default. If your content doesn’t fit the complex set of options to display at the top of a subscriber’s news feed, it may be skipped altogether. By investing some money in a raise, at least you can guarantee that some people will see it.

Of course, if you’re on a tight budget, this isn’t always an option. So maybe it’s time to review our tips for getting your Instagram posts on the Explore page?

Quality content is still important

Even if you have a million dollars to spend on Instagram posts, even if you reach every person on the app, if you don’t have something compelling to share, you won’t be able to keep their attention.

All that can guarantee promotion is that people will see your post; it does not guarantee that they will like it. Put as much effort into creating engaging, enriching content for your paid posts as you do for free ones.

Need some inspiration? We’ve got 20 ideas to improve your Instagram experience right here.

Be accurate, authentic and consistent

I didn’t really intend to do a bait and switch with this experiment, but this is indeed what happened. My apologies to all the 200+ people who visited my account and were disappointed that it wasn’t just drawings of ducks.

If you’re going to promote a post, make sure it accurately reflects what the user is going to find when they click on it. It makes no sense to show an Instagram user an image that is not related to what they will actually experience when they follow you. The promoted post should be an authentic snapshot of who your brand or account is.

Specify your target audience

Reaching out to people is one thing; reaching the right people is another. Make sure you’re making the most of every dollar by honing your ideal audience for your brand as closely as possible. Do you want to target people in the same demographic as your current followers? Or do you dream of attracting a different type of audience?

Either way, dig into the details to help Instagram deliver your boosted post to the right channels.

If you need help identifying your target market, good news is we have a worksheet to help you find your dream audience right here.

Another exciting waste of money completed, another valuable lesson learned. If you’re itching to find out what else we’ll learn by putting your social media accounts on the line, go ahead and read about the rest of our experiments here.