8 Instagram Case Studies of e-commerce brands for inspiration

We bring to you a list of Instagram Case studies of 8 e-commerce brands that have benefited from the use of the app in their marketing strategies.

Instagram introduced Instagram Stories in 2016 and with, over 250 Million regular active user base, it is a great tool for businesses. E-commerce brands using it can not only expect to increase engagement but also a rise in sales. Use of Instagram Stories can help in driving brand and product awareness. It is great for sharing tips and tutorials as well.

These Instagram case studies include examples of brands that have achieved their objective, which includes targeting their audiences or increasing sales, all through the world's largest photo sharing platform.

We bring to you a list of Instagram Case studies of 8 e-commerce brands that have benefited from the use of the app in their marketing strategies.

1. Country Road

Country Road strategically targeted consumers with ads in Instagram Stories to generate buzz for its latest offering, Capsule—a limited range of premium fashion apparel—reaching a larger audience and increasing its return on ad spend.

The Australian retailer took a holistic approach to advertising on Instagram, including using ads in Stories, as well as link carousel and video ads across Instagram and Facebook, to reach fashion-conscious consumers.

Capitalizing on the immersive nature of ads in Stories, Country Road used cinemagraphs, boomerangs and GIF like videos to spark interest and engagement. Country Road then targeted its ads in Stories to existing women customers in Australia and New Zealand using Custom Audiences. The apparel maker also widened its potential audience by targeting lookalike audiences of high value customers.

With this approach, Country Road achieved 18X return on ad spend for an average website purchase, reached more people, and garnered more video views in a cost-effective way.

2. MENLOOK

Menlook, the innovative French men’s fashion app used stylized photos and Instagram targeting to re-launch with a series of hyper-cool mobile app install ads. To increase mobile app installs and conversions, it used rich, stylish photos which it created specifically for Instagram.

By combining slick, editorialised choice of images with targeting including male, 18-44, with an interest in similar brands, Lookalike Audiences and Custom Audiences, Menlook was able to achieve a 3.5pt lift on return on investment, and a 4% decrease in cost per install.

3. Wine

Established in 2008, Wine’s mission is to promote the consumption of wine in Brazil. The goal of the brand was to increase Instagram revenues by 15%, boost brand recognition and reach new people.

After realizing that the number of people who use Instagram Stories in Brazil continues to grow, Wine’s marketing team designed a campaign made especially for this format. For targeting, the company created a lookalike audience of consumers who had already purchased at the website through Instagram, allowing it to reach new people who were similar to existing customers.

Over 7 days, the company worked with three different types of creative content tailor-made for the Instagram Stories format, featuring wines already belonging to Wine’s winter promotion. The brand used “Buy Now” as a call-to-action button to take interested consumers to the website and increase potential purchases.

In just one week, the Stories campaign accounted for sales of more than 500 bottles of wine, and increased Wine’s Instagram revenues by 67 percent over the previous month: 4X above the established target.

4. Vitaly

Lifestyle fashion brand Vitaly used dynamic ads on Instagram to re-engage with people who had visited its website or added a product to the online shopping cart without making a purchase. The Toronto-based fashion brand wanted to drive conversions amongst shoppers who had already visited the Vitaly website but had yet to make a purchase.

Vitaly knew that engaging with lapsed customers was key to growing its business. So, the team developed an ongoing re-targeting campaign to keep people coming back to the site.

The campaign was developed with an Instagram-first approach and used dynamic ads to reach people with the products they’re already interested in. Dynamic ads use the Facebook pixel to automatically populate ads with the products that people have previously interacted with on the advertiser’s website.

This Instagram-first strategy proved fruitful for the brand. Its ongoing retargeting campaign has reached more than 243,000 people and successfully achieved a 3.9X return on ad spend.

5. Stance Socks

Stance Socks used playful movie imagery and creative captions to make its Star Wars character footwear come to life in a series of Instagram carousel and link ads. The memorable campaign engaged thousands of people and boosted the brand’s online sales and return on ad spend. The intension was to increase the sales in the holiday period.

After noticing that its Instagram ads were outperforming all other ad placement types in its Star Wars collection launch campaign, Stance decided to create a dedicated ad set to maximize ad spend for this placement, and build on Instagram’s unique visual nature and strong targeting capabilities.

To reach the desired audience, the team targeted the ads to adults whose interests include the Star Wars movies, but excluded those interested only in specific Star Wars characters. Stance ran the ads over 14 days during the height of the holiday shopping season.

The Sock Wars campaign took hold with movie fans and footwear fanatics alike, boosting Stance’s return on ad spend by an impressive 36 percent.

6. Dobra

Dobra used the Facebook pixel to track purchases on its website and reach people on Instagram who had shown interest in one of its catalog products, but had not completed the sale.

Using dynamic ads, the company showed an exact mockup of what the customer had added to the cart, increasing identification with the ad and the possibilities of conversion through personalized advertising.

For the creative format, the company chose to invest in Carousel Ads, using images presenting the product in a highly visual manner. In the text, the message was summarized with short, direct sentences. The idea was to quickly convey Dobra’s concept in just a few lines, bringing people back to the website to finalize the purchase.

The strategy proved effective for Dobra, which saw a 30X return on its Instagram investment and a 32% decrease in its shopping cart recovery cost. In all, Instagram accounted for 25 percent of the total sales of the company’s remarketing campaign.

7. SA Company

Lifestyle brand SA Company used carousel ads to reach new and existing customers, successfully increasing website visits and its return on ad spend.

To drive more targeted traffic to its website for higher conversions, SA Company used Custom Audiences, which were built from contest signups. It also created lookalike audiences based on various Custom Audiences to target the ads to prospective customers who were most likely to buy.

The company also focused on audiences with the highest click-through rates. Based on what it had learned from past Instagram and Facbeook ad campaigns, these audiences were men aged 18–35 living on the East Coast.

The brand also tested and measured the campaigns to glean insights that allowed it to better understand its audience, helping it to achieve a 2.74X return on ad spend.

8. Yoox

This leading Italian luxury ecommerce business became one of the first brands to launch a stylish advertising campaign with Instagram Stories.

YOOX is no stranger to innovation and bold decisions, having been one of the pioneering online retail sites. And it showed the same attention to detail and commitment to new technology by becoming one of the first brands to create video ads for Instagram Stories.

For this campaign, YOOX adapted an existing TV spot into a video targeted to men and women aged 25–44 with an interest in fashion and shopping. The video catered to a broad range of tastes while showcasing the YOOX website as an unmissable destination for fashion, art and design lovers.

Yoox's campaign led to a 11-point increase in ad recall and 6-point increase in brand awareness.

These Instagram Case Studies will help brands and agencies understand how the platform can be used for various objectives in relevance to the nature of the brand.