Don't spend ad budget getting people to follow your brand. Spend it getting people to use the product. People follow a brand after the product has impressed them, so a follower bought first is someone you still have to convince, and you've already paid once.
A founder brought this to a mentoring call. They were running Meta ads on a small daily budget to grow the Instagram following of an early AI learning product, with the plan of turning followers into users later. In their words, nobody was getting there.
Followers come after the product, not before
Think about why anyone follows a company. They want product updates, or they want to know what the company is doing next. Both happen after they've tried it. Someone seeing a brand for the first time in an Instagram ad, with no idea what the product does, has little reason to follow.
The follower count also matters less to ad results than people expect. In our experience, most conversions happen on the ad itself: people see the creative and the call to action and act, without visiting the page. We cover why in page followers don't decide whether a Meta conversion ad works.
Our rough rule of thumb runs the other way: if 100 people use a product, maybe 10 to 15 will go and follow it on Instagram on their own. That's a ballpark, not a measured rate. It's enough to show where followers actually come from.
What to buy instead
For this founder, we opened Keyword Planner on the call and found people searching for the kind of bootcamp and course terms their product answered. So the suggestion was a Google Search campaign, not more follower ads:
- Split the campaign by persona. One ad group for sales roles, one for marketing roles, one for the generic terms.
- Add a promotion asset with a code. Google's promotion assets can show a monetary or percentage discount, carry a special code, and be scheduled for set dates, days or times. We suggested a deep discount, up to 100% off for a day or a weekend.
- Prefer a code over a free plan. Free sign-ups are often low intent. Someone who searched the right term, saw the offer and redeemed the code has shown real interest and isn't a bot.
Before copying this, check that people actually search for what you sell. If they don't, search ads won't create that demand for you.
If you still want followers
Some brands do need an audience on Instagram. In our view, that budget buys more as content than as ads: a content plan, a designer and a social media person posting regularly. Calculated per follower, that's usually the cheaper route, and the people it brings in chose to follow because of what they saw.
Then use paid social for what it does well. Once people have visited your site or tried the product, Meta is a good place to stay in front of them, as covered in using Meta for retargeting.
The takeaways
- Spend the ad budget getting people to use the product, not to follow the brand.
- People follow after they've been impressed. A bought follower still needs convincing.
- A small follower count rarely stops ads from converting. Most people act on the ad itself.
- A Google promotion asset with a discount code is one way to put the product in people's hands.
- If followers matter, grow them with organic content and let product users add to them.
Common questions
Should I run Instagram ads to get followers for a new product?
We wouldn't. Followers rarely come before people have tried the product, so the budget buys an audience that still has to be convinced. Spend it on getting people to use the product, and grow the following with organic content alongside.
Do I need a lot of followers before Meta ads will work?
In our experience, no. Most people act on the ad itself and never visit the page. We cover why in our piece on page followers and Meta conversion ads.
How many users end up following a brand?
There's no platform figure for this. Our rough rule of thumb is that if 100 people use a product, maybe 10 to 15 will go and follow it on Instagram on their own. Treat it as a ballpark, not a benchmark.
What is a Google Ads promotion asset?
It's an asset that highlights a sale or offer on Search text ads, Shorts and in-stream video ads. You can show a monetary or percentage discount, add details such as a special code or a spending limit, and schedule it for specific dates, days of the week or times of day.