Solved: Reels vs. Stories: Where to Focus for Instagram Growth?

Hi there,

Thanks for reaching out about whether to focus on Reels or Stories to grow your Instagram account. It's a common question, but if I'm being brutally honest, it might be the wrong one to ask if your actual goal is to grow a business, not just an account.

Chasing views and "exposure" can feel productive, but it rarely translates into paying customers. It often leads down a path of creating content for algorithms instead of building a predictable system for growth. I thought I'd give you some detailed thoughts on a different way to look at it – one that focuses on acquiring actual customers, not just followers.

You're asking the wrong question... and Meta is happy to take your money for it

Let's talk about "exposure" and "views". When you tell an ad platform like Meta (Facebook & Instagram) that your goal is "Brand Awareness" or "Reach," you're giving it a very specific command: "Find me the largest number of people for the lowest possible price."

The algorithm is incredibly good at its job. It does exactly what you asked. It scours your target audience and finds the users who are least likely to click, least likely to engage, and absolutely, positively least likely to ever pull out a credit card. Why? Because those users aren't in demand by other advertisers. Their attention is cheap. You are literally paying the world's most powerful advertising machine to find you non-customers.

It's a complete waste of money for almost any small or growing business. Awareness is a byproduct of having a great product that solves a real problem, not a prerequisite for making a sale. The best form of awareness is a customer telling their friend how much you helped them. That only happens when you focus on a different objective entirely: conversions.

A conversion campaign tells the algorithm: "Don't just find me anyone. Find me people within this audience who have a history of doing the thing I want them to do – whether that's buying a product, filling out a lead form, or booking a call." The algorithm then works for you, actively seeking out buyers. This is the fundamental shift you need to make. Stop chasing views and start chasing outcomes.

Your offer needs to be built to solve an audience's pain

Before you even think about running a single ad, you have to get this part right. The number one reason campaigns fail isn't bad copy or ugly images; it's a weak offer. An offer that doesn't provide enough value, or one that's aimed at an audience that doesn't have an urgent need for it. A lack of demand.

I see founders building what they think is a great product for years, only to launch to the sound of crickets. They failed to validate the most important thing: does anyone actually have a painful, urgent problem that this thing solves? So what does a successful offer look like?

1. It focuses on a specific audience. You can't be everything to everyone. Your message becomes incredibly powerful and relevant when it speaks directly to one type of person.

2. It identifies an urgent, expensive problem this audience has. People don't buy "features." They buy solutions to pain. They buy a way out of a frustrating situation. A great offer taps into a deep frustration and provides relief. This emotional connection is what drives action.

3. It presents a clear, tangible solution. Your offer needs to be easy to understand and feel less risky for a buyer to invest in.

I remember one client, a video production company. They used to sell "brand films." It was vague and nobody was buying. We worked with them to redefine their offer. They didn't sell "brand films" anymore. They identified that their best clients were talented professional services firms (accountants, lawyers) who were brilliant at their jobs but struggled to get clients because they looked small and unestablished. Their urgent problem wasn't a lack of a video; it was the frustration of losing business to bigger, more polished competitors.

So they developed a new offer: "The Authority Film." They productised their service into a "1-Day Filming Process" with a clear name, defined deliverables, and a fixed timeline. Suddenly, they weren't selling a vague creative service; they were selling a tangible solution to the painful problem of being overlooked. Their leads went through the roof because their offer was no longer about them, it was about solving their customer's nightmare.

We'll need to look at your Ideal Customer Profile... and I don't mean demographics

That brings us to your customer. Forget the sterile, demographic-based profile your last marketing hire made. "Companies in the finance sector with 50-200 employees" or "Women aged 25-34 who like yoga" tells you nothing of value. It leads to generic ads that speak to no one.

To stop burning cash, you must define your customer by their pain. Their nightmare.

Your ICP isn't a person; it's a problem state. Your Head of Engineering client isn't just a job title; she's a leader terrified of her best developers quitting out of frustration with a broken workflow. For a legal tech SaaS we worked with, the nightmare wasn't 'needing document management'; it was 'a partner missing a critical filing deadline and exposing the firm to a malpractice suit.' You have to get that specific.

Once you've isolated that nightmare, you can find them. Where do they hang out online when they're trying to solve that problem?

• -> What niche podcasts do they listen to on their commute?
• -> What industry newsletters do they actually open and read?
• -> What software tools (like HubSpot, Salesforce, or specific industry tools) do they already pay for?
• -> What influencers or thought leaders do they follow on LinkedIn or Twitter?
• -> What specific Facebook groups or subreddits are they members of?

This intelligence isn't just data; it's the blueprint for your entire targeting strategy. Do this work first, or you have no business spending a single pound on ads. You'll just be guessing.

I'd say you need to understand your numbers before spending a penny

The real question in advertising isn't "How low can my Cost Per Lead go?" but "How high a Cost Per Lead can I afford to acquire a truly great customer?" The answer is found by calculating its counterpart: Customer Lifetime Value (LTV).

Most business owners don't know this number, so they operate in the dark, terrified of spending money. But once you know it, you can invest in growth with confidence. Let's break it down.

You need three pieces of information:

1. Average Revenue Per Account (ARPA): What do you make per customer, per month on average?
2. Gross Margin %: What's your profit margin on that revenue after accounting for the cost of goods sold (COGS)?
3. Monthly Churn Rate: What percentage of customers do you lose each month?

The calculation is simple: LTV = (ARPA * Gross Margin %) / Monthly Churn Rate

Let's use an example. Say you run a subscription box service:

• -> ARPA = £50/month
• -> Gross Margin = 70% (it costs you £15 in products and shipping for each £50 box)
• -> Monthly Churn Rate = 5% (you lose 5 out of every 100 customers each month)

So, LTV = (£50 * 0.70) / 0.05 = £35 / 0.05 = £700.

In this example, each customer you acquire is worth £700 in gross margin to your business over their lifetime. Now you have the truth. A healthy business model aims for a 3:1 LTV to Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) ratio. This means you can afford to spend up to £700 / 3 = ~£233 to acquire a single new customer and still have a very profitable business.

Suddenly, seeing a £150 cost per purchase from a Meta ad doesn't look expensive, does it? It looks like a bargain. This is the math that unlocks aggressive, intelligent growth. It frees you from the tyranny of chasing cheap, low-quality leads and allows you to focus on acquiring high-value customers.

To make this easier, I've built an interactive calculator for you below.

You probably should focus on a conversion-focused strategy...

So, we've established that chasing views is a poor strategy and that you need a strong offer aimed at a specific audience with a known LTV. Now, how do we put this into practice on a platform like Instagram or Facebook? We build a proper advertising funnel.

A funnel isn't complicated. It's just a way of organising your campaigns to speak to people at different stages of awareness. Some people have never heard of you, some have visited your website, and some have added a product to their cart but not purchased. You shouldn't show them all the same ad.

I usually structure accounts like this:

• Top of Funnel (ToFu): This is your 'cold' audience. People who fit your ICP but have likely never heard of you. Here, we use the interest, behaviour, and lookalike targeting we discussed. The goal of these ads is to introduce the problem you solve and drive them to your website or landing page for the first time. The campaign objective is ALWAYS conversions (e.g., Purchases, Leads).


• Middle of Funnel (MoFu): This is your 'warm' audience. People who have shown some interest. They've visited your website, watched a percentage of your video ad, or engaged with your Instagram page. We retarget them with ads that provide more information, showcase testimonials, or handle common objections. The goal is to bring them back to take the final step. Again, the objective is conversions.


• Bottom of Funnel (BoFu): This is your 'hot' audience. People who are on the verge of converting. They've added a product to their cart, initiated checkout, or visited your pricing page. These are the most valuable people to retarget. The ads here can be more direct, perhaps with a reminder or a small incentive to complete their purchase. The objective, you guessed it, is conversions.

By structuring your campaigns this way, you create a system. You're not just throwing random ads out there; you're guiding potential customers on a journey. And because every single campaign is optimised for conversions, you're constantly telling Meta's algorithm to find you more people who will actually become customers.

You'll need to get your targeting right...

So how do you pick the right audiences for these funnel stages? A lot of people just throw a bunch of random interests into an ad set and hope for the best. That's a recipe for disaster. Here’s a prioritised approach I use:

For new accounts, you have to start with detailed targeting (interests, behaviours). You don't have enough data for anything else yet. The aim is to feed the Meta pixel with data about who your first customers are. You gotta make sure to pick interests that are specific to your target audience. Think back to the ICP nightmare work. What tools do they use? What publications do they read? What events do they attend?

For instance, if you're targeting owners of eCommerce stores, targeting "Amazon" is a terrible idea. That includes millions of shoppers. It's too broad. Instead, you'd target interests like "Shopify," "WooCommerce," "eCommerceFuel," or followers of pages like 'AdEspresso' or 'Common Thread Collective'. You're targeting things that their non-ideal customers would be far less likely to be interested in.

Once you have enough data (you need at least 100 conversions, but honestly, the more the better), you unlock the two most powerful audience types on Meta:

1. Retargeting Audiences: These are your MoFu and BoFu audiences. You can create audiences of everyone who visited your website in the last 30 days, people who added to cart in the last 7 days, etc. This is usually the most profitable part of any ad account.

2. Lookalike Audiences: This is where the magic happens. You can tell Meta, "Here is a list of my last 500 customers. Go find me one million other people in the UK who look and behave exactly like them online." This is the best way to scale your ToFu campaigns. You start with a lookalike of your highest-value customers, then work your way down the funnel (lookalikes of purchasers, then initiated checkouts, then adds to cart, etc.).

The key is to be systematic. Test one audience at a time in your ToFu campaign. Give it enough budget to get results (I'd say at least 2-3x your target CPA), and if it's not performing, turn it off and test the next one. Over time, you'll find a handful of winning audiences that you can scale up.

You need an irresistible Call to Action... so delete the "Request a Demo" button

Finally, we arrive at the most common failure point in all of B2B advertising, and a major sticking point for B2C too: the offer you present in the ad itself. The Call to Action (CTA).

For B2B, the "Request a Demo" button is possibly the most arrogant CTA ever conceived. It presumes your prospect, who is likely a busy decision-maker, has nothing better to do than book a 30-minute meeting to be sold to. It's high-friction and low-value. It screams "I want to take up your time."

Your ad's offer must do the opposite. Its only job is to deliver a moment of undeniable value—an "aha!" moment that makes the prospect sell themselves on your solution. You must solve a small, real problem for free to earn the right to solve the whole thing.

What does this look like in practice?

• -> For a SaaS company, the gold standard is a free trial or a freemium plan (with no credit card required). Let them use the actual product and feel the transformation. The product becomes the salesperson. I've seen this with clients where we've reduced their CPA from over £100 down to just £7 by switching from a demo model to a free trial model.
• -> For a marketing agency, it could be a free, automated SEO audit that shows a prospect their top 3 keyword opportunities.
• -> For a corporate training company, it could be a free 15-minute interactive video module on a key topic.
• -> For us, as an advertising consultancy, it's a free 20-minute strategy session where we audit failing ad campaigns and provide actionable advice.

For eCommerce, this principle still applies. Instead of just saying "Shop Now," think about what value you can offer upfront. Is it a guide on "5 Ways to Style a White Shirt"? Is it a quiz to help them find their perfect skincare routine? This builds trust and provides value before you ask for the sale, which makes the sale much more likely to happen.

I've detailed my main recommendations for you below:

This is a lot to take in, I know. It's a world away from worrying about whether a Reel or a Story gets more views. But this is how you build a real, scalable business. It's about building a system, not just creating content. Here's a table summarising the steps I'd take.

As you can probably tell, getting this right is complex. It involves strategy, math, psychology, and deep platform expertise. It's not just about pushing a few buttons inside Instagram. While you can certainly start implementing these ideas yourself, it's a steep learning curve with a lot of potential for expensive mistakes.

Working with an expert can help you bypass the trial-and-error phase and start building a profitable advertising system from day one. We do this stuff all day, every day. For one of our software clients, we took them from spending £100 to acquire a user down to just £7. For another, we generated $115k in revenue in just six weeks. We build these systems.

If you'd like to chat about how these principles could be applied specifically to your business, we offer a free, no-obligation 20-minute strategy consultation. We can take a look at what you're doing now and give you some concrete, actionable advice you can walk away with. Feel free to book one in if that sounds helpful.

Hope this helps give you a new perspective!

Regards,

Team @ Lukas Holschuh