Is Boosting Instagram ads Worth It? See Our Surprising $30 Results with a Taylor Swift Eras Tour Post

If you caught one of our recent blogs, you know I was lucky enough to attend Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour in Miami, FL, with my family a few weeks back. It was an unforgettable experience, and naturally, I wanted to share it with our readers. After posting the blog to our website, I prepared to blast it on social media. That’s when a thought crossed my mind: With the Eras Tour being a worldwide phenomenon, what would happen if I boosted this post on Instagram?

Now, you know, we’re all about organic growth here at Gritty Gal Marketing—it’s what we preach and what we do best. But any good marketer knows it’s smart to test new waters every so often, just to stay sharp. So, I decided to set a small budget—$30—to run over six days, tossed in some hashtags, and let the experiment run its course.

Setting Up the Boost: Low Budget, High Intent

The approach was simple. I kept the caption short and snappy: “What Taylor Swift Can Teach Us About Marketing.” Added a catchy visual, linked to the blog, chose the song Bejeweled (of course!), and slapped on trending Eras Tour hashtags to keep things relevant.

For the objective, I aimed to get people not just to read the blog but also to connect with us—visiting our profile, checking out our content, and hopefully, tapping through to our website to learn what Gritty Gal Marketing is all about. Here’s what we hoped to see: increased profile visits, website clicks, and a few new followers. But call it intuition—I just knew this one had potential.

The Results: A Boosted Post that Actually Paid Off

After six days, our humble $30 boost delivered beyond my expectations. Let’s break it down by the numbers:

2,245 views of the post
116 post interactions (comments, shares, saves, you name it)
101 profile views
82 likes
28 saves (yes, you read that right)
18 website taps
28 new followers

To a large company, those numbers might sound modest, but for us, every follow and every interaction means someone genuinely connected with our message. When I saw 28 new followers, I couldn’t help but feel a thrill—those aren’t just numbers. Every follow represents someone who resonated with our vibe, our story, our vision. And that’s priceless.

Beyond the Numbers: Why This Matters to Small Businesses

Sure, the stats are exciting, but what this experiment taught me goes deeper. We know that our audience wants education, entertainment, empowerment, and engagement. The fact that we saw such engagement tells us we hit on all four with this post, reaching people in a way that felt relevant and relatable.

If you’re a small business, you know it’s not about going viral; it’s about making an impact. With the right blend of content, timing, and a small nudge from paid ads, we got people to engage in ways that matter. And while boosted posts might not be part of our regular strategy, this experiment showed me that sometimes, it’s worth investing a few bucks to reach people where they are.

So, Was the $30 Worth It?

Absolutely. We spent $30 and got valuable exposure—more people in our community discovering who we are and what we do. Not to mention, we picked up some Taylor-inspired insights on leveraging trending moments to boost engagement.

Here are a few takeaways if you’re thinking about boosting a post for your small business:

Choose a Hot Topic: Find what’s trending in your industry or in pop culture and make it work for your brand.
Set Clear Goals: For us, the goal was profile visits and blog readers, not just likes or views.
Use Engaging Visuals and Captions: We kept it simple and fun with a clear message and relevant hashtags.
Test, Don’t Rely on It: Boosting isn’t the answer to every post. For hot topics, though, the juice definitely worth the squeeze.

Final Thoughts: Organic First, Boost Smart

At the end of the day, this boost was an experiment to see how paid ads could amplify a post that already had some organic buzz. And it worked. But we're firm believers that organic engagement comes first. Your audience connects with authenticity, and that’s something you can’t fake with a boosted post. For us, we’ll continue to focus on organic growth, using boosts sparingly and strategically.

Would I do it again? For the right post, absolutely. Because sometimes, a small nudge is all it takes to turn a few eyes into a community. And for us, that’s what marketing is all about.