Instagram is a powerful social media network to engage prospects and customers. But is your Instagram marketing strategy working? That’s where Instagram analytics comes in. Find out how to use it drive success on the platform.

How to Use Instagram Analytics

how-to-use-instagram-analytics

[[p]]Instagram is a powerful social media platform for brands of all sizes. It can be used to attract and engage customers but is also a top digital channel for [[a href="https://digitalmarketinginstitute.com/blog/influencer-marketing-guide" target="_blank"]]effective influencer marketing[[/a]].&nbsp;&nbsp;[[/p]]

[[p]]The success of [[a href="https://digitalmarketinginstitute.com/blog/social-commerce" target="_blank"]]social commerce[[/a]] and shoppable posts has also seen Instagram grow as a lead and revenue generator for many brands - ranking as the second most popular social network for shopping in the U.S according to Statista.&nbsp;[[/p]]

[[p]]With broad reach, great targeting features, the opportunity to target and impactful [[a href="https://digitalmarketinginstitute.com/blog/a-guide-to-instagram-video-formats" target="_blank"]]video formats[[/a]], it&rsquo;s worth taking the time to figure out who you can reach on Instagram and the most effective way to do it.&nbsp;&nbsp;[[/p]]

[[p]]So how do you know if your Instagram marketing strategy is working? That&rsquo;s where analytics comes in.&nbsp;[[/p]]

[[p]]Instagram&rsquo;s insights can help you use[[a href="https://digitalmarketinginstitute.com/blog/how-to-use-data-analytics-to-drive-better-business-insights" target="_blank"]] data to make better business insights[[/a]] and create content that drives engagement and conversions. .[[/p]]

[[p]]In this blog, we&rsquo;ll explore Instagram analytics and see how you can get the most from the platform.&nbsp;[[/p]]

[[p]]First of all, you need a Business or Creator account to view analytics.&nbsp;[[/p]]

[[p]]If you have a personal account, it&rsquo;s easy to convert it to one of these by clicking on your profile picture and selecting &lsquo;Settings&rsquo; followed by &lsquo;Account&rsquo;.&nbsp;[[/p]]

[[p]]Then all you need to do is select &lsquo;Switch to Professional Account&rsquo;.&nbsp;[[/p]]

[[p]]Once you have access, to view account insights you just:[[/p]]

[[ul]]
	[[li]]Go to your profile[[/li]]
	[[li]]Click &lsquo;View Insights&rsquo;&nbsp;[[/li]]
	[[li]]View metrics under the Overview section or click on specific content you&rsquo;ve shared for a more detailed breakdown.[[/li]]
[[/ul]]

[[p]]To monitor and analyze your Instagram account and content, you need to understand what metrics are available. You should also think about which ones matter most to your business.[[/p]]

[[p]]All insights can be viewed by date range, so adjust these as you need depending on the data you&rsquo;re looking for.&nbsp;[[/p]]

[[p]]In the &lsquo;Overview&rsquo; menu you can find:&nbsp;&nbsp;[[/p]]

[[ul]]
	[[li]][[strong]]Views[[/strong]] -&nbsp;You can see a number of metrics under this tab which include:&nbsp;

	[[ul]]
		[[li]]Source of views: Instagram breaks views down by followers vs. non-followers so you can see if your content is reaching new audiences.[[/li]]
		[[li]]Accounts reached + time frame percentage change.[[/li]]
		[[li]]By Content Type: Filterable by all / followers / non- followers then you see stories, reels posts breakdown.and the images by continent type filtered by views.[[/li]]
		[[li]]Audience breakdown: Top location of the audience by top city, top country, top age ranges and gender.[[/li]]
	[[/ul]]
	[[/li]]
	[[li]][[strong]]Profile activity:&nbsp;[[/strong]]
	[[ul]]
		[[li]]Instagram continues to provide valuable data on how users engage with your profile:[[/li]]
		[[li]]Profile Visits: Tracks the number of visits to your profile, comparing changes from previous time periods (e.g., 30 days). This helps gauge interest in your account after high-performing posts or campaigns.[[/li]]
		[[li]]External Link Taps: Particularly important for businesses, this tracks how many users clicked the link in your bio to visit your website or other destinations.[[/li]]
		[[li]]Business Address Taps: Unique to business accounts, this measures how often users tap to view your location details[[/li]]
	[[/ul]]
	[[/li]]
	[[li]][[strong]]Interactions[[/strong]] - Engagements are now called interactions on the overview tab but read as engagement in the &#39;interactions&#39; tab where you can find by &#39;content type&#39; (reels, stories or posts). You can see top posts by interaction, follows to non-followers interactions and demographics such as location or gender.&nbsp;[[/li]]
	[[li]][[strong]]Total followers [[/strong]]- This reveals the number of people who follow you and you can track whether you have gained or lost followers over time. This also includes an &lsquo;active times&rsquo; section so you can see the times your followers are most active (useful for figuring out the best times to post on Instagram). Plus gender and location.[[/li]]
	[[li]][[strong]]Content you shared[[/strong]] - This includes images of all the content you shared with filters to sort by metric - views or accounts engaged or accounts reached and sort by highest - lowest. and by individual content type which are posts, reels, stories, videos and live videos.[[/li]]
[[/ul]]

[[p]]The metrics you can see in the view tab include:[[/p]]

[[ul]]
	[[li]][[strong]]Source of Views:[[/strong]] Instagram breaks down views by followers vs. non-followers, offering a detailed look at how content is reaching new audiences.[[/li]]
	[[li]][[strong]]Content Type:[[/strong]] Instagram Insights now allows you to see the distribution of views across posts, stories, and reels, letting creators understand what type of content performs best with different audiences.[[/li]]
	[[li]][[strong]]Profile Activity:[[/strong]] Instagram continues to provide valuable data on how users engage with your profile:[[/li]]
	[[li]][[strong]]Profile Visits:[[/strong]] Tracks the number of visits to your profile, comparing changes from previous time periods (e.g., 30 days). This helps gauge interest in your account after high-performing posts or campaigns.[[/li]]
	[[li]][[strong]]External Link Taps:[[/strong]] Particularly important for businesses, this tracks how many users clicked the link in your bio to visit your website or other destinations.[[/li]]
	[[li]][[strong]]Business Address Taps:[[/strong]] Unique to business accounts, this measures how often users tap to view your location details.[[/li]]
[[/ul]]

[[p]]You can also look at insights for individual posts and the metrics you can view are:[[/p]]

[[ul]]
	[[li]][[strong]]Accounts reached[[/strong]] - This is the number of unique accounts that have seen your content at least once. It includes demographic information on the accounts you&rsquo;ve reached, including top countries, top cities, top age ranges, and gender.[[/li]]
	[[li]][[strong]]Accounts engaged [[/strong]]- This reveals the number of unique accounts that have interacted with your content and provides a breakdown (like above) of each.&nbsp;&nbsp;[[/li]]
	[[li]][[strong]]Content interactions [[/strong]]- This looks at the actions people take when engaging with your content including likes, comments, shares, saves, and replies[[/li]]
	[[li]][[strong]]Ad insights[[/strong]] - This provides more information if your post has been boosted or paid for as a part of paid advertising on Instagram e.g. cost per ad goal .&nbsp;[[/li]]
[[/ul]]

[[p]]Data is all very well to have, but what you need are data insights for your marketing.&nbsp;[[/p]]

[[p]]As with any channel, it&rsquo;s important to get clear insights to drive performance and growth on Instagram. Let&rsquo;s look at the most effective metrics you can use to do that.[[/p]]

[[p]]Views is now Instagram&rsquo;s primary metric across all formats, including posts, stories, and especially Reels. You can still see impressions in scheduling tools like Buffer if you want to track them.&nbsp;[[/p]]

[[p]]This reflects Instagram&rsquo;s emphasis on video content and the value of repeated viewing over other interactions like likes or comments. Views now play a critical role in how the algorithm promotes content to both followers and non-followers.[[/p]]

[[p]]Reach is a key metric as it tells you how many people are seeing your content. While reach is often put in the same basket as impressions, it&rsquo;s not the same.&nbsp;[[/p]]

[[p]]Instagram reach indicates actual views of your content, while impressions means your content was displayed, but may not have generated any form of engagement i.e. a click.[[/p]]

[[p]]This insight is important as it shows your follower count and can link a spike or dip to a particular campaign or timeframe.&nbsp;[[/p]]

[[p]]So if you see a big jump in followers, look at what content was posted during that time. Was it a Reel or a video on a particular topic?&nbsp;[[/p]]

[[p]]Understanding what attracts new followers can help you to understand what your audience is (and is not) looking for! Follower growth can also show you if your follower count is increasing or decreasing - a good metric by which to gauge your Instagram activity.&nbsp;[[/p]]

[[p]]Engagement rate is a crucial metric as it shows if people are responding to your content. You can measure engagement rate by followers and impressions.&nbsp;[[/p]]

[[p]]Knowing your engagement rate will help you evaluate the performance of your account and posts and set a benchmark to measure and drive growth.&nbsp;[[/p]]

[[p]][[strong]]Engagement rate by followers[[/strong]] = Total engagement (Likes + Comments + Shares + Downloads) / Number of followers x 100[[/p]]

[[p]][[strong]]Engagement rate by impressions[[/strong]] = Total engagement (Likes + Comments + Shares + Downloads) / Impressions x 100[[/p]]

[[p]]Shopping on Instagram is now the norm so it&rsquo;s important to figure out what people are buying and why.&nbsp;[[/p]]

[[p]]Here&rsquo;s an example of shoppable videos from beauty brand [[a href="https://digitalmarketinginstitute.com/resources/case-studies/glossier-a-thoroughly-modern-beauty-brand" target="_blank"]]Glossier[[/a]].&nbsp;&nbsp;[[/p]]

[[p]]Your Instagram insights for shoppable posts give lots of data. You can see comments, likes, and reach, but also find product-specific metrics (such as page views and button clicks).&nbsp;[[/p]]

[[p]]These metrics will enable you to see what people are clicking on. For example, are there people in images that perform well, or is it simply the product? What call-to-action performs best: is it &lsquo;Find out more&rsquo; or &lsquo;Buy now&rsquo;? Are people finding products through hashtags?&nbsp;[[/p]]

[[p]]These will help you create better and more effective posts that drive people to visit your site or purchase.&nbsp;[[/p]]

[[p]]For Instagram updates the best source is on Instagram so you should follow:&nbsp;[[/p]]

[[ul]]
	[[li]]@mosseri - Adam Mosserri, Instagram&rsquo;s CEO[[/li]]
	[[li]]@creators - Instagram&rsquo;s creator account&nbsp;[[/li]]
	[[li]]@instagramforbusiness - Instagram&rsquo;s business account[[/li]]
[[/ul]]

[[p]]There&rsquo;s huge scope for marketers on social media to drive brand awareness, engagement and leads. DMI&rsquo;s industry aligned and certified&nbsp;[[a href="https://digitalmarketinginstitute.com/students/courses/professional-diploma-in-social-media-marketing" target="_blank"]]Social Media Marketing course[[/a]]&nbsp;will teach you&nbsp;advanced social media expertise and AI-driven strategies&nbsp;for research, content creation, and campaign optimization. Sign up today to benefit from&nbsp;hands-on learning, expert-led walkthroughs, platform simulations, and access to DMI&rsquo;s professional resources.&nbsp;&nbsp;[[/p]]

[[p]]When you look at your followers, what do you see? With Instagram analytics, you can find out their location, age and gender.&nbsp;[[/p]]

[[p]]This will show you who&rsquo;s interested in your content and if that matches your [[a href="https://digitalmarketinginstitute.com/blog/the-beginners-guide-to-defining-buyer-personas" target="_blank"]]buyer persona profiles[[/a]]. If not, why not? Is there a new audience emerging you didn&rsquo;t know about or is there activity in an unexpected city that you can now tap into?[[/p]]

[[p]]It will also help you to post content at specific times. For example, if you have a lot of followers in western Canada, think about posting at times when they are awake and active.&nbsp;[[/p]]

Screenshot of ‘Best Times to Post on Instagram’ - Sprout Social

[[p]]When you tap on individual Instagram posts, you can get a lot of data. It is not only likes, comments and saves you can see,&nbsp; but&nbsp; also interactions, discovery and impressions. Let&rsquo;s look at the data you can get for each.&nbsp;[[/p]]

[[p]][[strong]]Reels[[/strong]][[/p]]

[[p]]When you click on a reel you can see likes, comments, shares, and saves.&nbsp;[[/p]]

[[p]]In the overview tab, you can see:[[/p]]

[[ul]]
	[[li]]Views[[/li]]
	[[li]]Watch Time[[/li]]
	[[li]]Interactions[[/li]]
	[[li]]Profile activity[[/li]]
[[/ul]]

[[p]]On reels you can also get watch time, average watch time and interactions from non &amp; followers.[[/p]]

[[p]]Accounts engaged broken down by likes, saves, shares, comments and the total &#39;accounts engaged&#39;.[[/p]]

[[p]][[strong]]profile activity[[/strong]] = follows (the number of people that followed from that reel/post).&nbsp;[[/p]]

[[p]][[strong]]Posts[[/strong]][[/p]]

[[p]]On an Instagram post, you can see likes, comments, shares, saves. In the overview tab, you can see:[[/p]]

[[ul]]
	[[li]]Views[[/li]]
	[[li]]Interactions[[/li]]
	[[li]]Profile Activity[[/li]]
[[/ul]]

[[p]]You can also see a breakdown of views from where the views came from such as followers to non-followers, home, profile, or hashtags.&nbsp;[[/p]]

[[p]]Accounts engaged are broken down by likes, saves, shares, comments and the total &#39;accounts engaged&#39;.[[/p]]

[[p]][[strong]]profile activity[[/strong]] = follows (the number of people that followed from that reel/post).[[/p]]

[[p]][[strong]]Stories&nbsp;[[/strong]][[/p]]

[[p]]You get two views of data on Instagram Stories which are:&nbsp;[[/p]]

[[p]]1/ Exactly who viewed it - the user with the option to do a paid boost.[[/p]]

[[p]]2/ Overview which is broken down into:[[/p]]

[[ul]]
	[[li]]Views&nbsp;[[/li]]
	[[li]]Interactions[[/li]]
	[[li]]Profile Activity[[/li]]
[[/ul]]

[[p]]You can also see views followers to non-followers percentage.&nbsp;[[/p]]

[[p]]Accounts reached are broken down into interactions (likes, comments, replies and shares) while Accounts Engaged is the total of all the interactions taken on the story as it doesn&rsquo;t show in the backend.[[/p]]

[[p]]Navigation is what people did when they were in your story.&nbsp;[[/p]]

[[p]]The actions they can take are &lsquo;forwards&rsquo; (they may not be engaged as they decide to move on before finishing), &lsquo;next story&rsquo; (when a user swipes to move to another account so your content didn&rsquo;t engage that user), &lsquo;back&rsquo; (when a user watches it again so they are engaged), and &lsquo;exited&rsquo; (when they leave your story or your story feed altogether as they were not engaged).[[/p]]

[[p]][[strong]]Profile Activity[[/strong]] = follows (the number of people that followed from that reel/post).&nbsp;[[/p]]

[[p]][[strong]]Profile visits[[/strong]] = how many people went to your profile after seeing the story.[[/p]]

[[p]]These insights can steer your [[a href="https://digitalmarketinginstitute.com/resources/lessons/strategy-and-planning_content-strategy_i0rd" target="_blank"]]content strategy[[/a]] for Instagram in the right direction and mean you spend time creating content that&rsquo;s valuable to your followers rather than guessing.[[/p]]

[[p]][[a href="https://digitalmarketinginstitute.com/blog/how-to-use-hashtags-in-social-media" target="_blank"]]Hashtags are an important part of social media[[/a]]. Understanding the performance of your hashtags can help keep up momentum and give you insight into the topics and trends your audience cares about.&nbsp;[[/p]]

[[p]]You can use up to 30 hashtags on an Instagram post, but be sure to conduct research and learn from performance over time. There&rsquo;s no need to use too many hashtags if it&rsquo;s not needed as sometimes less is more.[[/p]]

[[p]]The metric to look at here is the &lsquo;most engaged hashtag&rsquo;. Remember to keep an eye on any trending hashtags to leverage activity on the platform.[[/p]]

[[p]]While it&rsquo;s great to see engagement on your Instagram posts such as comments or likes, there&rsquo;s another metric to consider - saves.[[/p]]

[[p]]Saves indicate that an Instagram user has &lsquo;bookmarked&rsquo; your post as they feel it&rsquo;s of interest and relevant.&nbsp;[[/p]]

[[p]]This makes the &lsquo;save&rsquo; metric important as it can help you understand the long-term value and relevance of your content. You can find this in the &lsquo;engagement&rsquo; section of Instagram insights.&nbsp;[[/p]]

[[p]]The more saves a post has the more relevant it is, so it may be worth replicating either the format or content (e.g. a how-to tutorial).&nbsp;[[/p]]

How to Use Instagram Analytics

Related Free Video Lessons

Clodagh O'Brien