The Ultimate Guide to Instagram Analytics in 2024

You can’t be successful on Instagram without paying close attention to your Instagram analytics. 

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Every comment, save, share, follow, view, and website tap indicates whether or not your Instagram strategy is working. 

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By keeping track of these, you’ll be able to reach the right audience, increase your engagement, and achieve your goals. 

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But which Instagram insights matter most in 2024?

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Let’s take a closer look.

Understanding Instagram Analytics: The Basics

Think of Instagram analytics as your compass. They help you better understand who your audience is and what kind of content they most enjoy engaging with.

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Without them, you’re essentially fumbling around in the dark trying to make sense of highs and lows in engagement. If you’ve ever asked yourself: “Why has this post performed well and that post performed terribly?” it’s probably because:

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1. You don’t post content with insights in mind, or;
2. You don’t check insights regularly/aren’t sure what you’re looking at

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You should take Instagram Insights as seriously as you take your goals. And you should know exactly which metric you’re tracking with each post you create.

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This will be different for every brand and business. One brand will have a quarterly goal of increasing followers while another will be focused on conversions. The metrics you monitor will be unique to you.

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The most important thing is that you’re setting goals and identifying which metrics you’ll use to measure them. That’s how you get the most out of Instagram analytics. 

Instagram Insights: What’s New in 2024?

Before we dive into the key Instagram Insights to monitor, let’s take a quick look at updates to analytics in 2024.

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Insights Highlights

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In addition to adding a new content management element to the Professional Dashboard, Meta has announced that it’s rolling out new highlight cards so users can more easily see how content is performing over time. 

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You can see in the image below that in addition to a ‘Summary’ overview, there’s also a section for ‘Performance’ where metrics like Reach, Minutes Viewed, and Interactions are reported on. Below that, tips are provided to help users improve their content in the future.

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New Reels metrics

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At the beginning of November, Instagram’s ‘Creators’ account shared updates coming to Reels Insights.
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Source, post: https://www.instagram.com/p/CzKGwP-xrt3/

There will now be three ‘Plays’ metrics:

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1. Plays
2. Initial Plays
3. Replays

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In addition to:

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1. Watch time
2. Average watch time
3. Follows

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Watch time and Follows are two invaluable Instagram metrics that will help brands and creators grow. 

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Watch time because it demonstrates how engaging (or not) a video is and where viewers drop off. They may stop watching because a Reel is too long or the pacing isn’t engaging enough. It may be because the video is lacking a hook. Whatever the reason, this metric will help brands understand how to fix it for next time.

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Follows help brands and businesses understand the kind of content that’s great for growth. Let’s say a business has a goal to increase brand awareness and boost followers by 10% over the next quarter. Now, they can analyze which Reels have driven the most Follows to date and create more Instagram content like that in order to achieve their goals.

Key Instagram Insights to Monitor

So we’ve looked briefly at Watch time and Follows, now let’s take a look at the rest of the Instagram Insights worth tracking in 2024.

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Remember: You don’t need to measure all of these. Which ones you track will depend entirely on your unique goals.

Account analytics

First things first, we recommend changing your ‘view’ to Last 30 days as opposed to Last 7 days to get a clearer picture of how content is performing. The following analytics give you an overview of how your account as a whole is performing.

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Accounts reached

The number of unique accounts that have seen your content on screen at least once. This metric (and the more detailed insights shown when you click into it) gives you an indication of whether your content is only being seen by your existing audience or a new audience of non-followers, too. 

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External link taps

How many times the link in your bio was clicked by a user. If people find your content engaging enough to leave the app and visit your website, this is an excellent sign! 

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Total followers 

The total number of followers you’ve gained or lost. You can also see the top locations of your followers, their age range, and the times they're most active on Instagram. While many would argue that engagement is more important than follower growth, this metric will give you an indication of whether your account is growing in the right direction (or not). 

Post (photo/carousel/Reel) analytics

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Now it’s time to take a closer look at content analytics. These will help you improve your content strategy (aka the lifeblood of an Instagram account) and give your followers more of what they want.  

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Likes

Likes can be a handy metric to have when used as part of an engagement rate calculation, but looking at them in isolation doesn’t tell you a huge amount. That’s because ‘liking’ something is a passive form of engagement. It doesn’t necessarily mean a piece of content resonated with the user. Not if they didn’t also leave a comment, share with their friends, or save it to reference later. Those are the metrics you want to keep a closer eye on.

Comments

Comments are a great indication that your content is resonating with people so much so that they take a minute or two out of their day to write out a message. That’s a big deal! They can also shed light on what your audience feels about a certain topic and provide inspiration for future ideas. 

Saves

If people are saving your content, it means that they find it helpful or inspiring enough to want to come back and reference it later. Educational content tends to generate lots of saves, but that’s not always the case. Keep an eye on your Instagram content to see what formats and themes generate the most saves for you.

Shares

There isn’t a better endorsement of your content than a share. Frustratingly, this metric isn’t available to EU users (due to data laws), but if you’re based in the US, keep an eye on this insight to understand what content encourages your followers to share it with their communities, their friends, or their families. 

Follows

It’s all very well tracking how much your followers grow each month, but what’s even better is understanding why. What content helped you achieve that growth? That’s what you want to create more of.

Plays

While we wait for new Instagram Reel insights to roll out around the world, we can use plays as a metric to understand what video content our audience enjoys the most. Similarly to ‘likes’, you do have to take this metric with a pinch of salt—it’s not an active form of engagement and so isn’t necessarily as valuable as comments, saves, or—when it becomes available—replays.

Average watch time

Average watch time will help you create better videos. How? By telling you how engaging (or not) your video is. For example, if you have a 15-second Reel and the average watch time is 8 seconds, this means that many of your viewers have stopped watching halfway through—which may limit the reach and discovery of the video. To prevent this from happening in the future, analyze videos with a lower retention rate and watch time, and see what improvements you can make in your next video.

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Stories analytics

Views

Instagram Story views don’t tell you much in isolation, but they become extremely valuable when you use them to figure out your average retention rate.

Retention rate

This isn’t a metric you can see inside Instagram Insights (oh, how we wish it was!). This is a calculation you’ll need to figure out yourself. Here’s how:

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Retention Rate = (Last Story View Count * 100) / First Story View Count

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A good retention rate is around 70%. If you’re getting less than this, ask yourself why.

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• Could your Story be more succinct (i.e. 5 slides long rather than 10)?
• Could you open with a more enticing hook (i.e. let the audience know you’re about to share a day in the life or pose a question that you will go on to answer)? 
• Could you have a clearer beginning, middle, and end (rather than upload disjointed slides throughout the day at random)?

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Once you know your retention rate, you can look at your Stories more analytically and make the changes necessary to improve this metric.

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How to Find Instagram Insights and Analytics

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There are two ways to find your Instagram analytics. The first is inside the Instagram app itself.

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Navigate to the burger icon at the top right corner of your profile. Then press ‘Insights’. There you’ll get an overview of your account analytics and the ability to dive deeper into ‘Accounts reached’, ‘Accounts engaged’, and ‘Content you’ve shared’.

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Tip: If you want a quick look at how insights are performing for a particular post, just hit  ‘View insights’ underneath an image, Reel, or carousel.

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The other way to monitor your Instagram analytics is to use a tool like Iconosquare. The benefit of this is that you can create a custom dashboard with easy-to-understand metrics. Instead of trying to glean insights from inside the app or spending hours preparing reports manually, Iconosquare does it all for you. And it allows you to schedule content, too!

At a glance you can see an overview of your Instagram analytics: 

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• Follower growth over time
• Your account reach
• Average engagement per post
• Average reach per post
• The most recent Stories and posts you’ve shared with the total likes and comments

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Then you can dig in further, looking at different categories: Engagement, Community, Reach, Stories, Reels/Videos, Mentions and Profile activity.

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Not all of these will be relevant to you at the same time, but that’s the beauty of the ‘custom dashboard’.

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You can drag and drop whichever Insights are most important to you across Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, LinkedIn and X, to create a bespoke dashboard.

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Track Instagram Analytics The Right Way in 2024

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With so many Instagram Insights to keep track of, it can be hard to know exactly which ones you should spend time on.

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Getting clear on your account goals will help you figure this out. Once you know what you’re trying to achieve, it’ll be easier to identify what metrics you need to focus on.

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Then you can create a custom dashboard and get daily, weekly, or monthly reports sent straight to your inbox to help you stay on track.

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You’ll understand the content that’s working, the content that isn’t, and what steps you need to take to smash your goals.

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Try Iconosquare FREE for 14 days and start measuring your results today.