Instagram

Analytics
Strategy
Guide
Understanding the Numbers Behind
Your Instagram Account to Help You
Grow Your Business
Table of
Contents

Introduction 4

Why do Instagram Analytics Matter? 6

Switching to an Instagram Business Account 10

Instagram Analytics: How to Start Using Them 18

to Your Advantage
a) Understanding Your Audience 19
ai) Your Audience Demographics 22
aii) Your Audience’s Behaviors 26

b) Analyzing Your Instagram Content 30

bi) Your Instagram Posts 35
bii) Your Instagram Stories 42
biii) Your IGTV Channel 54

Why You Should Track and Measure your 60

Instagram Analytics

Conclusion 63

Glossary 66
 A B O U T L AT E R

The simpler way

to plan your visual
content marketing.

Later is the #1 Instagram marketing platform to help

schedule your posts, plan your feed, analyze your
performance, and more!

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Introduction
INTRODUCTION TO INSTAGRAM ANALYTICS STRATEGY 5

Introduction
Ready to start killing it with your
Instagram marketing strategy?

You’ve come to the right place because

we’re about to show you how to unlock
your business’ sales potentials through
Instagram analytics!

From your followers’ age, location and

gender, to content preferences and
engagement rates, these metrics come
together to paint a clear picture of your
audience and what they enjoy seeing on
your account.

As soon as you understand these numbers

and what they mean, you can start serving
your audience better. And this, in turn,
this can boost your sales and make your
business even more profitable!

Which makes everyone happy, right?

 CHAPTER ONE

Why Instagram
Analytics Matter
CHAPTER ONE : WHY DO INSTAGRAM ANALYTICS MATTER? 7

CHAPTER ONE

Why Instagram
Analytics Matter
Being able to understand and track your Instagram analytics is
like holding the golden ticket to growing your Instagram account.

One of the most beneficial things you can do for your business’
Instagram strategy is to closely monitor the patterns in your
Instagram analytics. If you can pull out the positive trends in your
performance, and pinpoint your audience’s engagement patterns,
these insights can really influence and lead to positive changes in
your Instagram profile and marketing strategy.

The good news is that all the metrics you need to understand how
your account is performing can be found within the Instagram
app or with Later!
CHAPTER ONE : WHY DO INSTAGRAM ANALYTICS MATTER? 8

But with terms like “Reach,” “Impressions,” and “Exit Rates,”

the world of Instagram analytics can definitely seem a little
overwhelming.

Don’t worry! This guide will take you through everything you need
to know about Instagram analytics without any of the jargon
or tech talk! Just plain and simple knowhow to take your
Instagram account and marketing strategy to the next level.
CHAPTER ONE : WHY DO INSTAGRAM ANALYTICS MATTER? 9

Why Instagram Analytics are

Important for Brands and Businesses
The real benefit of understanding your Instagram analytics is so
much more than just knowing which of your photos or videos got
the most likes.

It’s about deeply understanding how your content performed and

why your audience responded the way they did.

By tracking some key metrics over time, you can gain invaluable
insights for your business and start to develop a strong content
strategy that resonates with your target demographic.

According to Instagram, 60% of people say they discover new

products on Instagram.

While another study found that 72% of Instagram users

have made a purchase after seeing a product or service on
Instagram.

With so many people being influenced to shop by what they see on

Instagram, spending some time analyzing your Instagram profile
could make a real difference to your sales.

Imagine if you had the winning formula for Instagram success:

you know exactly when to post, what to post, how to reach your
audience, and what content they engage with the most.

Sounds like a lot of information you could use for the future, right?

So let’s get started!

 CHAPTER TWO

Switching to an
Instagram Business
Account
CHAPTER 2: SWITCHING TO AN INSTAGRAM BUSINESS ACCOUNT 11

CHAPTER TWO

Switching to an
Instagram Business
Account
Did you know your Instagram account is a goldmine for analytics?

And all you have to do to find all the metrics behind your Instagram
profile is set up an Instagram Business account!
CHAPTER 2: SWITCHING TO AN INSTAGRAM BUSINESS ACCOUNT 12

What is an Instagram
Business Account?
Back in early 2016, Instagram started testing business profiles,
a new type of Instagram profile dedicated to helping businesses
grow and stand out on the Instagram platform.

Now, just two short years later, there are over 25 million business
profiles worldwide!

And that figure doesn’t come as a surprise.

With a simple switch from a personal to a business profile,

businesses of any size can get access to the analytics and metrics
about their followers, posts, Instagram Stories, engagement, and
much more through the app’s built-in analytics: Instagram Insights.

Plus, business accounts can have a more professional looking

profile, they can promote Instagram posts as ads, and they get
CHAPTER 2: SWITCHING TO AN INSTAGRAM BUSINESS ACCOUNT 13

access to exclusive business features like the ability to add links

to Instagram Stories.

If you’re a brand or business looking to grow your Instagram

account, the best first step you can take is switching to an
Instagram business profile.

How to Switch to a Business Profile:

Making the move to a business profile can be done in minutes!
Just follow the steps below to get set up:

#1: Create a Facebook Page for Your Business

To set up an Instagram business profile, you must have a Facebook
Page for your business and connect the two.

If you already have a Facebook Page for your business, you can
skip this step and move on to the next step.

Start by opening Facebook and click on “Create Page” from the

drop-down menu.
CHAPTER 2: SWITCHING TO AN INSTAGRAM BUSINESS ACCOUNT 14

From here, select your business category and name your page.
We suggest keeping it as your business name, or a similar name
that people may search for to find your business.

Upload a profile photo and a cover photo for your business. You
can use your business logo, or the same profile image as your
Instagram account.

Once that’s done, your business’ Facebook Page is ready to go!

If you already have a Facebook Page for your business, it might

be a good idea to give it a little review before linking it to your
Instagram page. Small changes like making business logos the
same across both profiles, adding a description and call-to-action
can make a big difference when it comes to making a great first
impression.
CHAPTER 2: SWITCHING TO AN INSTAGRAM BUSINESS ACCOUNT 15

#2: Connect Your Facebook Page to Instagram

To make the switch to a business profile, start by opening your
Instagram profile.

Next, tap the “gear” icon in the top right corner of your screen to
go to your account settings.

First, make sure your Instagram profile is public! If your profile is

private, you won’t be able to switch to a business profile.

From the settings menu, you’ll see the option to “Switch to

Business Profile,” and tap “Continue” to connect your Facebook
Page.
CHAPTER 2: SWITCHING TO AN INSTAGRAM BUSINESS ACCOUNT 16

Tap “Continue As” to connect the Facebook Page. If you don’t see
your business’ Facebook Page as an option, make sure that you’re
listed as an admin in the settings menu.

Once the correct Facebook Page appears, select it and tap “Next.”
CHAPTER 2: SWITCHING TO AN INSTAGRAM BUSINESS ACCOUNT 17

#3: Set Up Your Business Profile on Instagram

You’re nearly finished setting up your business profile!

Once you’ve connected your Facebook Page, you’ll be prompted to

add your contact information, including a phone number, physical
address, or email so that customers can get in touch.

When you’ve added all this information, tap “Done,” and you’re
all set up!
 CHAPTER THREE

Instagram Analytics:
What They Mean and
How to Use Them to
Your Advantage
CHAPTER THREE: HOW TO USE INSTAGRAM ANALYTICS TO YOUR ADVANTAGE 19

CHAPTER THREE

Instagram Analytics:
What They Mean and
How to Use Them to
Your Advantage
It’s time to get down to the nitty-gritty of your Instagram analytics
and see where you can find ways to grow your business, boost
your sales, and build an active community with this newly found
knowledge!

The world of Instagram analytics can seem a little mind-boggling

at first. But if you separate your metrics into two main groups –
your audience analytics and your content analytics – it becomes
easier to understand how your Instagram analytics impact the
performance of your account.

Understanding Your Audience

Before we can start to analyze what kind of content works best,
we need to focus on who is actually seeing your content: your
audience demographics!

Knowing where your audience is based, their age, and how often
they engage with your content could help you make changes to
your overall content strategy. And the good news is that all this
information about your audience can found in the Instagram app!
CHAPTER THREE: UNDERSTANDING YOUR AUDIENCE 20

How to Find Your Audience Analytics

in Instagram Insights:
Navigate to the “bar chart” icon at the top right corner of your
Instagram profile. Tap this icon to open the Insights page for your
business profile.

If you just created your business profile today, or in the last couple
of days, it may take a while for Instagram to generate the data
on your posts. Unfortunately, Instagram can only show you the
metrics on posts that went live after switching to a business profile.
From your Insights page in Instagram, tap on “Audience.”
CHAPTER THREE: UNDERSTANDING YOUR AUDIENCE 21

Here you’ll see a page with information on your followers, their

location, age ranges, and gender.
CHAPTER THREE: YOUR AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHICS 22

Your Audience Demographics

Let’s take a look at who is engaging with your Instagram profile!

Followers:
Firstly, at the top of this section, you can see your total number
of followers, and the number of followers gained (or lost) over the
last week.

If you scroll to the bottom of this page (don’t worry, we’ll cover
everything that comes up in between shortly!), you’ll find more
detailed information about your followers’ activity.
CHAPTER THREE: YOUR AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHICS 23

Here, you can see a daily breakdown of your follower’s activity

levels, right down to the hour!

You can see in this example

that on Thursday this week,
there was a spike in activity
at midnight to 3 a.m., and the
highest activity on the page
was between 3 p.m. and 9
p.m. This is a really valuable
insight to help you find the
best time to post!

If you begin to see a trend in these patterns, for example, a spike

in activity every day at 6 p.m., you can plan and build your social
calendar around this.

You can also take the guesswork out completely with Later’s Best
Time to Post feature! Our algorithm determines your best time to
post by analyzing historical data on your top performing posts and
then highlights the optimal times right on your content calendar.

By knowing exactly what times are best for your audience, you
can maximize on your engagement!

Try out Later’s Best Time to Post

feature with any of Later’s paid plans!
CHAPTER THREE: YOUR AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHICS 24

Top locations:
Now let’s scroll back up to the top half of the Audience Insights
page.

Under “Top Locations,” you can see the breakdown of where your
audience is based (this includes both followers and non-followers).
You can also see these metrics organized by cities or countries
– just tap the option in the corner of the statistics box to toggle
between them.

Knowing where the majority of your audience is based could help

you with scheduling your posts to the right time zone, especially
if you have offices or services in different parts of the world.

It could also influence smaller changes, like quoting your product

prices in multiple currencies in your post captions. Or if you plan
to collaborate with an influencer, it could help you choose who to
work with so you can reach out to users in new locations.
CHAPTER THREE: YOUR AUDIENCE DEMOGRAPHICS 25

Age range:
Instagram Insights also breaks
down your audience into age
ranges.

In this section, you’ll be able

to see what age range the
majority of your followers
fall into. And if you want,
you can also hone-in on the
age ranges of your male and
female followers.

Gender:
This pie chart represents the
divide between your male and
female followers.

This section might be useful if

you’re looking to target more
men or women with your
Instagram marketing strategy.

For example, a skincare brand is launching a new range of

skincare specifically for men in their 40s. Being able to see
the changes in the number of male followers, both under
the Gender and Age Range insights, could help the brand
measure the success of their launch campaign.
CHAPTER THREE: YOUR AUDIENCE’S BEHAVIORS 26

Your Audience’s Behaviors

Now that we know who is looking at your Instagram account,
we can start to see what kind of actions they’re taking and how
they’re engaging with your content.

Let’s navigate to the “Activity” tab in Instagram Insights. Just like

before, tap the “bar chart” icon at the top right corner of your
Instagram profile.

From here, select the “Activity” tab. This will show you more
information on the actions your audience is taking, whether
that’s simply scrolling past your post, liking a post, or going a
step further and leaving Instagram to send you an email or click
on the link in your bio.
CHAPTER THREE: YOUR AUDIENCE’S BEHAVIORS 27

Interactions:
This section will show you any interactions taken by visitors to
your page over the course of the last week.

An interaction could be someone visiting your profile page, clicking

the link in your bio, or sending you an email from your profile
page. It doesn’t, however, include any likes or comments – we’ll
come to those later when we take a closer look at your content
insights!

You’ll also be able to see a breakdown of how many interactions you

received each day of the week. While this is similar to identifying
the best times to post based on your followers’ activity in the
Audience tab, this section actually tells you how many times a
viewer navigated around your profile.

Let’s go back to the example of the skincare brand and imagine

that on Monday they shared a photo with this caption:

“ We’re sharing a special discount code for our followers

today! A huge 50% off our Hydrate range with the
promo code HYDRATE50! It expires at midnight, so
if you want to grab a bargain, click the link in our
bio and add HYDRATE50 at checkout!
“
If the brand’s interactions spike on that Monday, you could
deduce a correlation between that spike in engagement and
the post that encourages people to shop.
CHAPTER THREE: YOUR AUDIENCE’S BEHAVIORS 28

Or if you’re seeing that lull in activity when you posted video content
this week, it might mean your audience isn’t as engaged with video
as they are photo posts.

From the Interactions tab, you can also see:

Profile visits: This is the total number of times your profile was
viewed this week.

Website clicks: This is the number of times a visitor tapped on the

website link in your bio.

Clicks to email: Here you’ll find how many people emailed you using
the Email feature on your profile page.

Discovery:
Want to know just how many thumbs have scrolled past your posts
this week? Here’s where you can find that out!

The Discovery tab will tell you how many times your posts or
profile have been seen over the last seven days. This includes all
your Instagram posts since the day you switched to an Instagram
business profile. That means that if someone searches for a hashtag
and finds a photo that you posted a few weeks ago, even though
the post is old, this “view” will still be counted in your current
week’s analytics.

It’s important to understand the difference between Impressions

and Reach:
CHAPTER THREE: YOUR AUDIENCE’S BEHAVIORS 29

Impressions: This is the total number of times your post has

been seen. This number includes users scrolling by in their feed,
clicking-through to your business’ profile to view a photo, or
viewing content directly through an Instagram Direct Message.

Reach: Like Impressions, Reach also relates to the number of views

your posts get. But rather than calculate it by total eyes on your
content, it narrows it down to unique views only. So, for example,
if one of your followers opens your profile and looks at your posts
several times that day, that follower will only be counted once in
your Reach results.

For this reason, it’s normal to see a higher number for Impressions
than Reach. But growing your audience and finding new people
to engage with your Instagram profile is key to your business’
success, so keeping a close eye on your Reach total each week
is important if you want to keep track of your audience growth.
CHAPTER THREE: ANALYZING YOUR INSTAGRAM CONTENT 30

Analyzing Your Instagram Content

It’s time to take a look at your content and see which posts are
getting the most attention!

We’re about to take a deep dive into the metrics and analytics
behind your photos, videos, Instagram Stories, and now IGTV
videos! By the end of this chapter, you’ll know exactly which of
your posts are getting the most attention from your audience!

Your Instagram Posts:

Let’s start with your Instagram posts. The videos and photos that
you post to your profile leave a lasting first impression, and you
only have a few seconds to draw your audience and potential
customers in.

But wouldn’t it be nice to know a little more about what kind of

posts your followers love to see? Well, it’s possible by analyzing
your post Insights.

There are a few ways to access the metrics behind your content,
but let’s start with accessing your Instagram Insights from your
profile.

If you want to build a beautiful Instagram aesthetic that wows,

check out our free Instagram course! Learn how to design, curate,
and plan your Instagram feed so you can get more followers and
grow your business.
CHAPTER THREE: ANALYZING YOUR INSTAGRAM CONTENT 31

As before, tap the “bar chart” icon on the top right corner of your
profile. From here, click on “Content” in Instagram Insights.

Firstly in this section, you’ll see just how many times you posted
in the last seven days and whether that figure is up or down from
the previous week.

Directly below this, you’ll be able to see the Impressions the last
six of your posts have received. To see more detailed information,
tap on the “See All” button in the corner of that section.
CHAPTER THREE: ANALYZING YOUR INSTAGRAM CONTENT 32

Now you’ll be able to see a screen like this:

This Insights page arranges all your Instagram posts based on the
criteria you choose in the filter bar at the top.

Firstly, you can choose to filter by content type – photos, videos,

carousel posts, and shoppable posts. We suggest starting with
“All” before narrowing it down to content types.

Then you can decide what kind of engagement you’d like to see.
The results can be broken down by post likes, comments, profile
visits, or you can choose to see the results based on Impressions,
Reach, or Follows.
CHAPTER THREE: ANALYZING YOUR INSTAGRAM CONTENT 33

Remember, Impressions and Reach are very different:

Impressions
= total number of times that your post has been seen.

Reach
= the number of unique accounts that have seen your post.

Finally, you can filter by time, from the last seven days (this
is particularly useful if you want to check and report on your
Instagram analytics weekly) up to the last two years.
CHAPTER THREE: ANALYZING YOUR INSTAGRAM CONTENT 34

Once you’ve selected your filters, just tap “Apply.”

TIP: At the bottom of the filter, you should see the option “Understanding
your insights.” Tap this text for more details on all the filters and metrics!
CHAPTER THREE: UNDERSTANDING ENGAGEMENT 35

Understanding Engagement
Through your Instagram Insights, there’s also an option to filter
by “Engagement,” which can be a good indicator of how well your
audience is enjoying your content.

Look closely at the post that received the highest number of

engagements – analyze the content in the photo, the hashtags
used, the caption text, or the time which you posted, and
compare to other posts in your feed that didn’t perform as well.
All these factors could have contributed to your audience liking,
commenting, and saving this posts.

Engagement
This is the total number of unique accounts that have liked,
commented, and saved a particular photo or video. However,
this total does not count multiple comments from the same user,
which could happen in the case of giveaways where users tend to
post multiple times to improve their chances.

Engagement Rate
Engagement rate is the percentage of followers or viewers that
engage with your posts. Generally, if you want to calculate your
average engagement rate for Instagram, you would divide the total
number of likes and comments by your follower count, which will
give you a percentage. To make it easy:

Engagement = (likes + comments)

followers

This is the place to be if you want to understand what content

themes get the biggest response and traction!
CHAPTER THREE: UNDERSTANDING ENGAGEMENT 36

Take a close look at patterns with your most successful posts –

the subject of your photos, how long your captions were, if you
tagged anyone, whether you included a call to action from your
post. These are just some of the elements that could have made
the post so successful.

Let’s begin with looking at your top 12 ranking posts for

engagement. Simply toggle the filter options to “Engagement”
and tap apply.

Start analyzing these post by drawing out the similarities. Are the
color palettes similar? Have you included a product in the photo?
Was it a landscape or portrait shot?

Pulling these trends from your analytics is key to building a profile

that your audience – both your current followers and future
followers – can relate to and want to engage with.

If you start seeing a trend with your best performing posts, you
could be on to a winning formula that you can use for future
content.
CHAPTER THREE: ANALYZING YOUR CONTENT WITH LATER 37

Analyzing your Content with Later

Did you know that Later has its very own analytics reporting
feature?

With Later’s Instagram Analytics you can now monitor your

Instagram performance right from your desktop, including key
insights about your posts, stories, profile, and followers!

How to Access Your Analytics Dashboard:

Log into your Later account from your desktop. From the menu bar
on the left, navigate to your Instagram analytics. You can switch
between different social profiles at the top of the page to see your
analytics for each account.

If you’re on a free Later plan, you’ll have access to a basic analytics

dashboard with a highlight of the top 5 best performing posts out
of your last 30 posts. The basic analytics dashboard also includes:

• The total number of posts made on the profile

• Your current follower count and the number of
accounts you follow
• A highlight of your top 5 best performing posts with
the number of likes and comments
CHAPTER THREE: ANALYZING YOUR CONTENT WITH LATER 38

If you are on a Later paid plan, you can access Later’s advanced
Instagram Analytics!

On your Later dashboard, you’ll find a comprehensive overview

of how your account is performing, including analytics for your
posts, Instagram Stories, profile, audience, and more!

Your Instagram Audience

Just like Instagram’s native analytics feature, you can also analyze
your audience data with Later.

When you click on the Audience tab on the top of your analytics
dashboard, you’ll be able to track key insights about your Instagram
audience, including their age, gender, location, and when they’re
most active, so you can fine-tune your Instagram content strategy.

You can use your audience insights to help you tailor your content
for your audience and optimize it so it will always resonate with
your target viewers.
CHAPTER THREE: ANALYZING YOUR CONTENT WITH LATER 39

For example, if you notice that a majority of your Instagram audience

are women who live in large cities the United States, you can optimize
your content to resonate with that demographic specifically.

You’ll also be able to see when your audience is most active on

Instagram, and and then schedule your posts during those high-
activity times. That way, your content is more likely to be seen by
your Instagram audience, which could result in better engagement.
CHAPTER THREE: ANALYZING YOUR CONTENT WITH LATER 40

Your Post Performance

Your posts performance tab gives you a bird’s-eye view of your
how your posts are performing, including metrics like comments,
likes, impressions, saves, reach, and more.

You can adjust the timeframe to see analytics for posts that were
published up to 3 months ago. And you can also sort and rank
your posts across several metrics, like impression and comments,
to see what content is and isn’t working for your account.

Another benefit of Later’s advanced Instagram Analytics is that

your engagement rate is automatically calculated for you.
CHAPTER THREE: ANALYZING YOUR CONTENT WITH LATER 41

This, combined with the ability to filter and rank your posts
based on their performance indicators, means you can easily see
which of your posts are driving the best results for your business.

For example, if you notice that your video posts get more
engagement than your photos posts, or that certain types of
product photos do better than others, that’s a good indicator
that you should focus on creating more of that kind of content.

If you’re optimizing your posts for sales or traffic, you can

rank your posts by the number of clicks they received on your
Linkin.bio page, which will help you make better strategic decisions
about what content makes the biggest impact for your business.

If you really want to deep-dive into a specific post’s analytics, all

you have to do is click the Details button to find rich performance
charts for each post.
CHAPTER THREE: YOUR INSTAGRAM STORIES ANALYTICS 42

Your Instagram Stories Analytics

Just like your Instagram posts, you can gain so much information
from analyzing the performance of your Instagram Stories.

While your story may only last for 24 hours, you can still analyze
how they performed up to 14 days after they’ve expired. You’ll be
able to view metrics like how many people viewed your post, the
number of replies you received, and how engaged your viewers
were while watching. From these numbers, you can start to plan
and strategize the changes you can make to help your Instagram
Stories perform better.
CHAPTER THREE: YOUR INSTAGRAM STORIES ANALYTICS 43

How to find your Instagram Insights

for current Instagram Stories:
From your Instagram profile, tap your profile photo to draft your
story. Then just swipe up for all the insights on your active story!

Here you’ll find important metrics that can help you measure
the success of your Instagram Stories and identify trends in your
content that leads to the best performance:

We’re going to break down each of these different Instagram Stories

metrics to help you understand how they can help optimize your
strategy.
CHAPTER THREE: YOUR INSTAGRAM STORIES ANALYTICS 44

Interactions:
If you’ve included a sticker on your story – like a poll or vote sticker
– any actions that a viewer has taken to engage with your story
will be recorded here. You’ll be able to see how many responses
you received and how your viewers voted in this section.

Discovery:
This is the current number of accounts that you reached with your
story. It’s worth keeping an eye on this figure throughout the day,
especially if you’re trying to identify your best time to post.

While the number will naturally increase over 24 hours, if you can
spot any spikes in views – perhaps in the morning, or late in the
evening – you could tailor your next story to suit that trend. Also,
if you’re using any hashtag or location stickers in your story, you
can see how these improve your reach.
CHAPTER THREE: YOUR INSTAGRAM STORIES ANALYTICS 45

Navigation:
Here you’ll find a number of metrics, like taps forward, taps
backwards, and exits, all of which can help you understand how
your audience is interacting and engaging with your Instagram
Stories content.

A lot of people tend to “speed tap” their way through Instagram

Stories – and it’s common for people to swipe past stories in their
queue. So being able to analyze your Taps Backward, Forward,
Next Story, and Exits is great for determining which of your stories
resonate best with your audience.
CHAPTER THREE: YOUR INSTAGRAM STORIES ANALYTICS 46

Let’s return to our example of the skincare business’ Instagram

account.

If they post regular Instagram Stories, they’ll want to see how

each story is performing, and where they can identify any
trends in high performing content. They’ll want to know if
their audience is most engaged when sharing product photos,
or behind-the-scenes footage of their physical store. Or if
they’re noticing a high number of swipes away from photos,
but lots of people tapping forward on video content, that
could give them a good indicator on what type of content
their audience prefers!

Tracking these kinds of metrics can help you find out not just
how similar content performs, but how different content perform
against each other.

Let’s take a closer look at what these metrics mean for your profile:

Taps Forward:
Taps forward is the number of times a viewer
tapped the right side of the screen to jump to
your the next story.

If you see a high number of taps forward, that

could be positive sign as the viewer is looking
to see more from you. However, if viewers
consistently tap forward with a certain content
bucket (for example, descriptive product videos),
this could mean the viewer is bored and wants
to get through this part quickly.
CHAPTER THREE: YOUR INSTAGRAM STORIES ANALYTICS 47

Taps Backward:
Taps backward is the number of times a viewer
tapped the left side of the screen to rewatch the
previous story.

A high number of taps backward can be a great

sign of what’s working!

It’s worth taking note of the Instagram Stories

that receive a lot of taps backwards as this
could mean that your viewer was interested and
wanted to rewatch your story, or was speed-
tapping their way through, but wanted to go
back as something you posted caught their eye!

Finding trends with the type of Instagram Stories

what receive the most taps backward is a great
way to identify what works for your audience!

Next Story & Exits

Exits are the number of times someone has
swiped out of your story. But don’t panic, this
isn’t as negative as it may seem!

For example, if someone exits your story, it could

just mean that the viewer left the Instagram app
completely, or if you invited viewers to “swipe
up” to a clickable link in your story, they may
have exited your story to open your webpage!

Next Story metrics indicates the number of taps

to the next account’s story.
CHAPTER THREE: YOUR INSTAGRAM STORIES ANALYTICS 48

While it can be a positive thing if you have a high number of Next

Story taps on the very last story that you posted, it could also
mean that viewers weren’t engaged with your content and wanted
to skip to the next account’s posts.

Keeping an eye on your Exit and Next Story metrics is important,

as this data can be useful to determine how long your stories
should be, or if your content is really grabbing your audience’s
attention.

If you see a lot of Next Story or Exit results for your stories, you
may want to consider reviewing the quality of your content, posting
a little less frequently, or switching-up the format of your posts to
keep your audience more engaged – like including polls, stickers,
or swapping to videos!

Finding Insights for Expired Instagram Stories

Never fear! If you didn’t get a chance to review your analytics before
a story expired, there’s still a way to measure its performance.

Just have to follow these steps to find out how your expired
Instagram Stories performed:

From your profile page, tap the “bar chart” icon on the top right-
hand corner. Then navigate to the Content tab on the Insights
page.

Here, you’ll need to scroll down to the Stories section. You’ll

see your live stories in this box, with the number of views each
received.
CHAPTER THREE: YOUR INSTAGRAM STORIES ANALYTICS 49

If you want to see more Instagram Stories, all you have do is tap
“See All” in the top right corner of this box.

Similar to the Insights for your posts, this page will show all of
your Instagram Stories with the option to filter using the bar on
the top of the screen. However, you’ll only find metrics for your
Instagram Stories posted over the last 14 days here.
CHAPTER THREE: YOUR INSTAGRAM STORIES ANALYTICS 50

Using the filter, you can toggle to see the metrics for impressions,
reach, taps forward, taps back, exited, replies, next stories, and,
importantly, link opens.

Here, you can track how many people used the “Swipe up” feature
if you linked to an external site! If you see a low number of Link
Opens for the story that you added a link to, it could meant that
the content didn’t resonate with viewers or they didn’t notice your
call-to-action. If this is the case, you might want to consider adding
GIFs to your stories help draw viewer’s attention to the link.
CHAPTER THREE: YOUR INSTAGRAM STORIES ANALYTICS 51

At Later, we recently created a

ton of fun Instagram Stories GIFs
like “Swipe Up,” “Giveaway,” and
“Link in Bio” that you can use
to help boost the engagement
on your stories! Simply search
“Later” when adding a GIF to
your story to find our library.

If you want to see all your

information on taps forward,
back, and exit rates for a single
story, simply tap the story you
want to look at. Then swipe up
to find all the analytics for the
individual post!
CHAPTER THREE: YOUR INSTAGRAM STORIES ANALYTICS 52

Analyzing Your Instagram Stories

Analytics with Later
Did you know that you can track your Instagram Stories analytics
and metrics with Later?

In fact, unlike the analytics in the Instagram app, which only

saves your stories metrics for 2 weeks, you’ll be able to analyze
up to 3 months’ worth of Instagram Stories data with Later!

Story Performance
To access your Instagram Stories analytics, start by clicking the Story
Performance tab at the top of your Instagram Analytics dashboard.

From here, you can see how your Instagram Stories have
performed over the last 3 months, with metrics like impressions,
reach, completion rate, average views per user, and the number
of replies each story received.

Note: As an Instagram Partner, Later uses the Instagram API for all Instagram analytics,
which does not include data for swipe ups, profile clicks, or sticker taps in stories.
CHAPTER THREE: YOUR INSTAGRAM STORIES ANALYTICS 53

Like your Instagram post analytics, you can also hone-in on your
individual stories to learn more about how each of them performed
over time.

For example if you’re looking to test new visual strategies, like

adding GIFs and stickers, and different calls-to-action (CTAs), you
can compare the performance of those stories to see which ones
resonate the most with your audience.

And by tracking the completion rate of your Instagram Stories, you

can learn what story length is optimal for keeping your audience
engaged!

By collecting more information about your Instagram Stories

performance, you’ll be able to develop a strategy that really
resonates with your audience and helps you achieve your larger
business goals on Instagram.
CHAPTER THREE: YOUR IGTV CHANNEL 54

Your IGTV Channel

Instagram launched IGTV this summer and it’s already shaking up
the way we watch and interact with videos!

If you haven’t created your channel yet, we have a full IGTV guide
to help you get set up and running. It’s a great way to reach new
audiences through video and showcase some of your business on
the new platform.

But if you’ve already jumped on the creative bandwagon and want

to see how your IGTV videos are performing, here’s how to do it:

From your Instagram profile, tap on the IGTV icon. This will bring
you to your IGTV channel.
CHAPTER THREE: YOUR IGTV CHANNEL 55

Now, tap on the video you would like to see your analytics for.
When the video starts playing, just tap on the ‘...’ icon on the
bottom left-hand side of the screen.

This will bring up and list of options. Simply tap on the “View
Insights” button and it will bring up all the analytics related to
your video.
CHAPTER THREE: YOUR IGTV CHANNEL 56

Engagement:
Just like your Instagram Stories and posts, you can see how many
times your video has been viewed, liked, and commented on.

A “view” on IGTV is counted for every time a person watched at

least three seconds of your video. So while your views may be
high, it’s actually your Audience Retention stats that will show you
if your audience was engaged from start to finish!

Audience Retention:
This is a metric unique to IGTV as you can investigate how well
your video was able to keep your audience’s attention!

Being able to see how much of your video was watched, and at
what point your viewer decided to exit your video, can give you
some great insights into your content.
CHAPTER THREE: YOUR IGTV CHANNEL 57

Let’s start with your Average Percentage Watched:

This is the percentage of your videos that people watched and

is calculated as the percentage of your video watched as an
average of all plays. In this example, you can see that our Average
Percentage Watched was 17%.

Overall, that means that 17% of our video was watched, but it
doesn’t necessarily mean the first 17% of the video as users can
tap forward through the video to skip ahead or watch snippets
of the video.

If we look at the graph below our Average Percentage Watched

metric, we can see exactly just where in the video the majority of
our viewers were engaged.
CHAPTER THREE: YOUR IGTV CHANNEL 58

In our example, we can see a natural decline – don’t get

disheartened by this, it’s completely normal! You’re never going
to be able to get 100% of your viewers watching your video
completely from start to finish, and here’s why:

IGTV functions similar to Instagram Stories – when one video

finishes another video begins to play. There are lot of reasons why
a viewer might skip past your video: they may not be interested
in the topic of your video, they could have run out of time and
decided to leave the app, or maybe the got the information they
wanted at the beginning of your video.

While we shouldn’t get disheartened by this natural decline in

viewers as the video progresses, there are some things that you
can do to encourage your readers to stick around longer!
CHAPTER THREE: YOUR IGTV CHANNEL 59

Video length: While IGTV allows most accounts to post videos of

up to 10 minutes (and up to one hour for some verified accounts),
keeping your videos short, sweet, and to the point will help
improve your retention rates. Check in regularly with your IGTV
analytics to find out what the video length sweet spot is for your
audience and start building your strategy around that.

Include an introduction: If you’re creating a video for IGTV, it’s a

good idea to have a short introduction to let your viewers know
from the get-go what you’re going to be covering. With an intro,
your viewers will know straight away if they want to hang around
or skip to the part that’s of interest to them, and it could improve
your average percentage watched rate.

IGTV is a super-new feature for Instagram businesses, and it’s

a great time to explore, experiment, and try out new forms of
content on the platform. If you’ve never created videos before,
we have a whole guide to filming and editing vertical videos for
IGTV, and with a little trial and error, you could tap into a whole
new audience you didn’t have before.
 CHAPTER FOUR

Why You Should

Track and Measure Your
Instagram Analytics
CHAPTER FOUR: TRACK AND MEASURE YOUR INSTAGRAM ANALYTICS 61

CHAPTER FOUR

Why You Should Track

and Measure Your
Instagram Analytics
Now that we’ve covered everything there is to know about the
metrics and analytics behind your Instagram account, it’s time
to chat about why it’s so important to track, and measure them!

It’s all well and good being able to see these metrics, but it’s more
important to learn from them. By regularly tracking and measuring
the changes in your analytics – both the good and the bad – you’ll
be better off when planning your social strategy. From here, you’ll
be able to make better informed, positive changes you can make
in the future that will help grow your Instagram account and get
more business sales!

Set → Track → Review → Make Changes

SET: Set some goals for your Instagram account. Do you want
to increase your followers or improve your engagement rate?
Whatever your goal for your Instagram account, make sure it’s
measurable. For example, your goal could be to have an average
engagement rate of 10% by December 2018.

TRACK: Get into a routine of regularly checking in with Instagram

Insights and Later Analytics to record your account’s performance.
It could be weekly, monthly, or quarterly, but you should
CHAPTER FOUR: TRACK AND MEASURE YOUR INSTAGRAM ANALYTICS 62

periodically put time aside to review and record your metrics.

Keep a spreadsheet with all the key metrics you want to record –
this will be a huge help when it comes to reviewing your analytics
and metrics at later stages.

REVIEW: Now that you’ve built-up and recorded all this data, it’s
time to review and learn from the trends and patterns! This is the
time to really analyze the positive patterns with your audience
and content. If any of these learnings help you reach your goals,
it’s time to make changes!

MAKE CHANGES: Pulling the learnings from your metrics is key to

making the right changes to your Instagram marketing strategy. If
you can make changes based on the data behind your Instagram
audience and content, you’ll soon start reaching those goals and
your Instagram account and business will thrive!
Conclusion
CONCLUSION 64

Conclusion
Regardless of your business size, you
now have everything you need to start
understanding your Instagram analytics!

Taking the time to understand the metrics

behind your Instagram account can reveal
so much about your audience’s preferences
and behaviors. If you can draw out trends
and patterns from your analytics, you’ll be
able to make strategic changes and reach
your goals faster!

Start putting what you’ve learnt into action

today and you could start to see your
Instagram account and business grow.
Discover Instagram
Analytics with Later
Sign up to Later today to start exploring your
Instagram analytics and begin analyzing your
performance with easy-to-understand metrics
and graphs.

Try Later for Free!

GLOSSARY 66

Glossary
Average percentage watched (IGTV): The percentage of your
IGTV videos that people watched calculated as the percentage of
your videos watched as an average of all plays.

Clicks to email: The number of taps to email your business.

Comments: The number of comments on your post.

Engagement: The number of times that your post was liked, saved
and commented on.

Engagement rates: The percentage of followers or viewers that

engage with your posts. To calculate your average engagement rate
for Instagram, you would divide the number of likes and comments
by your follower count, which will give you a percentage.

Exits: The number of taps to leave your Instagram Stories.

Follows: The number of accounts that started following you.

Impressions: The total number of times that all your posts, or

Instagram Stories post have been seen.

Likes: The number of likes your post or IGTV video received.

Link opens: The number of times that a link on your photo or

video was clicked.

Next story: The number of taps to the next account’s story.

GLOSSARY 67

Profile visits: The number of times that your profile was viewed.

Reach: The number of unique accounts that have seen any of your
posts or Instagram Stories posts.

Replies: The number of replies your Instagram story received.

Saved: The number of unique accounts that saved your post.

Taps back: The number of taps to see the previous photo or video
in your Instagram Stories.

Taps forward: The number of taps to see the next photo or video
in your Instagram Stories.

Views (IGTV): The number of times that people watched at least

three seconds of your IGTV video.

Website clicks: The number of taps on the websites in your profile.