6 Ultimate Instagram KPIs to track for your business [+ Tools]

Instagram marketing content should contribute to your business’s goals.

And tracking your Instagram KPIs is the best way to know if the time, effort, and budget put into creating content is worth it.

With the right key performance indicators (KPIs), you can:

• Understand the effectiveness of Instagram campaigns.
• Get insights to improve your content strategy.
• Show your boss how Instagram content leads to business results.

In this guide, we’ll explore Instagram marketing KPIs and metrics to track during your campaigns.

How Instagram KPIs work

Instagram key performance indicators (KPIs) measure the performance of your content compared to business goals.

Instagram KPIs include:

• Audience growth
• Content engagement
• Brand reach
• Web traffic driven

Whether you work solo or report to a boss, tracking Instagram KPIs uncovers insights to refine your content strategy. This helps your content contribute to business goals.

While KPIs and metrics are often muddled together, they’re different. KPIs are targets, while metrics are numbers used to track KPIs.

For example, audience growth is a KPI, while the number of followers gained and accounts reached are 2 of the metrics used to track it.

In the next section, I’ll specify Instagram KPIs and the metrics used to track them.

Instagram marketing KPIs to track

Brand reach

1. Views

This is the total number of content views during a period.

While some people see views as a vanity metric, it’s the metric upon which most other metrics are built.

Without views, there’s little you can achieve on Instagram. 

2. Accounts reached

This is the number of accounts your content has reached during a period.

Since Instagram recommends content to non-followers, the number of accounts reached can be more than the number of your followers.

If the number of accounts reached is low for your following, pay more attention to your content quality and quantity. 

3. Profile visits

In most cases, people see your content before visiting your profile.

People often visit a profile to: 

• See more content 
• Learn more about the business  
• Follow the account 

Having a high number of profile visits means people have a high interest in your business or content.

Also, compare the number of profile visits to new followers. This helps you determine whether to optimize your Instagram profile to convert more followers or not.

4. Brand mentions

Brand mentions exponentially increase your reach as people see every Instagram post that mentions your brand.

Instagram users often mention brands for:

• User-generated content (UGC)
• Testimonials
• Complaints
• Content credit

Analyze your mentions to see why people mention your brand.

5. Number of branded hashtags

If you create branded hashtags to promote your brand and products, the number of posts featuring those hashtags tells you how popular the hashtags are.

As more people use your hashtags, your brand can reach even more users.

Encourage your audience to use your hashtags, especially for user-generated content (UGC) or product promotion.

Audience growth

6. Number of new followers

This is the number of Instagram users who followed your account during a period.

Having many followers boosts the number of people who see your content when you publish it.

While the number of followers is not as critical to content performance as before, it’s a good source of social proof and reach.

7. Audience demographics 

Audience demographics include information like:

• Top cities
• Top countries
• Top age ranges
• Gender

Since you create content to reach an ideal audience, these metrics will show if you’re reaching them.

From these insights, you can create content that fits your ideal audience’s needs.

Content engagement

8. Number of total interactions

This is the number of interactions (likes, saves, shares, etc.) on your content during a period.

It’s the addition of all interactions on your posts.

9. Number of accounts engaged

This is the number of accounts your Instagram posts have engaged during a period.

I think this is one of the most critical and overlooked Instagram metrics. For example, you can compare the number of accounts reached to accounts engaged to know how sticky your content is.

If you engage a specific account, Instagram will likely serve more of your content to them.

So, use the best Instagram post ideas to engage as many users as possible.

10. Post watch time

Your post watch time is the combined number of minutes or hours that people have viewed your content.

If you divide this number by the number of views, you’ll get an average watch time.

If your average watch time is low, it can harm your reach, as Instagram will recommend your reels to fewer users.

So, analyze your videos to see the point at which viewers often drop off and make changes to future videos.

11. Watch time after 3 seconds

This is the percentage of people who continue watching your Instagram reels after the first 3 seconds.

Instagram shows the percentage of followers and non-followers who watch beyond the first 3 seconds.

This metric helps you understand the engagement at the beginning of your video. If the numbers are low, you need to work on your video hooks.

12. Post interactions

Post interactions are the possible actions viewers can take on your post, including:

• Likes
• Saves
• Shares
• Comments

As you get more interactions on your content, Instagram will push it to more users in the Feed and Explore tab.

Analyze posts with high and low interactions to uncover differences between them.

13. Top sources of views

Since users can see your content at multiple places on the platform, Instagram shows the top sources of views for each post, including:

• Reels tab
• Explore
• Search
• Feed
• Profile

Once you know where your posts get the highest views, you can adjust your content to take advantage of those sources.

Web traffic driven

15. External link taps

Since Instagram only allows links in the bio section, this is the only opportunity to drive people to your website.

You can also create a link in bio page to drive people to important business pages.

Instagram lets you know how many people have clicked on your link.

To improve this metric, tell your audience to click on your link in bio. You can do this in your content and caption.

Leads generated

16. Click-through rates (CTR)

Click-through rates (CTR) is the percentage of people who clicked on your ad compared to the number of impressions.

CTR can deliver insights, such as:

• How well your ad creatives connect with your target audience
• Effectiveness of your call to action (CTA)
• Accuracy of your target audience
• Effectiveness of ad placement

Click-through rates can show you how effective your ads are.

17. Cost-per-click (CPC)

Cost-per-click (CPC) is the amount you spend on an ad divided by the number of clicks you get.

Whether CPC is good or bad depends on the average numbers for your industry.

Generally, having a lower CPC than your industry average is good for your brand and Instagram.

18. Leads from DMs

Leads from DMs are people who ask about your products in Instagram DMs.

This metric is more qualitative than quantitative since lead quality differs for multiple leads.

19. Leads from ads

If leads is your Instagram ad campaign objective, the number of leads generated determines the success or failure of your ads.

Meta lets you collect prospects’ information so that you can nurture them with your CRM or other marketing tools.

Sales generated

20. Sales

Sales is one of Instagram ads objectives, which helps you target ideal buyers to purchase products on your website, apps, Instagram DM, or WhatsApp.

For this campaign, the number of purchases is the most important metric to track.

21. Return on ad spend (ROAS)

Return on ad spend is the amount of revenue you get from your Instagram ads compared to the ad spend.

Generally, target a 3:1 ROAS and consider your industry benchmarks.

How to track Instagram KPIs

Instagram mobile app

For most people, the Instagram mobile app will provide the necessary metrics.

The Instagram app provides 4 main metric categories:

• Views
• Interactions
• New followers
• Content you shared

To see these metrics, visit your Instagram profile and click Professional dashboard below the bio section.

Doing this will show you the categories of insights.

From here, you can dive deeper into each metric category.

For example, in the Views section, you’ll find metrics, such as:

• Percentage of followers and non-followers among views
• Views by content type
• Top content
• Audience demographic
• Profile activity

Use these metrics to see how you’ve performed on your Instagram KPIs and what to improve upon.

Meta Business Suite

If you operate a Facebook and Instagram account, Meta Business Suite lets you schedule posts and track their performance.

To check your Instagram metrics, click your Instagram profile at the top right corner and then See All Insights.

On the next page, you’ll see performance metrics like:

• Views 
• Reach
• Interactions 
• Follows

You’ll also see messaging metrics and the number of orders you’ve gotten through those conversations.

Then, Meta benchmarks your business’s performance in comparison to other businesses in the same category.

Sprout Social 

Sprout Social is a social media management tool that lets you schedule posts, plan content, collaborate with team members, and track performance.

Apart from organic metrics, Sprout Social also provides paid metrics.

In this tool, you can track Instagram metrics like:

• Engagement
• Engagement rates
• Impressions
• Organic views
• Paid views
• Paid engagement rates
• Audience growth

If you want more information about this tool, read our Sprout Social review. 

Vista Social 

Vista Social helps agencies schedule and plan social content for their clients.

Beyond that, Vista Social provides social media reports for multiple networks.

For Instagram, you can track metrics like:

• Audience growth
• Engagement
• Brand awareness score
• Impressions
• Reach and profile views
• Audience demographics 
• Hashtags and interactions

Apart from social media reports, Vista Social offers other reports, including competitor analysis and review and tasks performance.

To learn more about this tool, read the full Vista Social review.

Conclusion

Tracking Instagram KPIs shows how well your Instagram content is working and what aspects need to improve.

Use these metrics to track your KPIs and improve your Instagram campaigns.

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