15 Killer Instagram Analytics Tools (and the Critical Metrics to Measure)

If you want to succeed on Instagram, you need full insight into relevant metrics. By utilizing Instagram analytics tools, you can learn more about competitors, your content engagement, and the viability of your long-term strategy.

But before you can start using these Instagram analytics tools, you need to understand Instagram metrics and their importance to your business. Most of these KPIs work in conjunction with other metrics and can tell you whether your content is hitting its mark.

What Instagram Metrics Matter?

Each one of these KPIs provides actionable insights into your performance, showing you what’s going well, and what are the things you need to correct. Obviously, depending on your strategy, some will be more important than others.

1. Follower Growth Rate

The follower growth rate is a performance metric that shows you at which speed you’re gaining or losing followers. By assessing your audience growth, you can determine if the type of content you’re producing is resonating with the target audience.

You can measure your follower count for every individual post and the account as a whole. That way, you can establish if specific content is suitable for your target audience and what kind of videos and images provide the highest conversions.

2. Accounts Reached and Reach Rate

Many people confuse accounts reached with impressions. Unlike impressions, which show the total number of times your post was seen, accounts reached calculates the total number of people (accounts) who have seen a particular post. On the other hand, the reach rate shows the percentage of your followers who have seen an individual post.

Both of these metrics are vital for predicting your growth over time. A high number of accounts reached allows you to scale your social media strategies and gain a large followership. In an ideal situation, you would have a high number of accounts reached and several times that in impressions. This would indicate that the algorithm is continuously recommending your content or that people are returning to rewatch.

Achieving a high reach rate, in particular, is a good way to establish followers’ engagement rate. If most of your followers have seen a post, this is a clear indication that your user base constantly engages with your content (instead of just subscribing and never visiting your account).

3. Accounts Reached by Followers vs. Non-Followers

This particular metric provides critical insights into your post performance as well as content strategy. It demonstrates how many followers have seen a post compared to how many non-followers have viewed it.

If the number of non-followers seeing your content significantly eclipses the number of followers reached, this means you did a good job tapping into new audiences. New business accounts can scale their social media campaigns with this critical metric and diversify their follower demographics.

4. Impressions

Impressions is one of the key metrics that showcases the virality of a particular social post. As previously mentioned, it is a KPI that shows you the total number of times people have seen a particular piece of content (but not necessarily the engagement rate). Because of that, impressions are a vital post-level performance insight.

In an ideal situation, your impressions should be several times higher than the accounts reached. This would mean that people have returned to your social media account to rewatch the post. It also tells you that Instagram’s algorithms have recommended the post numerous times to various users.

5. Accounts Engaged and Engaged Rate

Unlike accounts reached, accounts engaged gives us the total number of people who have engaged with our post in one way or another through likes, shares, comments and saves. On the other hand, the engage rate is the percentage of followers who engaged with a video or image.

Engagement metrics, such as accounts engaged and engagement rate, give us a clearer picture of how people perceive our content. Accounts engaged and engaged rate are more important metrics categories than accounts reached as they tell us if people liked the post enough to leave a comment or like.

6. Accounts Engaged by Followers vs, Non-Followers

Similarly, this metric shows us the percentage of followers who engaged compared to the percentage of non-followers who engaged. Social influencers use various tricks to boost these numbers, as a high non-follower engagement rate would help scale their creator account.

Increasing this post metric is essential for Instagram’s algorithms. It shows the social platform whether you’re able to connect with new users on a deeper level.

7. Content Interactions

The best way to assess your non-follower and follower activity is through post metrics such as views, comments, and likes. Instagram takes note of content with high initial engagement numbers and recommends it to more users.

Not only do interactions help your content strategy by making your posts go viral, but they’re also vital for other forms of conversions. For example, by interacting with people who commented on your post, you increase the likelihood of selling your products and services. 

8. Content Shares

Shares are the most powerful audience engagement metric, telling us how many people shared a specific post. The KPI tells you that users are not only satisfied with the post but also willing to recommend it to friends and family.

Shares are vital for making your post go viral by spreading the message through various channels and user accounts. You can get a lot of traction for your professional account if you find a few social media influencers willing to share your content with their followership.

9. Profile Visits

Social profile visits is one of those depth metrics that show us the number of people who visited our public profile. As people don’t know about your brand, they’re unlikely to make direct visits. However, as you create more and more engaging posts, this number will rise significantly.

A high number of profile views is a sign of a healthy business. With this metric, you can establish how many users are aware of your channel and go to your profile directly without finding you in the Instagram Explore or Reels tabs.

10. Website Traffic

Ultimately, many businesses want to turn their Instagram traffic into website visits. Driving all these users to your site can significantly increase your brand’s sales.

You can check this app metric with your Google Analytics. Within the advanced tool, you can determine how many visitors you’ve received from your social profile and Instagram posts. That way, you can determine how much value Instagram generates for your general marketing campaign.

11. Hashtag Performance

Using hashtags and hashtag analytics is an excellent way to accrue additional traffic for relevant keywords. By adding relevant hashtags, you can attract more users who are interested in a particular topic. Based on that, the hashtag performance metric shows us the effectiveness of our hashtags.

The best way to squeeze value from hashtags is to focus on branded terms, products, and services. By using the right phrases, you can significantly boost your overall sales and make your social media marketing strategy more efficient. 

15 Recommended Instagram Analytics Tools

There are numerous programs you can use to assess your channel’s performance within this social media platform. It’s worth mentioning that besides social analytics, most of these programs also have other features, such as scheduling and content creation.

1. Instagram Insights

Instagram Insights is a native analytics tool that is often used as a backbone for other social media software. It gives you numerous data about your post performance, channel performance, and audience engagement.

The great thing about this native analytics tool is that it’s completely free, and you can set it up rather quickly. The tool gives you access to the most relevant metrics, such as accounts reached, accounts engaged, total followers, and content you shared. Everything’s well explained so even newbies can find their way around.

2. Brand24

Brand24 is a comprehensive all-in-one tool that allows you to track your performance across different social channels, websites, and business profiles. The software excels at monitoring web mentions and user sentiment, allowing you to determine how the public feels about your brand.

Like other social listening tools on the list, Brand24 provides you with valuable Instagram insights. It allows you to analyze your reach and engagement in a few clicks. I especially liked its hashtag reports, which are perfect for businesses that target specific markets and audiences.

3. Brandwatch

Brandwatch focuses on three main areas: social media analytics, influencer marketing, and consumer intelligence. With this social media analytics tool, you can perform comprehensive market research, find brand mentions, streamline content creation, and engage with prospects.

The software allows you to manage and monitor several social media campaigns from a single hub. I especially like how the Brandwatch content calendar looks, enabling you to schedule posts across several platforms. With this program, you can monitor Instagram reach, follower growth, impressions, and other critical metrics.

Further Reading: 15 Best Ways How to Get More Followers on Instagram in 2024

4. Sprout Social

With this powerful all-in-one tool, you can measure campaign performance, learn more about your brand health, draw industry insights, and perform competitive analysis. Sprout Social is especially great for running several social campaigns concurrently, streamlining your content creation and publishing. 

As for the Instagram metrics, this program allows you to track followers, engagement, and views. My favorite thing about the software is its social media reports, which not only provide you data about your channels but also compare them to other accounts. Sprout Social comes with a 30-day free trial. 

5. Hootsuite

In the last few years, this social media management platform has introduced amazing AI features that streamline your content creation. If we also consider its sophisticated scheduling tool, Hootsuite is a fantastic solution for running any social business strategy.

With this platform, you can create content in advance and track daily posting. The software shows you engagement rates for each Instagram post and how you compare with competitors. Furthermore, the advanced tool helps you analyze performance at different stages of the funnel as well as the performance of paid campaigns.

6. Iconosquare

There’s little Iconosquare can’t do for your brand. The software comes with a post scheduling feature, social analytics, collaboration tools, and AI generation features. The all-in-one tool is especially fantastic for Instagram creators, as it allows you to schedule, create, and publish posts from one place.

The thing I love about Iconosquare is that it separates between videos and images. You have access to separate image and Reels metrics, which gives you more granular insights into your content strategy. Within the tool’s dashboard, there’s a visual breakdown of all posts that helps you assess different posts, even if you don’t know their names.

Further Reading: 13 Robust AI Instagram Post Generators I Recommend

7. SocialPilot

Like most other tools on the list, SocialPilot is a perfect solution if you wish to run several professional accounts and influencer campaigns. It allows you to track social media performance for Instagram, as well as all other major platforms.

The software provides numerous valuable insights for content creators. SocialPilot shows reach, impressions, engagement, and comments for each published piece. You can also use the tool to assess audience growth, follower breakdown for each sex, and location metrics.

8. HypeAuditor

Perhaps the best thing about HypeAuditor is its competitive analysis functionality. The platform provides depth insights into the global market, competitors, trends, and rankings, making it easier to assess the viability of your content strategy. I also love its influencer analysis function, which helps you track the biggest creators within your niche.

Similar to the previously mentioned SocialPilot, HypeAuditor gives you valuable data regarding your Instagram audience. However, given that this platform is much more focused on influencers, you might want to look for something else to measure your content performance.

9. Crowdfire

With this amazing all-in-one tool, you can manage every aspect of your social campaign. You can use Crowdfire to plan your content creation process and find relevant topics. After that, you can use the program to create content and publish it across different social sites.

By relying on this software, you can track the total number of posts, as well as comments and likes for each one of them. Social media managers and content creators can use Crowdfire to assess their impressions, reach, hashtags, clicks, filters, live stories, archived stories, and other detailed analytics.

10. Later

Later is a perfect solution for streamlining user-generated content. By selecting relevant hashtags, mentions, and URLs, the software can generate and schedule posts over time. Later also includes stock photos, which you can use for your Instagram Stories.

As for the analytics suite, you can access various audience demographics, engagement data, impressions, and audience growth stats. One of the platform’s unique features is that it shows you how many bio clicks you’ve received (Later can add a LinkedIn bio link to each Instagram post).

Further Reading: 15 Best Ways How to Get More Followers on Instagram in 2024

11. Keyhole

Keyhole provides lots of valuable analytical data for social media creators. It allows you to monitor total posts across different platforms, overall and average engagement, likes per post, and follower stats. An excellent thing about Keyhole is that it aggregates data from different sources, providing more relevant and accurate insights.

This fantastic tool is especially great for marketers who often work with Instagram influencers. The software allows you to browse creators from different niches and track campaigns. Lastly, I need to mention competitive insights that can come in handy when creating your strategy.

12. Squarelovin

Whether you’re interested in user-generated content, influencer marketing, or branded content, Squarelovin is here to help. The software is especially vital for tracking posts across different channels and interacting with a wider community of creators.

Among other things, Squarelovin comes with a wide array of Instagram metrics and tools. Besides tracking basic data, such as impressions and reach, the software compares the performance of your post against other posts you’ve published. With it, you can optimize posting times and generate comprehensive reports for clients and other stakeholders.

13. Minter.io

Besides providing analytics data for Instagram, Minter.io also works for Meta, X, LinkedIn, and TikTok. The software comes with several tabs, such as Audience, Posts, and Stories, that separate various insights and content types. You can also use the platform to benchmark performance against other brands and to track online mentions.

One of my favorite things about Minter.io is that it classifies all posts into categories. You can assess the performance of your photos, videos, Reels, and carousels, which is vital when fine-tunning your marketing strategy.

Further Reading: The Top 21 Instagram Tools You Need for Successful Marketing

14. Quintly

Quintly provides its users with over 100 customizable dashboards and 350+ metrics for popular social platforms. The software gives you a global breakdown of audience data, as well as benchmarking against the biggest competitors. Of course, you can also dip into common metrics such as follower growth, impressions, and views.

Like most other programs on the list, Qunitly offers numerous integrations with other popular platforms. With the tool’s reporting feature, you can also create files for clients and other relevant entities.

15. Emplifi (formerly Pixlee TurnTo)

Pixlee TurnTo (now rebranded to Emplifi) is a comprehensive platform that serves all your social and marketing needs. Besides tracking relevant data on your Instagram and Meta, you can use the software to monitor brand mentions, perform competitive analysis and benchmarking, and execute influencer campaigns.

By using this software, you can tap into paid and organic stats across different sites. You can use it to track all sorts of engagement data, such as interactions, comments, and likes, as well as other KPIs. Among others, Emplifi helps you find optimal times for posting and predict future results of your posts.

Further Reading: The 7 Best Instagram Engagement Rate Calculators

Conclusion

Analytical tools are vital for any Instagram strategy. They can tell you a whole story about your reach and engagement, helping you determine what kind of topics your audience prefers. Most of these Instagram analytics tools come with additional features, such as content creation and scheduling, making them complete solutions for your business.

Hero photo by Laura Chouette on Unsplash