Instagram Stories Analytics: Which Metrics Matter and How to Measure Them

Instagram stories may be ephemeral, but that doesn’t make analytics any less important.
More than 500 million accounts interact with stories every day, and Instagram story
analytics provide the tools to understand their engagement.

There are many brands using Instagram Stories to great effect. In fact, one-third of the
most-viewed stories are from businesses. But even if your company doesn’t, it’s still
useful to understand the stats. That’s especially true if Instagram influencer marketing is
a part of your social strategy.

Make sure you have the insight story how to measure Instagram Stories, and
understanding which stats matter most.

How to use Insights to view your Instagram Stories analytics

Insights on Instagram Stories are available up to 14 days after stories are published.
There are two primary ways to access Instagram Story insights:

From your profile

1. Go to your profile.
2. Tap the menu in the upper right corner.
3. Tap Insights.
4. Select Content.
5. Scroll down to Stories.

From your story

1. Click on your story.
2. Swipe up.
3. Click the graph icon. From here you can toggle between this tab and the views tab,
which is labelled with an eye symbol.

Stories are only available for 24 hours, but you can view them and their insights from
your archive. To visit your archive, go to your profile, click the clock icon in the upper
left corner, and then select the story.

In order to have access to analytics for Instagram Stories, you need to have a business
account.

Understanding Instagram Stories metrics

Instagram story analytics are divided into three categories: Interactions, Discovery, and
Navigation. Each section offers a summary and a breakdown of different engagements.

Interactions
The interaction metric represents the total actions people take when they see a story,
including replies and profile visits.
  Replies: The number of times people reply to your story.
 Profile Visits: The number of times people visit your profile from your story.
 Sticker Taps: The number of times people have tapped on a geotag, hashtag,
mention, or product sticker on your story.

Why interaction stats matter: Interaction analytics measure viewer engagement with
your stories. Positive replies and profile visits are a good indicator that viewers like what
they saw and are keen to share and learn more.

Tip: A good way to boost interaction metrics is by sharing a poll, questions, or emoji
slider sticker. These stickers offer quick and easy ways for viewers to engage, and also
deliver additional feedback to derive further insight from. According to 99 Firms,
hashtags can increase Instagram Story engagement by 12 percent.

Discovery
Discovery measures the number of accounts that view your Instagram story. Instagram
cautions that this metric is an estimate, and may not always be exact.

 Impressions: The total number of times your story was viewed.

 Follows: The number of accounts that started following you.

Why discovery stats matter: Discovery and impression metrics are key to helping you
appreciate the scope of your audience. These metrics can be used to calculate the rate of
engagement with your content. Perhaps more importantly, they track how many people
are discovering your content. New followers gained through stories are a good indicator
people like what they see.

Tip: Using stickers can increase the discoverability of Instagram stories. Stickers may
lead stories to show up in more searches, or be included in larger stories that are curated
around certain stickers.

Navigation
Navigation stats track the overall completion rate of your Instagram story. Under
Navigation, you’ll see the total number of navigational actions people have taken from
your story.

 Back: The number of taps to see the previous story.

 Forward: The number of taps to see the next story (before the current story was
completed).
 Next Story: The number of swipes to the next account’s story.
 Exited: The number of times people closed your story.

Why navigation stats matter: Like interaction analytics, navigational stats also track
actions viewers take, but they tend to be less positive. The more people who forward,
exit, and skip your story for the next one, the more likely it is your content isn’t
connecting.
If a lot of people are clicking back, it could mean they want another look, or they feel
they missed something.

Tip: Including a call to action in your Instagram stories can help audiences stick with
them. Make sure your photos or videos offer viewers enough to engage with. If they can
use some assistance, consider adding text or stickers.

Find more tips on how to up your Instagram Story game here.

More things you can measure with Instagram Stories analytics

How to measure hashtag and location stickers on Instagram Stories

Stickers is the overarching term used to describe the location geotags, hashtags,
mentions, and product stickers that can be added to Instagram stories.

To measure the effectiveness of stickers, look under the Interactions section in your story
insights. If people are tapping on them, they’re probably of interest to your audience.

How to measure engagement on Instagram Stories

There isn’t a widespread standard for calculating the engagement rate of Instagram
Stories, but there are a few ways to track engagement.

One way to measure engagement with your Instagram stories in general is to divide reach
by number of followers to see what percentage of your followers are viewing your
stories.

The interactions section is the primary area to look at for engagement with your
Instagram stories. Thankfully, Instagram story analytics provides a total tally of all
actions taken from a story. That means you can calculate the engagement rate for the
story as follows:

Total actions / Total reach (Discovery) * 100

How to measure discovery on Instagram Stories

More than 60 percent of people say they discover a new product on Instagram, and stories
play a significant role in fuelling that discovery.

Impressions and reach are a good way to keep tabs on discovery, but Instagram doesn’t
differentiate between accounts that follow you and accounts that don’t. If your total reach
exceeds your total follower account, that’s a good indication that your stories are being
seen by new users.

Perhaps the best gage for discovery is Follows. A Follow from a story typically means
that a person is new to your account content and liked what they saw.
How to measure Swipe Up on Instagram Stories
Between 15 and 25 percent of Instagram story viewers will swipe up on a story if the
option is available. But, Instagram analytics don’t track link clicks. The best way around
this is to use UTM parameters. These short text codes that are added to URLs will allow
you to track website visitors and traffic sources.

The swipe-up link feature is currently only available to accounts with more than 10K
followers. Here are 21 simple ways to get more followers on Instagram.

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Stories are just one facet of Instagram analytics. Get the full picture on your Instagram
marketing performance with these tips and tricks.