Are you pouring over your Instagram ad analytics, but not sure if you're tracking the right ones?
Instagram ads are one of the best ways to grow your business. They're highly targeted, totally customizable, and accessible to anyone with an advertising budget.
But like all other marketing channels, nailing your paid ad strategy requires constant testing, failing, tweaking, and, of course, tracking.
That's why, in today's post, we'll share the 7 metrics you need to track from Instagram ads. But first, let's get clear on a few of the advantages of advertising on Instagram.
Advantages of Advertising on Instagram :
We all know just how popular Instagram is as a social media platform, but there are some unique advantages to using it for advertising.
Here are the top 3 benefits of running paid ads on Instagram:
- Instagram Ads Are Visual: Instagram ads are easy to create because they're visually based. They can focus on a specific product or service, helping you craft your messages and get the most out of every dollar spent.
- Instagram Has a Wide Audience: It's one of the few advertising channels that appeals to both male and female users equally, making it an excellent way for brands with diverse product lines to advertise.
- You Can Share Your Ad: Spread your ad organically with friends and family for free advertising. It may not get you much traction, but even a little is better than nothing.
With those advantages in mind (plus the ones you're already familiar with), let's look at which KPIs you should be tracking for Instagram ads.
Instagram Ad Analytics: 7 KPIs You Need
1) Impressions
This is a simple yet important metric to start with. Impressions measure the number of times your ad is placed on a screen for people to see.
Keeping track of impressions will give you an opportunity for optimization based on how many people saw your ads and where they were most likely to be when they did so.
It'll also help you understand how long your ads were viewable.
This KPI is an indication of how many people saw your ad, but may not have clicked on or engaged with it in any way.
2) Reach
Reach is the number of people who saw your ad and were able to be measured.
The metric tells you how many people in a specific demographic have seen your ads, but may or may not have clicked on or engaged with it in any way.
Reach is also helpful for measuring the total exposure that you're getting through your LinkecIn ads.
The difference between impressions and reach is subtle but important. Note that impressions are the number of times your ad was displayed so it could be seen (regardless of whether it was or not).
Reach, on the other hand, is how many times your ad has been seen (regardless of whether or not users engaged with it).
That means your ad could appear on someone's feed twice in the same day which would count as two impressions. But for the viewer who saw it, you'd only have a reach of one.
3) Click-Through Rate (CTR)
This measures the number of clicks your ads are generating.
The more people that click on an ad, the better it is for you (and Instagram).
Every click-through will earn a certain value to be spent towards future ads and help increase reach in general. The higher this rate, the better your CTR.
CTR is measured by dividing total clicks (the number of times an ad has been clicked) by impressions.
Instagram provides a few different tools to help you optimize your CTR and convert better, but the best place is always in the audience itself.
A good rule-of-thumb for how high your CTR should be varies depending on what industry you're in.
4) Cost-Per-Click (CPC)
This metric measures the cost of each click your ads are generating.
The lower this number, the better it is for you (and, again, Instagram).
It's important to note that if your CPC is too high and there aren't enough people clicking on your ad or landing on a conversion page afterward, then you're actually losing money in the end.
The metric is calculated by dividing the total cost of your Instagram advertising spend by the number of clicks (i.e., Total Cost/Total Clicks).
5) Custom Conversions
This is an important metric to start tracking.
Custom conversions are the number of people who have been sent through your website and then converted into customers, leads, sign-ups, sales, and so on.
It's measured by dividing total custom conversions (the number of times someone has completed your desired action) by impressions (i.e., Total Conversions/Total Impressions).
The higher this number, the better your campaign is performing on Instagram and you're likely getting a good return on investment out of it as well.
While you might have multiple ad campaigns, each individual advertisement is likely to have a single call to action (CTA) or conversion goal in mind.
You'll need to set up custom conversions in Google Analytics and track the source (something like "instagram ad") by using UTMs.
This will tell you how many conversions your website had that came from your Instagram ad.
Need a little more help? Check out this post: UTMs: What They Are & How to Use Them.
6) Cost Per Conversions
This metric measures the cost of each conversion your ads are generating.
The lower this number, the better it is for you.
It's important to note that if your cost per converison is too high and there aren't enough people clicking on your ad or landing on a conversion page afterwards, then you're actually losing money in the end.
The metric is calculated by dividing your total spend on Instagram advertising (i.e., Total Cost) with all of the conversions that have taken place through it (i.e., Total Conversions).
Keep in mind that this can be tricky because you might have multiple conversion goals. One Instagram ad might try to get people to sign up for your webinar, whereas another may lead to a direct sale.
These conversions would be weighted differently and would likely bring a different ROI.
That's why you need to understand the cost of each conversion for each advertisement and accurately track them with UTMs.
7) Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)
The ROAS metric is a measure of the return on investment your Insagram advertising campaign has been generating.
It's measured by dividing total revenue (the amount you've made) with total spend (i.e., Total Revenue/Total Spend).
If this number is positive, then it means that your advertisements are working and bringing in more revenue than they cost to create.
If this number is negative, then it means that your advertisements are costing you money and need some tweaking.
This KPI is as simple as it is important. While your cost per conversion will require more in-depth tracking, ROAS is easy:
Are your advertisements collectively bring in more money than they're costing?
If yes, great! (though you should still look for places to optimize).
If not, then it's time to troubleshoot and diagnose the problem.
Instagram Ad Analytics Made Easy
When it comes to tracking your Instagram ad campaign KPIs, you have a few options.
You can rely on Instagram and Google Analytics to give you all the data you need above.
Then you can manually enter that information for your marketing team or your clients and add metrics from other marketing channels like LinkedIn, Facebook, Google Search Console, and about a million others.
Then when it's time for your next monthly report, you can do it all again.
But let's be honest: building those reports is tedious, prone to human error, and flat-out boring.
That's why I built Metrics Watch, one of the most effective report building tools on the market.
Metrics Watch has a codeless drag and drop visual builder that lets you create marketing reports fast.
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But the best part is that when you share these reports, there's ZERO friction.
That's because unlike other report building tools on the market, Metrics Watch sends reports directly via email. That means no more PDF attachments to organize, and no more 3rd-party user dashboards to share user roles (logins, passwords, etc.).
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Start Your 14-Day Free Trial Today!And that's all for now! We hope you enjoyed this post. If you did, you'll definitely want to check out the following resources:
These articles will give you even more ideas on how to strengthen your Instagram marketing efforts.