98. Instagram Insights Cheat-Sheet: 3 Engagement Metrics You MUST Track for Real Growth
- Brittany Miller
- Jun 3
- 12 min read
Updated: 3 days ago
If you’re pouring your heart and soul into Instagram but your follower count isn’t growing the way you hoped, you might be wondering if your content is working at all. The truth is, follower count alone is a misleading metric that doesn’t tell the full story of your Instagram success or how your social media efforts are supporting your business growth.
Welcome to this comprehensive guide in Instagram engagement and Instagram metrics. Today I'm diving into three crucial engagement metrics you need to be tracking right now to see real organic growth on Instagram, the ones that really matter.
These metrics go far beyond likes and follower numbers, giving you actionable data to refine your content strategy, attract the right audience, and ultimately grow your business. Because if you’re only looking at your follower count... you’re missing the bigger picture.
Whether you’re a service-based business owner, a product seller, or a content creator looking to boost your Instagram presence, understanding and monitoring these metrics will transform the way you use Instagram insights.
If we haven't met yet, hi, I'm Brittany, a mom, mystery buff, bookworm, and DIY home decor enthusiast. I help business owners get seen, loved and paid. If you're looking for support with your social media, email marketing to podcast, click here to learn how I can help.
Let’s dive in!
Table of Contents
Why Follower Count Isn't the Whole Picture
It’s tempting to obsess over follower count because it’s easy to track and feels like a clear sign of success. However, having thousands of followers means very little if those followers aren’t your ideal clients or customers. Followers can come from anywhere in the world and may never engage with your content or purchase from you.
Imagine you have a physical storefront, but most of your followers live hours away or even in different countries. Those followers aren’t likely to visit your store or buy from you, so their presence doesn’t contribute to your business growth.
For service-based businesses, this can be trickier since you might work with clients from anywhere, but even then, you want followers who fit your niche and are likely to engage with and invest in your offerings. For example, my business targets other business owners (B2B), so followers without businesses aren’t the right fit for me, and I often remove non-business profiles from my following list to keep my audience focused. I've removed thousands of followers over the years.
In short, it’s better to have fewer followers who are your ideal clients than a large number of followers who don’t engage or convert. This insight sets the stage for why monitoring the right Instagram insights matters much more than just counting followers.
I have a whole podcast episode dedicated to explaining why removing followers is a good thing, check it out!
How to Use Instagram Insights Effectively
Instagram provides a wealth of data through its professional dashboard, but it can be overwhelming to know which metrics to prioritize. The key is to align your metrics with your business goals and the specific purpose of your content.
The metrics you should focus on depend on your unique goals and the type of content you post. However, there are three general engagement metrics that every business owner should keep an eye on to understand how their Instagram strategy is performing:
Average Watch Time and Playthrough Rate (especially for Instagram Reels)
Top Performing Content
External Link Taps
Let’s explore each of these in detail and learn how to use them to improve your Instagram presence and grow your business.
1. Average Watch Time and Playthrough Rate: Unlocking the Power of Instagram Reels
Instagram Reels are the powerhouse of Instagram marketing right now, offering unparalleled organic reach and engagement opportunities. As an Online Marketing Strategist I fully believe all businesses and content creators should be creating reels, ideally, the majority of your content should be reels because they help with three main phases of marketing:
Attraction/Awareness: Getting new people to discover your business and follow you.
Nurturing: Positioning yourself as the expert and building trust with your audience.
Sales: Encouraging your audience to take action and make a purchase.
Reels primarily serve the attraction and awareness phases but can also be used for nurturing. Because of their importance and popularity, Instagram’s algorithm heavily favours reels that keep viewers watching until the end. This is where the metrics of average watch time and playthrough rate come into play.
What is Average Watch Time?
Average watch time measures how long, on average, viewers watch your reel. Ideally, you want viewers to watch as close to 100% of your reel as possible. While 100% watch time is rare, a high average watch time signals to Instagram’s algorithm that your content is engaging and worth promoting to more people, this is how you get more reach and connect with potential new followers.
Longer reels with high watch times are particularly favoured by Instagram. For example, getting someone to watch a full 30 or 60-second video is more impactful than a 10-second video, even if the percentage watched is the same. The algorithm interprets this sustained attention as a sign of valuable content.
If you're new to creating reels, start small, 10-20 second reels are perfect and as you get more confertable on camera, recording b-roll and editing reels slowly start to experiment with longer reels.
How to Find and Interpret Your Average Watch Time
In your Instagram professional dashboard, you can find average watch time in the insights section for each reel (or select a reel in your feed and hit 'View insights'). The dashboard shows total watch time in minutes and seconds, but you can also scroll down to see the average watch time per viewer in seconds.
Knowing the length of your reel helps you calculate the percentage of the video watched on average, which is a critical indicator of engagement. For instance, if your reel is 30 seconds long and your average watch time is 6 seconds, viewers are only watching 20% of your content. The insights tab won't tell you the length of the video but it will indicate:
Total watch time
The average watch time, and
The view rate past the first 3 seconds
The 'industry average' watch time is around 3 seconds, so anything above that is a positive sign. If your average watch time is low, it usually means your hooks—the opening moments of your reel—aren't strong enough to grab viewers’ attention and keep them watching.
Why Are Text & Visual Hooks So Important for Reels?
Hooks are the visual or textual elements at the beginning of your reel that capture attention and entice viewers to keep watching. They could be an intriguing question, a bold statement, a surprising fact, or eye-catching visuals or transition.
If your average watch time is low, focus on improving your hooks by experimenting with different styles. It's best to test various text-based hooks, visual hooks, or a combination of both to see what resonates best with your audience.
Video Playthrough Rate and Its Role
Playthrough rate complements average watch time by showing the percentage of viewers who watched your reel all the way through. A high playthrough rate means your content is compelling and keeps viewers engaged until the end, further boosting your chances of reaching a wider audience.
Using Trial Reels for Testing
Whether you're new to creating reels or you've been doing it for a while, the new Instagram’s Trial Reels feature as a fantastic tool for improving your average watch time and playthrough rate. Trial Reels let you test different hooks and formats with non-followers (also a great way to reach potential new followers) before sharing the best-performing reel to your main feed. This A/B testing approach helps you refine your content without overwhelming your followers with repetitive posts.
For those interested in diving deeper into Trial Reels, I have a dedicated episode on how to A/B test your Instagram content effectively, which is a valuable resource for content creators and business owners.
2. Top Performing Content: Discover What Your Audience Loves
Knowing which of your posts resonate the most with your audience is essential for creating content that drives engagement, builds trust, and attracts ideal clients. Instagram’s professional dashboard provides a "Top Performing Content" section, which you can filter by content type (reels, posts, stories) and timeframe (e.g., last 30 days). This makes it super easy to compare content formats, topics and more!
How to Access and Use Top Performing Content Data
Navigate to your Instagram professional dashboard, select the “Interactions” tab, and scroll down to find the “By Interaction” section. Here you can view your top-performing reels, posts, and stories in a grid format.
By analyzing the top nine posts or reels, you can identify patterns such as:
Which content formats your audience prefers (e.g., reels vs. carousel posts)
Popular topics or themes (e.g., social media tips, product showcases, business advice)
Effective hooks and visuals that grab attention
This insight allows you to reverse-engineer your content strategy by creating more of what works and less of what doesn’t, maximizing your engagement and follower growth.
Tailoring Content to Your Business Goals
Different metrics within the top-performing content section can help you align your content with your specific goals, such as:
Views: Great for awareness and attraction.
Accounts Engaged: Measures likes, comments, saves, and shares—important for nurturing relationships.
Accounts Reached: Indicates how many unique users saw your content.
Follows: Shows which posts are driving follower growth.
Shares: Highlights content that your audience finds valuable enough to share.
For example, if your goal is to grow your followers, focus on the posts that generated the most follows and replicate their style and topics. If you want to increase engagement, look for content with the highest accounts engaged. This is where a custom content strategy comes into play because each business has different goals, content pillars, etc.
Did you know I offer custom content plans? Click here to learn more about my 90 Day Marketing Momentum Maps, a done-for-you option. Or book a personalized coaching session if you're interseted in done-with-you support.
Using Top Performing Content to Refine Your Strategy
Sometimes, you might notice that certain posts attract followers who aren’t your ideal clients. For instance, a women’s fashion brand might get a surge of male followers during a holiday shopping season who aren’t likely to convert long-term. In such cases, use your analytics to identify which posts attracted those followers and adjust your content accordingly to better target your ideal audience.
Top performing content analysis is a powerful way to make data-driven decisions that improve the quality of your Instagram presence and ensure your efforts align with your business objectives. Your Instagram Insights are a goldmine of important information, once you know how to find it and interpret it, content creation will become much easier!
3. External Link Taps: Measuring Your Sales Potential
The third critical metric I recommend tracking is external link taps. This metric shows how many people clicked the link in your Instagram bio after visiting your profile. It’s a direct indicator of how many users are interested enough in your business to seek more information, explore your products or services, or engage with your offers.
Why External Link Taps Matter
If you’re not seeing many external link taps, it could mean one of two things:
You’re not using clear and compelling calls to action (CTAs) in your posts: Without CTAs, your audience may not know where to go next or how to take the next step with your business.
Your content isn’t valuable or engaging enough: If your audience doesn’t find your content helpful or interesting, they won’t be motivated to click through to learn more or purchase products.
I cannot stress enough, the importance of including CTAs in your content to guide your audience toward clicking your bio link. Even though the “link in bio” phrase may feel overused, and I would rather see you use custom keywords combined with DM automations, I would prefer you use 'link in bio' rather than nothing at all since CTA's are still a necessary part of a strategic Instagram content plan.
How ManyChat and Other Tools Affect Link Taps
Some businesses use tools like ManyChat to automate direct message responses and deliver links directly to users who comment specific keywords on posts. While this can significantly boost engagement and lead generation, it also means fewer people are clicking the bio link, which can make your external link tap metric look lower than expected.
If you’re using ManyChat or similar tools, monitor the number of keyword-triggered comments and DM link deliveries as part of your overall engagement strategy. If you’re not using these tools and your external link taps are low, it’s a sign you need to revisit your CTAs and content value.
Optimizing Your Profile for Link Clicks
Besides including CTAs in your posts, make sure your Instagram bio is clear, concise, and optimized to encourage clicks. Your bio should communicate your value proposition and include a compelling reason for visitors to click your link.
Consider using link tools like Linktree or a custom landing page to offer multiple resources, freebies, or product links, making it easier for visitors to find what they want.
Putting It All Together: Using Instagram Insights to Grow Your Business
Tracking these three metrics—average watch time and playthrough rate, top performing content, and external link taps—gives you a powerful toolkit to understand your Instagram performance and make smarter decisions for growth.
Average Watch Time & Playthrough Rate: Focus on creating engaging reels with strong hooks to attract and retain viewers.
Top Performing Content: Analyze what content formats, topics, and visuals your audience loves, then create more of it.
External Link Taps: Use clear CTAs and optimize your bio link to convert interest into action and sales.
I also offer a practical resource to help you audit your content and develop a strategic content plan:
DIY Audit Checklist: A step-by-step guide to reviewing your Instagram content and insights to identify strengths and areas for improvement.Complementary training videos (coming soon!) will teach you how to interpret your Instagram data and apply it effectively.
This tool is designed to help you take control of your Instagram marketing with confidence and clarity. Click below to learn more.
Frequently Asked Questions About Instagram Insights
What are Instagram Insights and why should I use them?
Instagram Insights are the analytics and data provided by Instagram to business and creator accounts. They help you understand how your content performs, who your audience is, and how people engage with your profile. Using these insights allows you to make informed decisions to grow your account strategically and achieve your business goals.
Do I need a business or creator account to access Instagram Insights?
Yes. Personal accounts do not have access to Instagram Insights. Switching to a business or creator account is free and provides you with valuable analytics tools to track your performance.
How often should I check my Instagram Insights?
Regularly monitoring your insights—at least once a week or monthly (depending on how frequently you're posting)—helps you stay on top of trends, understand what’s working, and adjust your strategy quickly. Some metrics like average watch time may require checking individual reels, while others, like top performing content, can be reviewed periodically to guide your content planning.
Can I improve my Instagram growth without increasing my follower count?
Absolutely. Follower count is just one metric. By focusing on engagement metrics like watch time, interactions, and link clicks, you can build a loyal and active community that supports your business, even if your follower count grows slowly.
What if my average watch time is low—how do I create better hooks?
Try experimenting with different types of hooks such as asking a question, sharing a surprising fact, using bold text overlays, or starting with an intriguing visual. Test various approaches using Trial Reels to see what resonates best with your audience.
Are likes and comments still important metrics?
Likes and comments matter but are less prioritized by Instagram’s algorithm (at this time) than watch time and overall engagement. Focusing solely on likes can be misleading; instead, aim for deeper engagement such as shares, saves, and link clicks that indicate meaningful connections with your content.
Final Thoughts on Instagram Insights & Key Engagement Metrics
Instagram insights offer a treasure trove of data that can dramatically improve your social media marketing when used correctly. Moving beyond the vanity metric of follower count to focus on average watch time, top performing content, and external link taps will give you a clearer picture of what’s truly driving growth and engagement on your account.
Remember, Instagram success isn’t about quick wins or chasing viral moments. It’s about consistently creating valuable content that attracts, nurtures, and converts your ideal clients. Use these insights to guide your strategy, test new ideas, and refine your approach for sustainable, real growth.
If you found this guide helpful, consider checking out Brittany Miller Socials’ DIY Audit Checklist and upcoming video modules for a hands-on approach to mastering your Instagram analytics and content planning.
Ready to take control of your Instagram growth and turn your social media into a business asset? Start tracking these three key metrics today and watch your engagement—and your business—thrive.
Until next time, go get great!
Go Get Great Episode 98 References
Want to do your own content audit? Grab my DIY Audit Checklist and start using your insights strategically. It’s available now, and video walkthroughs are coming soon!
Ep. 70 - Why Cutting Your Followers Can Boost Sales & Engagement https://www.brittanymillersocials.ca/post/cleaning-instagram-followers-to-boost-engagement
Ep. 83 - How to Use Trial Reels: A Step-by-Step Guide to A/B Testing Your Instagram Content for Better Performance https://www.brittanymillersocials.ca/post/how-to-use-trial-reels
Come Say Hi!
Ready to level up your life and business taking it from good to great? Check out our Social Media, Email Marketing, or Podcasting Services
Hit follow and please leave a review if you enjoyed this episode! The kids and I might even bust out a happy dance! 💗 - Brittany
0:00 Intro
1:00 Instagram organic growth tip - don't just look at followers
2:25 3 metrics to keep an eye on in Instagram insights
3:00 Metric 1 - Average watch time
12:15 Metric 2 - Top preforming content
17:25 Metric 3 - External link taps
20:00 Wrap up
Comments