How to Analyze Instagram Video Performance

You already know video is the key to growth on Instagram, but posting great content is only half the battle. If you're not analyzing how your videos perform, you're essentially just guessing what your audience wants to see. This article breaks down exactly how to analyze your Instagram video performance to understand what’s working, what isn’t, and how to create more content that drives real results.

Why Bother Analyzing Your Video Performance?

Diving into your Instagram analytics isn't about vanity metrics or chasing likes. It's about gathering an enormous amount of feedback directly from your target audience. A thoughtful analysis helps you:

• Understand Your Audience: Discover what topics, formats, and styles actually resonate with the people you want to reach.
• Refine Your Content Strategy: Move from a "post and pray" approach to a data-informed strategy where every video has a purpose. Back up your creative instincts with real numbers.
• Maximize Your Reach: Learn what the Instagram algorithm rewards (hint: it's keeping people on the platform) so you can create videos that get pushed to a wider audience.
• Prove Your ROI: Connect your video efforts to tangible business goals like website visits, leads, or sales.

Instead of trying to replicate one viral video without knowing why it went viral, analyzing your performance allows you to build a repeatable system for growth.

Setting Clear Goals for Your Instagram Videos

Before you get lost in a sea of numbers, ask yourself a simple question: "What am I trying to achieve with my Instagram videos?" The metrics that matter most depend entirely on your answer. Your goal could be:

• Brand Awareness: Reaching as many new people as possible. Focus on metrics like Reach, Impressions, and Plays.
• Community Engagement: Building a relationship with your existing followers. Prioritize metrics like Likes, Comments, Shares, and Saves.
• Driving Traffic: Getting people to leave Instagram and visit your website or landing page. Your North Star here is Website Taps or Link Clicks.
• Generating Sales: Directly attributing revenue to your video content. This often involves tracking Website Taps and connecting that data to your e-commerce platform.

Decide on your primary goal first. This will help you focus on the handful of metrics that truly define success for you, rather than feeling overwhelmed by every number available.

The Key Instagram Video Metrics You Need to Track

Instagram gives you a lot of data inside its native "Insights" tool. Let's break down the most important metrics and what they actually mean for your performance, organized by video type.

Go-To Metrics for ALL Video Types (Reels, In-Feed & Stories)

These foundational metrics apply to nearly every video you post.

• Reach vs. Impressions: Reach is the number of unique accounts that saw your video. Impressions are the total number of times your video was seen (one person could see it multiple times). If your Impressions are much higher than your Reach, it's a good sign that people are watching your content repeatedly.
• Plays (Views): This is the total number of times your video has started to play. Instagram counts a "play" after just 3 seconds for Reels and in-feed videos, so it’s more of a top-of-funnel metric.
• Likes & Comments: These are classic engagement signals. Likes are a quick nod of approval, while comments show a much deeper level of engagement and investment from your viewers. Responding to comments is crucial for nurturing this engagement.
• Shares & Saves: These are the super-metrics of engagement. Someone sharing your video is a powerful endorsement. Someone saving your video signals they found it incredibly valuable or useful and want to come back to it later. The algorithm loves seeing high share and save counts.
• Profile Visits & Follows: These metrics tell you if your video was compelling enough to make someone want to learn more about you. It's a key indicator of how your content contributes to overall account growth.
• Website Taps: If you have a link in your bio, this metric shows how many people clicked it after watching your video. It's the most direct indicator of your video's ability to drive off-platform action.

Reels-Specific Metrics

Reels have their own set of powerful metrics focused on watch time, which is the number one thing the algorithm cares about.

• Watch Time & Average Watch Time: Total watch time is the total cumulative time your Reel has been played. Average watch time is how long, on average, a viewer watches. If your Reel is 30 seconds and the average watch time is 25 seconds, you’ve created something highly engaging! If it’s only 5 seconds, people are scrolling away quickly. Focus on improving this metric.
• The Audience Retention Graph: This is arguably the most valuable piece of data for Reels. It's a line graph showing you exactly when viewers are dropping off. Notice a huge dip in the first 3 seconds? Your hook isn't strong enough. See a big drop-off halfway through a talking head video? You might be rambling. Use this graph to pinpoint weak spots in your content structure.

Story-Specific Metrics

Stories function differently, and their metrics reflect that fast-paced, interactive nature.

• Taps Forward & Taps Back: A high number of “Taps Forward” can indicate people were bored and skipping to the next slide. A high number of “Taps Back” is a great sign, it means your content was so interesting that people went back to watch it again.
• Exits & Next Story Swipes: Exits happen when someone leaves Stories altogether after viewing your slide, while "Next Story" swipes mean they swiped to the next account’s Story. Both indicate that your content lost the viewer's interest.
• Sticker Taps: Did you use a poll, quiz, question, or link sticker? This metric shows how many people actually interacted with it, giving you a clear measure of how engaging your interactive elements are.

A Step-by-Step Guide to Analyzing Your Video Performance

Knowing the metrics is one thing, putting them together to generate insights is another. Here’s a simple process you can follow weekly or monthly.

Step 1: Get to Your Insights Hub

To access your data, you must have a Professional (Business or Creator) account. From your profile page, tap the "Professional dashboard" link below your bio. From there, navigate to "Account Insights". This is your command center for analytics.

Step 2: Start with Overall Trends

Instead of getting stuck on a single video, look at the big picture first. In your Insights, go to the "Content" tab. Here, you can filter your posts by type (Reels, for example), a timeframe (like "Last 90 Days"), and the metric you care about (such as Reach, Plays, or Saves).

This will show you a ranked list of your best-performing videos. Take note of your top 5-10 videos and ask yourself: "What do these have in common?" Look for patterns in:

• The Hook: Did they start with a question, a bold statement, or by showing a final result?
• The Content Format: Were they tutorials, behind-the-scenes glimpses, talking-head videos, or user-generated content?
• The Audio: Did you use a trending sound, original audio, or a popular song?
• Video Length: Are your top videos shorter (under 15 seconds) or longer (around 60 seconds)?
• The Caption/CTA: Did you ask a question in the caption? Was your call-to-action clear?

This big-picture analysis provides the most actionable directions for your future content strategy.

Step 3: Dive Deep into an Individual Video

Now, pick one of your top-performing Reels and tap into its specific insights. Your goal here is to understand the "why" behind its success.

Your first stop should be the Audience Retention graph. Where did it hold people's attention the best? If it was an educational video, was there a specific tip or moment that had very little drop-off? Then, look at the other metrics. Did it get a ton of saves but very few comments? That suggests it was useful but didn't spark a conversation. Did it lead to a lot of profile visits? That suggests the topic perfectly aligned with what your brand is all about.

Step 4: Review Your Audience Growth

Finally, zoom out again and head to the "Audience" tab in your main Insights dashboard. Here you can see your follower growth over time. Overlay your analytics with the dates you posted your top videos. Can you see a correlation between posting high-performing Reels and an increase in your follower count? This helps you attribute account growth directly to your content efforts.

Step 5: Document and Iterate

Analytics are useless if you don't act on them. Create a simple spreadsheet to track your findings. Have columns for the Video A/B (link to post), Topic, Format, Hook, Key Learnings (e.g., "Retention was high during the visual demo part"), and Key Metrics (Reach, Avg. Watch Time, Saves).

This document becomes your personal content playbook. Before you plan your next month of videos, review your spreadsheet to remind yourself of what has historically worked, and build your new ideas on that proven foundation.

Final Thoughts

Analyzing your Instagram video metrics isn’t a one-time chore, it’s an ongoing conversation with your audience. Consistently checking your data will help you create better content that not only pleases the algorithm but also builds a loyal community around your brand and achieves your specific business goals.

While using Instagram's built-in analytics is an essential first step, we know it can become time-consuming to manually track this data, especially when you need to connect it to your other marketing efforts. We created Graphed because we believe there's an easier way. We let you automatically connect your social media platforms with tools like Google Analytics and Shopify, so you can stop manually exporting data and use simple, natural language to ask questions like, "Show me which Reels from last month drove the most website traffic and sales."