What is an Instagram Insights dashboard?
An Instagram Insights dashboard is an interface tool that consolidates data from Instagram to track and display key performance indicators (KPIs) (e.g., engagement rate, reach, follower growth), enabling teams and agencies to monitor account performance and create presentations for clients and executives.
Instagram Insights dashboards are typically built using flexible tools like Google Looker Studio, Power BI, Google Sheets, or platform-specific solutions to enable high customization and integration of multiple data sources.
What to include in an Instagram Insights dashboard?
An actionable Instagram Insights dashboard balances context and specificity based on the audience (executives, managers, and analysts) and their use cases.
Executive Instagram dashboards
Executive dashboards for CMOs, CEOs, and clients show Instagram's bottom-line impact. Reviewed weekly, monthly, or quarterly, they include:
- Engagement analysis: by post type, using metrics like likes, comments, and shares.
- Follower growth analysis: track new followers, unfollows, and net growth over time.
- Content performance analysis: identify top-performing posts and stories.
- Add text for additional context to translate metrics for non-technical audiences. Present in slide decks and simplified Looker Studio reports.
Instagram manager dashboards
Manager dashboards have detailed views with drill-downs to see performance by post, story, audience segment, and campaign. They help align teams, define tactics, and include:
- Content reporting: overall performance of posts, stories, and reels.
- Goal tracking: compare current performance vs objectives.
- Audits for prioritization and spotting issues.
- Competitive analysis for benchmarking against similar accounts.
- Audience research: demographics, interests, and behavior.
Operational Instagram Dashboards
Operational dashboards for analysts and social media managers have granular, customizable KPIs to solve technical issues. Monitored hourly, daily, or weekly, they cover:
- Engagement: likes, comments, shares, saves.
- Reach: impressions, reach, profile visits.
- Content: post metrics, story views, reel plays.
Operational Instagram dashboards are highly customized, built in flexible tools like Google Sheets or Looker Studio to enable data cleaning, blending, annotations, and integrating multiple sources.
How to build an Instagram Insights dashboard?
To build an Instagram Insights dashboard, connect your data sources, choose a template on Looker Studio or Sheets, build your queries by selecting metrics and dimensions, choose charts to visualize your data, customize the dashboard, design and share via link, PDF or email.
Here’s the breakdown:
Connect data sources
Define and connect the data sources to bring to your dashboard. Common sources are Instagram for social media analytics and other platforms for additional insights.
To connect your data sources, go to portermetrics.com, choose the data sources to bring to your dashboard.
You can follow these tutorials on connecting your data:
Choose a template
Choose from dozens of Instagram Insights dashboard templates in Google Sheets or Looker Studio, designed for use cases like engagement monitoring, follower growth, and content performance.
Learn to copy Looker Studio templates.
While templates are the starting point, make them specific for your business or agency. Map your specific metrics, especially custom engagement metrics, audience data, and all the fields and metrics that you define as "key performance indicators".
Depending on your reporting tool—Google Sheets or Google Looker Studio, pick any of the dozens of templates created by our team and customers to solve your Instagram reporting use cases, such as engagement monitoring, follower growth, and content performance.
Select metrics, dimensions, and charts
Once your dashboard template is downloaded, you may 1) modify it or 2) create a blank page to build it from scratch. Whatever the case, setting up a query always follows these steps:
- Select the data source and the account connected to it
- Choose metrics (e.g., likes, comments, reach, impressions, etc.).
- Choose breakdowns to segment your data (e.g., by date, post type, audience demographics, etc.)
You can follow these tutorials on adding data to your dashboards
Design
To make your Instagram dashboards truly white-label you can add logos, colors, fonts, and styling to mirror your brand.
Follow these tutorials to design your Instagram dashboards:
Share
Share your Instagram dashboards via links, PDF, schedule emails, and control permissions.
KPIs to include in an Instagram Insights dashboard?
Instagram Insights dashboards should include a mix of visibility, engagement, and growth metrics to fully understand the performance of your Instagram account towards business goals. They include:
Instagram KPIs measure the engagement and reach process:
- Visibility metrics: impressions, reach, profile visits
- Engagement metrics: likes, comments, shares, saves
- Growth metrics: follower growth, new followers, unfollows
To analyze these Instagram KPIs, segment them by:
- Time: Hourly, daily, weekly, monthly
- Content: post type, format, topic
- Audience: demographics, interests, behavior
