Example: Tracking Instagram Business Reels Insights with data feed metrics

Keeping track of key engagement metrics for your Instagram Business Reels is essential to maximizing their impact. When you integrate Instagram Business with PowerMetrics, you get access to a more robust and informative set of analytics to visualize and track your data as it evolves over time.

In this example, we’ll show you how to connect PowerMetrics to your Instagram Business account. You'll then learn how to use the query builder in PowerMetrics to retrieve Reels data and create a data feed you can use for your custom Instagram Business metrics.

This article contains the following sections:

• Finding your Reels data in Instagram Business
• Connecting PowerMetrics to your Instagram Business account
• Creating your queries and finalizing your data feeds
• Merging your data feeds
• Creating your metric

Finding your Reels data in Instagram Business

In the Meta Business Suite, you'll find your Reels metrics in the Posts & stories section under Posts & reels. You can refer to this information to verify your data as it displays in PowerMetrics. See below for an example of the page that shows data for some of the Reel metrics that we’ll be tracking in this article:

Now that you know what data we’ll be tracking, let’s connect PowerMetrics to your Instagram Business account.

Connecting PowerMetrics to your Instagram Business account

When you connect to your source data and bring it into PowerMetrics, you create a data feed. Data feeds combine your account connection (the service account you’re logged into that has the data for your metrics) and your data (as a visual component you can view and edit). Learn more about data feeds.

To connect PowerMetrics to your Instagram Business account:

1. In the left navigation sidebar, click the + button beside Data Feeds.
   
2. Click Select data.
3. On the Where is your data? page, select Instagram Business.
4. If this is your first time connecting to Instagram Business:
   • Click Add new account.
     
   • Enter your Facebook login credentials and click Log In.
   • Next, to further define the data you're looking for, under Choose account settings, select your Facebook Page and Business Account from the drop-down lists. Click Use account.
     
5. If you've connected to Instagram Business before, we assume you want to use the same account and take you directly to the next step - Creating your queries and finalizing your data feeds. If you want to connect to a different account, you can do so in the query builder by clicking the account connection at the top of the data preview window (see below). You can either select an alternate, existing account or click “Add new account”.
   

That's all there is to it! You're connected and ready to move on to creating your queries and finalizing your data feeds.

Creating your queries and finalizing your data feeds

After connecting your account, the query builder opens. You'll start by choosing a data view. Using that data view, we'll run a query to get a list of available columns from within it. You'll then choose from those columns and specify the data to include in your data feed.

In this example, we’ll be creating two data feeds. The first data feed will list the Reel’s MediaID and all the relevant metrics we want to track. The second data feed will list metadata about the reels, such as the caption and created date. Later, we’ll merge these two data feeds into a single data feed that you can use to create Instagram Business custom metrics.

To create your first query and add your first data feed:

1. Under Data view, click the drop-down and select MediaInsightReels. (See below.)
   
   The MediaInsightReels data view contains the data for the events you’re tracking in Instagram Business. Its contents should mirror what you see in the Insights > Content tab in Meta Business Suite.
2. Under Columns, select the checkboxes for the columns to include in your data feed. In this example, we'll select MediaID (for the ID associated with the reel) and Comments, Likes, Reach, Saved, Shares, TotalInteractions, and Views.
   
3. Click Preview data.
4. Click Save query.
   The data feed editor displays.
5. Click Save data feed.
   Your new, saved data feed displays and is automatically named “Instagram MediaInsightReels”. Next, you’ll create a second data feed to retrieve Reels metadata.

To create your second query and add your second data feed:

1. In the left navigation sidebar, click the + button beside Data Feeds.
   
2. Click Select data.
3. On the Where is your data? page, select Instagram Business.
   Note: You connected to your Instagram Business account when you created the first data feed. We assume you want to connect to the same account so this time we take you directly to the query builder, where you can configure your second query.
4. Under Data view, click the drop-down and select Media. (See below.)
   
5. Under Columns, select the checkboxes for the columns to include in your data feed. In this example, we'll select Id, (for the ID associated with the reel), as well as Created and Caption.
   
6. Click Preview data.
7. Click Save query.
   The data feed editor displays.
8. Click Save data feed.
9. Your second saved data feed displays and is automatically named “Instagram Media”.
   You're ready to merge your two data feeds together to bring all the relevant Reels information into one data feed.

Merging your data feeds

Merging data feeds enables you to bring your information together. This means you can consolidate complementary data feeds (provided they share at least one column in common) in order to create a single data feed that provides a more complete version of your data.

In this example, we’ll merge together the two data feeds you just created: “Instagram MediaInsightReels” and “Instagram Media”. We’ll use the MediaId column (from the “InstagramInsightReels” data feed) and the Id column (from the “Instagram Media” data feed) as the join key because they contain the same information. Go here if you want to learn more about merging data feeds.

To merge your data feeds:

1. Select the base data feed: Click Data Feeds in the left navigation sidebar to open your list of data feeds. Select the “Instagram MediaInsightReels” data feed to open it. This is your base data feed. Click the Edit button and then click the Merge data button. (See below.)
   
2. Select the data feed to merge: In the Merge data pane, select the “Instagram Media” data feed. This is your secondary data feed. Click Next. (See below.)
   
3. Align your data feeds: Select the column in the base data feed (“MediaID”) and the column in the secondary data feed that contains the same data (“Id”). This is your join key. Click Next. (See below.)
   
4. Select columns: Now that you’ve aligned your data, you can select the columns from the secondary data feed that you want to add to your base data feed. After selecting “Created” and “Caption”, click Merge. (See below.)
   
   You just merged two data feeds! In our example below, you can see the join key “MediaId” and the new columns you added “Created” and “Caption”. Newly merged columns are always added to the right of the base data feed.
   
5. Click Save data feed.
   Your new, saved data feed displays. You're ready to use it to create a custom metric.

Creating your metric

You now have the ability to create a custom metric for each of the columns (fields) you added to your new, merged data feed, including numeric values (measures) for “Comments”, “Likes”, “Reach”, “Saved”, “Shares”, "TotalInteractions”, and "Views". You will also be able to create count rows metrics for the text columns “Caption” and “MediaId” or add them as segmentations for your numeric value measures (as in our example below).

The following instructions describe using the data feed to create an Instagram Reels “Reach” metric but you can use the same steps to create custom metrics for any of the other columns in your data feed.

To create your metric:

1. In the data feed you just saved, click +Add metric. (See below.)
   
   If you accidentally closed the data feed, you can reopen it by selecting it from your list of data feeds (accessed by clicking Data Feeds in the left navigation sidebar).
2. Under Measure, select Reach. This is the column from your data feed that contains the values you want to track in your metric.
   
3. Under Dimensions, select Caption.
   
4. Under Date and Time, enable the Data feed contains historical data toggle and select DATE Created. This is the column from your data feed that contains the date/time associated with each value.
   
5. Click the Settings tab.
   
6. Under Date handling, select Use all values. Your choice determines the data points your metric will use when calculating the metric value for a time period.
   
7. Under Format, select Numeric.
8. Under Aggregation, select Sum.
9. Under Favourable trend, select Trending up is positive.
10. Click the About tab.
    
11. Under Name, enter Instagram Reels Reach.
    
12. Click Save metric.
    The “Instagram Reels Reach” metric overview page displays. At first, it might look a little empty because it only has a single date value. As its data feed gets refreshed, new data is added to the metric and the overview updates automatically. In no time you’ll be seeing trends and comparing data to previous periods.