Let’s talk about the Instagram marketing ROI. We know, we know, not the easiest of subjects. But of the utmost importance. Listen, you can know all the tricks and gimmicks and implement the most creative campaigns on Instagram. However, if you don’t know how much revenue you’re getting out of them, you’ll never be able to adjust the budgets and work at full efficiency. Not only that, but you won’t be able to prove the necessity of Instagram campaigns in your overall marketing strategy.

But how can you correctly assess your ROI on Instagram? What are the insights and analytics that can get you the best measurements? How to overcome the challenges of measuring the value of your marketing efforts? It’s easy to get overwhelmed by questions, but don’t fall into the trap of stressing out. We’re here to give you a chill-infused article that will turn the assessment of Instagram marketing ROI from a nightmare to a pleasure. Or at least a bearable nuisance.

Let’s start with the beginning…

What exactly is social media ROI?

Okay, so ROI is an association of letters that is often thrown around on the social media marketing scene. Of course, always accompanied by serious-expressions and worried attitudes. But, beyond the hype, nobody can quite agree on the specifics. Every expert has a different expert opinion on what social media ROI is. And that’s because the return on investment for every campaign depends on the initial objectives.

Of course, it all starts with knowing exactly how much money, time and resources went into the creation of a specific post or campaign. If so far, you haven’t been in the habit of keeping track of your Instagram expenses, then you should start right away and never stop. You cannot even begin to think about a professional Instagram marketing strategy without carefully tracking expenses. Next, you’ll have to compare your inputs with the outputs. That means you’ll have to compare the resources you invested with the results for specific posts, ads and stories in terms of engagement, number of followers and conversions to name a few.

In short, the Instagram marketing ROI is closely connected to your objectives. To measure it you need to compare the resources you invested with the insights that can measure your objectives, be it engagement, lead generation, conversions or followers.

Instagram marketing ROI
Instagram marketing ROI

Reasons to carefully measure ROI on Instagram

If you’re not convinced that your Instagram ROI is a must, think again. Don’t just go with the flow. That might only get you as far as the stream goes. But you want to venture further and discover new grounds for your business. And that means seeing exactly what you’re doing right and specifically what you’re doing wrong so that you can improve your efforts.

Knowing exactly how much ROI an Instagram post or Story brings you will let you in some valuable insights. By assessing that, you’ll be able to do more of what works and less of what doesn’t. And, of course, invest your time, resources and money into what matters.

Instagram marketing ROI
Instagram marketing ROI

Just having a social media presence is important in itself. However, since you’re already here (because you must be here), do it right! That’s the kind of person you are, right? Sure, you might say that it’s hard to gather all the data and even harder to analyze it. You might even say that you don’t have the time and resources. You’re right! But these are challenges to overcome and not excuses to live by. So, here are some helpful metrics to measure and how to assess your ROI on Instagram.

Metrics to help measure your ROI on Instagram

Using Analytics or Instagram Insight, you can access a range of different metrics. Which ones can help you measure and evaluate your ROI on Instagram?

Click, click

A click of a button can be somebody making or purchase or leaving your page. Monitoring the clicks on your profile, links, and other profile info can show you the potential sales you may make. 

Clicks can also show you how many people show enough interest from social media Calls To Action. Click rates you can monitor include the Click-Through Rate (CTR), Bounce Rate, and Cost-Per-Click.

With every click you share, it is important to have a clear call to action. People are unlikely to simply wander onto a link. Share links with discounts or competitions or special calls. You need to give them a good reason to want to click

Engagement rates 

There are tons of ways to measure engagement. Likes, favorites, and other actions that show approval are ways of noting engagement. You can also gauge engagement based on comments on your posts or views on IG Live, IGTV, and Instagram Stories

To calculate your average engagement rate: add total post likes, shares, views, etc. Divide by the number of followers you have. Multiply by 100 to get the percentage. 

Having a high engagement rate shows the importance of your posts. It makes it more likely that the pesky Instagram algorithm will share your posts onto followers’ feeds. Getting users to view your post can be the first step to your next sale and maximizing your ROI on Instagram. 

With fantastic business features on Instagram, more businesses are prioritizing customer engagement on IG. 

Woman-on-Instagram-account

To improve Instagram ROI using engagement:

  • Use hashtags and keywords that will come up on Explore searches. 
  • Add location pins to show up in geographical searches.
  • Keep up-to-date on, and integrate popping trends into your content. 
  • Engage with your followers – comment, like, tag, share their posts on your stories – to reach their audiences too. 

Awareness metrics

Awareness metrics give you insight into your existing and potential audience. Brand awareness, branch reach, and growth rates are important indicators of the impressions your brand is making. 

Seeing as awareness is an intangible thing, it can be difficult to gauge. But, raising awareness for your brand contributes to sales and conversions made. Awareness also goes hand-in-hand with reach (impressions made from being mentioned by other accounts) and your growth (the rate at which you are gaining new followers). 

Conversions

In a physical store, some people might browse around. Others might make a purchase, ask about email updates, or sign up for rewards schemes. The online space is the same. To measure your Instagram ROI, you need to separate the window shoppers from the people who take action. 

Your conversion rate is the number of people who complete actions on your website (i.e. make a purchase, subscribe to email communications, sign up for an event), divided by total visits. 

When figuring out ROI, knowing what people do when they get to your site is a must! 

Steps to measure Instagram marketing ROI

1. Know your objectives

Assessing your Instagram marketing ROI depends on your objectives. Without having a clear idea of what you’re trying to achieve, there’s no way to measure your achievement. Makes sense, right?

Instagram marketing ROI
Instagram marketing ROI

Actually, it makes a lot of sense since an engagement campaign will use very different tools and tactics than a conversion campaign or a lead generating one. And, since the tools and tactics are different, so will the measurement tools be. Not only that but knowing your objectives is mandatory no matter if you plan to assess your ROI or not. Without a clear direction, you’ll end up spinning in circles, not knowing how or when to act.

What’s more, try to set your objectives in such a manner that they can be calculated. Try to think of your overall actions as directing followers through a funnel, from potential followers to followers, leads and ultimately, customers. That means that, when measuring the results, you’ll have to focus both on data from Instagram and outside the platform, from your website. But more on that, later. For now, draft your objectives as clearly and accurately as possible.

2. Track your social media expenses

There’s no way of knowing your ROI on Instagram if you don’t keep a close eye on what you’ve invested. And that means more than what you’re spending in financial terms.

When calculating your investment in Instagram, you should always also take into account the human resources and the time they spent on thinking, creating and implementing the campaigns. Think about the specific number of hours and the fee for each professional per hour. Add them up and note them down! Another you must take into account is, of course, the actual cost of promoted content on Instagram or any other payments made to, let’s say, influencers or industry experts that are related to your content. And, last, but definitely not least, if you’re using third-party apps to help you with managing your Instagram account, you should also add this cost as well.

3. Dig into Instagram Insights

Instagram Insights are your first step into the wonderland of the Instagram marketing ROI. Here you’ll find valuable info about how your account and posts are performing. To learn more about how to interpret and make the most out of them, make sure to read our article on the power of Instagram Insights. You’ll find everything you need to know and more!

4. Get your analytics straight

As we’ve already mentioned, you’ll have to measure more than what Instagram offers you and even go outside Instagram to do so. For this, we recommend Ink361 as a way of grasping more powerful analytics about your Instagram. To measure results and conversions outside Instagram, Google almighty is your best friend. From the Google Analytics dashboard, you’ll be able to go straight to your Conversions’ statistics and even set social media goals, from newsletter sign-ups, traffic or leads, you name it!

In order to use the analytics from Google, you’ll have to set the URL destinations corresponding to your campaigns. For example, if we’re talking about a newsletter sign-up, create a separate URL for the final step of the sign-up. Make sure to create a specific funnel for each campaign and introduce the corresponding values to each so that you can calculate the exact return for each conversion.

5. Tie everything together

Now, with all the info in front of you, it’s time to crunch the numbers! Luckily, it sounds harder than it is. To figure out your ROI on Instagram, use the following formula:

[100 x (Earnings – Costs)] : Costs = ROI on Instagram

Where the costs include everything we’ve mentioned at step 2.

That’s it! It wasn’t that hard, was it? But it was totally worth it! Now, get to work and let us know how it goes!

Don’t forget to try out Preppr and ease your workload. The first 10 days are on us!

Author

Ilona Iftode is a copywriter with a taste for adventure. She lives to write, travel and explore new concepts in the realms of advertising, marketing, SEO and beyond.

2 Comments

  1. Great article, very useful information. I would like to add one interesting way to track the success and ROI of your marketing activities – You can use inbound numbers, like 1300 and 1800 numbers here in Australia ( https://www.iphub.com.au/ ), and through inbound call reports, see who responds to each of your campaigns as well as when, where, and how.

    • Hi David,
      thanks for your comment. I agree, you can use unique inbound numbers to track the effectiveness of your Instagram campaigns. Do you have experience with this?