You may have been working on growing your Instagram brand for years, but how do you know if your investment is making any difference?
While looking at your follower/like count may give you some information, there’s still a lot of ground to cover. Measuring your online ROI works differently for social media platforms, so you should understand what to do to ensure you’re not wasting money.
We’re here to help. Below are seven metrics that will help you measure your brand’s Instagram ROI. Make sure that each dollar you’re spending counts!
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What Is Instagram ROI and Why Is It Important?
ROI means “Return on Investment.” In this context, it’s the value generated by your investment and how it affects the account. When you calculate your ROI, you’re measuring all the actions and strategies used to create value and how they compare to the money you spent on them.
Calculating your ROI is crucial for success. It allows you to identify what’s working and what isn’t. You wouldn’t stay with the same strategy for years if you notice it’s not making any difference, right?
It may be discouraging to discover that the plan you invested so much time and effort in didn’t work as intended. However, this is a necessary step to take if you want to take your Instagram brand to the next level.
How to Calculate Your Instagram ROI
There are many ways to calculate your Instagram ROI, and we’ll give you seven of the best ones. By the time you’re finished, you’ll have a clearer idea of which steps are crucial to making your strategy even better for the future.
1. Define Your Instagram Goals
What are your goals as a brand? Remember, not everyone wants the same thing as you, so you should think hard about what you want to achieve.
When you define your Instagram goals, you’ll have a better idea of what strategies you may consider to achieve them. Moreover, you could create a solid budget that accounts for everything you want.
2. Choose the Right Metrics
There are tangible and intangible metrics you may consider when calculating your Instagram ROI. While you don’t have to measure all of them, knowing what options you have could make the process easier.
Tangible metrics include:
- Audience growth
- Engagement rates
- Post reach and impressions
- Clicks
- Traffic
On the other hand, intangible metrics involve:
- Customer communication
- Brand awareness
- Brand loyalty
Of course, tangible metrics will always be easier to calculate. You have access to many tools that allow you to get enough data about them. Intangible metrics, however, involve evaluating how your brand has evolved over the past few months or years.
3. Use the Right Tools
Some of the most popular ROI tools include Google Analytics, Hootsuite, and more. If you don’t want to spend too much time looking, you may consider Instagram’s “Insights” section. While it may not give you the ROI directly, it’ll provide you with the information necessary to calculate it.
We recommend the tool that gives you the most data possible. Ideally, it should give you:
- Customer demographics
- Conversion rates
- Engagement rates
- Lead generation
- Website traffic (if you have one)
4. Calculate Your Instagram ROI
There’s a standard formula that allows you to calculate your Instagram ROI. It goes like this:
(Earnings – Investment) x 100/Investment = ROI
Thankfully, you don’t have to rely on that formula to get accurate data. Today, there are dozens of unique tools that give you all the information you need with a few clicks.
Are there other ways to calculate the ROI on Instagram besides that formula? You bet!
You may pick one of these depending on what your goals are:
- Click-through Rate (CTR): It shows how many people click through to your website or store. If you have a low CTR rate, it could mean you’re not reaching the right audience or that the content isn’t engaging enough. An easy way to calculate your CTR is to divide the number of clicks (profile link, swipe-up links, or promotions) by the likes on a post.
- Sales Funnel: How is your sales funnel doing? When you track each stage in a funnel, you can identify which areas need more work. Most strategies involve Reach, New Followers, Engagement, and Purchases. You can measure your conversion rates by dividing the people in the “Purchases” stage by those in the “Reach” section.
- Engagement per Dollar: Calculate what you’re getting for every dollar spent on the platform. This will give you a solid idea of how profitable your investment currently is.
5. Optimize Your Instagram Strategy
When you have all the information necessary from your account, what do you do with it?
The next step is to optimize your strategy. Use the data you got to identify your “weak” points. Once you know what those are, think about what you can do to make them stronger.
Social media involves a lot of trial and error, so try not to get frustrated during this stage. Even the biggest Instagram accounts optimize their strategies every once in a while.
6. Instagram Engagements
There are plenty of metrics within Instagram that give you an idea of how your ROI may look like. Some of them include likes, followers, shares, and comments.
Focusing on improving your engagement rates will take you a long way. Moreover, the strategy also ensures that you’re making the most out of your hard-earned money.
If you’re struggling to improve your engagement rates, consider growth services. When you buy real Instagram likes and followers, for example, you can make your content more relevant. This tells the Instagram algorithm that your posts are great, so it shows them to other people.
The strategy also allows you to measure your ROI more directly. Think about what you spent on the service compared to the number of new likes and followers you got.
7. Here’s What Else to Consider
You now have most of the tools necessary to measure your brand’s ROI, what’s next?
Improving your ROI goes beyond investing more money in your account. Remember, you have to work on creating premium content, engaging with your audience, and focusing on the value that each follower gives you.
While high follower and like counts are impressive, they don’t mean anything if you don’t do much with them. When you focus on value, you’re more likely to get excellent results.
We hope this article has helped you understand how your ROI works. Take your time, and go for the strategies that fit your goals the best.
