Instagram Stories has revolutionized the social media industry, with businesses going all-in on the platform to create brand awareness and increase engagement with prospects. However, Stories only last for 24 hours, so you need to take advantage of them to get the most out of your Instagram eCommerce strategy.
In this article, you’ll learn the important eCommerce metrics to track and how you can use that knowledge to improve your Instagram Stories engagement and boost conversions.
Discovery Metrics
Discovery metrics measure your stories’ visibility to potential clients. They become even more important when you consider that people turn to Instagram to discover new brands and products. A recent Facebook survey showed that most people become more interested in brands or products after seeing them in Stories.
Reach
Reach refers to the number of accounts that see your story. It measures the number of unique visits to each slide in your post. A declining reach means that fewer people are viewing your content, a sign that you may need to change things up.
Impressions
Impressions are the total number of times your story is viewed. It offers more insights than reach because it takes into account multiple Story views from the same profile. If your total impressions exceed your reach, your story is being replayed numerous times.
Navigation Metrics
Navigation metrics show you what is and what isn’t working for your business.
Forward Taps
Forward Taps measure the number of times viewers tap the right side of the screen to enter the next story. Unfortunately, it’s not the best metric to measure as people tend to speed tap their way through Instagram Stories. That said, combining forward taps with other metrics will give you a better idea of how your stories are performing.
Back Taps
Back Taps measure the total amount of times viewers tap back to revisit the previous story, and it gives you a good idea of what’s working. After all, if someone taps backward on a piece of content, it most likely means that they find it interesting and think it’s worth re-watching.
If a post has a lot of back taps, you should opt to save it to your Instagram Story highlights and keep testing the content type in your future uploads.
Next Story Swipes
Next Story Swipes measures the number of times people swipe to the next account’s story. If you tend to upload many concurrent posts, you might want to take note of the point where viewers tend to swipe to the next. A high number might indicate that your stories are too long and viewers are losing interest.
Exits
Exits measure the total number of times people leave your story. Though similar to Next Story Swipes, exits have fewer negative implications. For example, a person may leave your story for reasons unrelated to your content, such as if they have to do something else. Also, if you’ve included a clickable link in your story, they may have visited the link, causing them to leave.
Interaction Metrics
Interaction metrics help you analyze the level of engagement your Instagram Stories generate. You can boost them by using a clear call to action that aligns with your goals — this Facebook data shows that highlighting CTAs leads to greater conversions.
Replies
Replies measure the number of people that respond to your story. Though similar to responses for standard photo and video posts, this engagement metric ends up in your inbox rather than publicly. If you can create content that boosts replies, you’ll drive deeper connections with your audience.
Website Visits
Website Visits track the number of people who visit your web campaign, product page or blog post after watching your story. It could be from viewers tapping the link in your bio or interacting with your link stickers.
Follows and Shares
Follows measure the total number of users that follow your account after viewing your story, while Shares tracks the total number of times your story is shared.
Calls, Texts, Emails, Get Directions
These metrics estimate the number of people that perform the respective actions after viewing your story.
Product Page Views
Product Page Views measure the number of views your product pages receive through the product tags you add to your stories.
Profile Visits
Profile Visits assess the number of times a person viewed your profile after checking your story.
How To Increase Instagram Story Engagement
With approximately 500 million users posting stories daily, your brand needs to stand out from the crowd to generate sales. Therefore, you should implement these tips in your Instagram eCommerce strategy to increase your Stories engagement.
1. Unleash the Hashtags
Hashtags are a great way to increase interaction — likes, comments and views — with your regular Instagram posts, but you can also apply them to Stories. Adding hashtags to your Instagram Stories makes them visible to new audiences who don’t already follow you when they search your hashtag. Plus, if you don’t like the look of hashtags on your Story, you can hide them under a hashtag sticker.
2. Ask Questions and Run Polls
Questions and polls allow viewers to chip in on the conversation. Since people tend to love this, inviting them to share their opinions with you will improve engagement and give you more insights into their preferences. You can do this by using stickers. Here, you get options for polls, questions, quizzes, chats and sliders. All five Instagram features invite your viewers to participate and engage with you somehow.
3. Save Important Stories to Your Highlights
Instagram Stories only stay up for 24 hours, but you can preserve them by saving them to your highlights. That said, you probably do not want to add in all your Stories. Instead, you should handpick the Stories that go into your highlights. You can do this by analyzing key metrics like Back Taps and Next Story Swipes. That way, you get to preserve your best-performing posts without weighing them down with the poorer ones. You can even organize your Highlights by topic, making them easy to navigate.
4. Post Consistently
Unlike regular posts that can get drowned in a sea of uploads, Stories put you at the very top of viewers’ news feeds. However, since Stories disappear after 24 hours, you need to post new ones frequently to remain up there — and no, once a week isn’t enough. To produce better results, make posting stories a regular habit.
Ready To Show Off Your Improved Instagram Stories Strategy?
There you have it: the key Instagram Story metrics to measure to help you better understand your audience’s interaction with your content and how you can improve them. You don’t have to apply everything at once; you can try focusing on one at a time until you find what works for your audience and Instagram eCommerce strategy.
If you want to gain results faster, you may want to tap into those strategic advertising opportunities your competitors might be leaving on the table. Call L7 Advertising at 760-274-8379 or contact us through our website to find out how we can help you advance your Instagram marketing strategy.