Today, 72% of marketers use Instagram for their influencer marketing campaigns. That’s around three-quarters of the total energy, time, and resources invested in one channel alone! And Instagram Stories for influencer marketing is a big part of the platform’s appeal. 

It's no secret that IG Stories are here to stay. The feature has grown from a simple Snapchat clone to a powerful marketing tool to help you build your brand and reach new customers.

But why should your brand use Instagram Stories? How do you get started with Stories? How to use Instagram Story as an effective product marketing channel? What does impressions mean on Instagram Stories?

Let’s dive into all these questions and more in this post.

Instagram Stories statistics you need to know before kickstarting your influencer marketing campaigns

Here are a few stats and figures that’ll convince you to get started on leveraging Instagram Stories, if you aren’t already -

• Instagram Stories boast over 500 million users daily. 
• 58% of Instagram users are more interested in a brand after seeing it in a Story. 
• The potential ad audience on Instagram Stories is over 900 million.
• Instagram Stories generate over a quarter ($15.95 billion) of the platform’s ad revenues.
• 50% of users claim to have visited a website to buy a product/service after seeing it in Stories. 
• Over 85% of businesses use Instagram Stories as a core element in their marketing strategies. 
• Brand Stories have a whopping 86% completion rate.

What makes Instagram Stories so popular and rewarding in influencer marketing?

1. Better discoverability

Instagram Stories appear at the top of users' feeds, making them more visible and easier to discover. Brands can also use hashtags and location tags to increase their discoverability and reach a broader and newer audience. 

2. High engagement

Instagram Stories have a high engagement rate, effectively capturing the audience's attention. Did you know around 70% of Gen Zers and 59% of Millennials watch Instagram Stories daily?

With interactive elements such as poll, quiz, and question tags, you can encourage your followers to interact with your content and build a connection with them.

3. Excellent product marketing channel

As mentioned, 50% of users claim to have visited a website to buy a product/service due to seeing it in Instagram Stories.

Instagram Stories provide a visual and interactive way to showcase your products or services. Remember, if you can guide your online audience to learn more about your product/service, you’re shifting them closer to becoming a paid customer!

For an in-depth understanding of leveraging Insta Stories, read our guide: Instagram Stories for Lead Generation

4. Personalized communication

Instagram Stories can help you engage with your audiences in a personalized way. With Stories, you can share behind-the-scenes footage at what goes into running your business or brand—and that makes people feel closer to you as an individual or business owner.

It is, therefore, no surprise that brand Stories have a whopping 86% completion rate.

5. Cost-effective channel

Instagram Stories are a cost-effective way to generate leads because they are free to create and share. Optimizing your content and strategy allows you to create better Instagram campaigns that can generate high-quality leads without spending much money on advertising.

6. Measurable results

Instagram provides Instagram Stories analytics, which means you can measure your content's performance and strategy. By analyzing metrics such as impressions, reach, engagement, clicks, and retention, you can optimize your approach to generate more leads.

7. Creative opportunities

Instagram Stories presents you with creative opportunities to tell stories that are all your own.

You could be using them to share sneak peeks of new products, customer reviews, product reviews, or a behind-the-scenes look into what goes on at your company.

The possibilities for creating content on IG stories are endless!

Read more: Instagram Stories for Lead Generation: How to Use Data to Turn Views into Leads

How to create an Instagram Story strategy that will help in conversions?

1. Set objectives and goals

To boost your ROI, begin by asking a fundamental question - what do you want to achieve with your Stories? 

If you don't know where you're going, how will you know when you get there?

Set realistic goals so that you can pat yourself on the back and celebrate when you achieve them!

Here are a few goals you could consider -

• Build brand awareness
• Improve audience engagement
• Improve customer retention

2. Use Instagram Stories as a product marketing channel

Instagram Stories' open, non-chronological format makes it perfect for product marketing. The best thing about this is that you can include multiple stories in one post, making it easy to show off multiple products simultaneously. 

A compelling CTA on your Insta Story can help you increase traffic, sales, and conversions. It's important to note that "conversion" isn't limited to buying something from your website; it can also mean signing up for your newsletter or following you on social media.

Remember, if you can guide your online audience to learn more about your product/service, you’re shifting your audience down the funnel in preparation for converting into a customer!

3. Practice A/B testing and optimization

A/B testing is a way of comparing two similar things to see which one performs better. 

In the case of Instagram Stories, you can run an A/B test on each story you post by seeing how much engagement you get from it and then using that information to determine your next story.

4. Run contests on Instagram Stories

Did you know that contests have a conversion rate of about 34%, higher than any other content type? Furthermore, 94.46% of the time, users share the promotion immediately after registering.

Now those are numbers you definitely don’t want to miss out on!

Here are a few Instagram Stories ideas for running a successful social contest on Instagram Stories :

1. Make sure you have an enticing prize. You want your audience to be excited about what they could win, so make sure it's worth their time and effort.
2. Set up clear rules and guidelines for your contest. The more specific you are with what people need to do, the better your chances of getting more entries and engagement from them.
3. Be transparent with your logistics so everyone knows what they're getting into before they enter! This includes how many winners there will be, how long the contest will run, when the winner(s) will be announced, etc.

Read more: How to Maximize the ROI of Instagram Stories for Influencer Marketing

Nevertheless, just posting Stories is not enough; you must focus on Instagram Stories analytics and insights too

Data is the lifeblood of any business. It’s what you use to make informed decisions and allows you to see your brand in action and make sure it’s moving the way you want.

Instagram Stories allow creators to create a deeper connection with consumers on the platform by providing a personal channel to engage with their followers and prospects. This increases brand awareness and encourages customers to make actual purchases from your brand.

Hence, it is natural for a creator/business to want access to Instagram Stories data. Some of the many reasons to do so include the following -

1. Audience insights

Instagram Stories allows you to see who's watching your content.

This is important because it helps you understand your brand's audience and what they want.

You can use this data to learn about the demographics of your followers and see what kind of content gets the most attention—you can see when people stop watching or if there's a pattern in their viewing habits. And then, you can use that information to optimize your content strategy!

2. Content performance

Stories data can give you a quick overview of which content is performing well and which is not. 

You can optimize your Instagram marketing strategy and create more compelling content by tracking metrics such as views, likes, completion rate, and engagement.

3. Campaign optimization

Campaign optimization is the art of making sure your ads work for you. It's about analyzing data, understanding how people interact with your content, and using these insights to improve your campaigns.

IG Stories data can help you optimize your marketing campaigns in real-time.

How to use Instagram Stories for business growth?

1. Track reach

Reach is the number of unique users who saw your Instagram Story. You can also track reach to determine how many unique viewers your Story reached.

2. Analyze engagement

Your Instagram Story engagement rate and analytics let you deep-dive into how many people tapped to move to the next Story, the number of replies, etc. This helps you understand your content's level of interest and engagement.

Also read: The Ultimate Guide to Instagram Stories Metrics 2023

3. Measure clicks

This metric indicates how often users click on CTAs in your Insta Story. 

You can track these clicks to determine how many viewers visited your landing page from your Story. Measuring clicks can help you analyze how compelling your Story is at driving traffic and, in turn, generating leads.

4. Analyze retention

Retention measures how long people are watching your Instagram Story. 

Let’s say you post multiple stories in a day. You can track retention to determine how many people are watching your Story all the way through and where drop-offs are occurring. 

You can also keep tabs on how many followers view your story continuously. You can then calculate if your followers consistently view your stories and make changes if there’s a significant drop in the overall viewer retention.

Read more: How to Maximize the ROI of Instagram Stories for Influencer Marketing

Technical challenges while capturing Instagram Stories data for influencer marketing campaigns

1. Third-party data scraping is tricky

Data scraping only caters to publicly visible data, not private information such as Story impressions, which is essential for many brand engagement/Cost Per Mile (CPM) calculations. It’s also difficult to scrape story data since it lasts only 24 hours.

You will have to use Instagram’s official API to access this data. And that comes with several challenges. Read about it here.

2. Linking accounts with the developer’s app is not simple

Today, creators understand the value of their data and want control over its usage. As a result, they are extremely wary about who they give access to their data. 

Added to that, Facebook has a notoriously tricky login flow for Instagram.

To successfully connect an Instagram account with a platform:

• The user should have an Instagram Business or Instagram Creator account.
• The users should link their account to a Facebook Page.
• In FB’s login flow for connecting to Instagram, the users should select the FB page linked to the Instagram account.
• The users should provide consent to share the required data.

Due to such a complex flow, you will mostly notice many drop-offs at this stage.

In some cases, even when users don’t meet all the requirements mentioned earlier, Facebook displays the account to be connected. However, in reality, it is not a successful connection, and streamlined data access becomes an issue.

To solve this problem, significant education about the flow, requirements, and what data is collected is necessary.

3. Stories expire after 24 hours

For authentic engagement and campaign tracking, all forms of content published by a creator are necessary - Instagram posts, reels, and even Stories.

However, Stories are time-sensitive content and expire after 24 hours. Added to that, it is almost impossible to access Story metrics once they have expired. It thus gives one very little window to gather and capture the latest data.

How Phyllo can help boost your Instagram Stories growth 

With Phyllo’s Engagement API, you can get a regular stream of content data and engagement metrics for several post formats on multiple platforms (such as likes, views, reach, impressions, etc.)

Here are some of the benefits of using Phyllo API to access Instagram Stories data -

Streamlined and up-to-date metrics collection

Phyllo’s intelligent system fetches stories’ data at multiple intervals throughout the data. This ensures you never miss a story and can easily access up-to-date metrics, even for ephemeral content like Instagram Stories.

Phyllo connect SDK

For complex account connection flows, such as Instagram, the Phyllo connect SDK guides the creator at every step to help them learn about the prerequisites. We provide in-app interactive guides and cues along with help options. Furthermore, you can also use the SDK in different languages.

Webhook notifications

Phyllo webhooks notify you with updated story metrics. These notifications are sent at regular intervals, usually when the story is created and once after it expires.

Try out the Phyllo API today to boost your influencer marketing campaigns!

As the use of Instagram Stories for influencer marketing gains traction and popularity, businesses and marketers will have to adapt quickly to succeed. But what makes a story worth engaging with? While likes, comments, and views still hold significant weight in your key performance metrics, it's essential to take note of emerging data that can predict the content and topics you should focus on in the future. 

The Phyllo API will help you do just that.

We aim to be a catalyst in building your business with effective influencer marketing. 

Also read: How Beacons uses Phyllo to create the perfect media kit for creators to be successful

Phyllo helps simplify and package the process of influencer data collection into a single easy-to-integrate API that provides you with a robust data infrastructure.

Schedule a call to learn more about how Phyllo can empower your business.

Want to test the waters before you go ahead? Sign up for a free account to access creator data with Phyllo APIs.