How to See Hashtag Analytics on Instagram

Trying to figure out which Instagram hashtags actually work feels a bit like guessing in the dark. You spend time researching and adding them to your posts, but are they bringing in new viewers or just taking up space? Finally getting some clarity gives you the power to refine your entire content strategy. This article will show you exactly how to find and understand your hashtag analytics using Instagram's own tools, along with a few strategies to see which ones are actually driving your reach.

Why Bother Tracking Your Hashtag Analytics?

Dedicating time to checking hashtag performance might seem like a small detail, but it has a massive impact on your growth. Think of hashtags as a free content distribution system. When used correctly, they put your posts in front of people who are actively looking for your content but don't follow you yet. Here’s what properly analyzing them can do for your account:

Expand Your Reach: This is the main goal. The right hashtags get your content seen by hundreds or even thousands of people who aren’t your followers, exponentially increasing your visibility.
Boost Engagement: When you show up in front of a relevant audience, you’re more likely to see an increase in likes, comments, saves, and shares because you’re reaching people who are genuinely interested in what you have to say.
Discover Potential Customers: For businesses, reaching an interested, non-follower audience is key to finding new leads and customers.
Refine Your Content Pillars: By seeing which hashtags are tied to your most successful posts, you’ll get a clearer picture of which topics and formats are resonating most with your target audience. You might discover that your posts about #emailmarketingtips consistently get more hashtag reach than your posts about #socialtrends.

First, Make Sure You Have an Instagram Professional Account

Before you can get access to any performance data, you need to have either a Creator or Business account on Instagram. If you're still using a Personal account, you won’t see any of the "Insights" we’re about to discuss. Making the switch is simple, free, and reversible if you ever change your mind.

How to Switch to a Professional Account:

Navigate to your profile and tap the 'hamburger' menu (the three horizontal lines) in the top-right corner.
Tap on Settings and privacy.
Scroll down and tap on Account type and tools.
Tap Switch to professional account.
Follow the on-screen prompts to choose a category that best describes what you do (e.g., Digital Creator, Entrepreneur, Restaurant).
Finally, you'll choose between a Creator account or a Business account. Generally, choose "Creator" if you are an influencer, artist, or public figure. Choose "Business" if you represent a brand, service, or retail operation. The Insights are largely the same for both.

Once you’ve made the switch, you'll have access to Instagram Insights, which is where you'll find all of your analytics.

How to See Hashtag Performance Using Instagram Insights

Instagram's native analytics tool gives you a direct, though bundled, look at how many people your hashtags are reaching. It’s important to know that you can only check this metric on a per-post basis, there isn’t a central dashboard that aggregates hashtag data across your whole account at a glance.

Here’s how to find the data for any individual feed post (photo or Reel):

Go to your profile grid and tap on the post you want to analyze.
Below the image or video on the left, tap the View insights button.
A summary module will pop up. For a detailed breakdown, scroll down to the Impressions section.
Here, you’ll see a list of sources where your views came from. Look for the line that says From hashtags.

The number next to "From hashtags" tells you how many times your post was viewed by people who discovered it through one of the hashtag pages you used. A high number here is a fantastic sign - it means your hashtag strategy for that post was effective at reaching people who don't follow you.

The big catch: You'll notice Instagram only gives you a single, cumulative number. It doesn't break down performance for each individual hashtag you used. So if you used 30 hashtags, you can’t see if #facebookadstips drove 1,000 impressions and #socialmediamanager only drove 10. This is a common frustration, but we can still extract valuable information from this data.

How to Dig Deeper When Instagram Gives You Limited Data

Even though you can't see individual hashtag performance, you can play detective to figure out what’s working. The goal is to identify patterns associated with your best-performing posts.

1. Analyze the Hashtag Sets of Your Top Posts

Go through your last 10-15 posts and open up the Insights for each one. Make a mental note (or better yet, a note in a spreadsheet) of the "Impressions from Hashtags" number for each. You’ll quickly spot the outliers - the posts that significantly over-performed.

Now, look closely at the list of hashtags you used on those top posts. Ask yourself:

Are there specific hashtags that appear on all of the top performers?
Is there a common theme or "content pillar" (e.g., tips, behind-the-scenes, tutorials) among them?
Did you use a different mix of hashtag sizes (more niche tags vs. hyper-popular ones) on those posts?

By comparing the hashtag "recipes" of your best posts, you can start building a strong hypothesis about which combination of hashtags works best for which type of content.

2. Test Different Hashtag Groups Methodically

Stop slapping a random combination of 30 hashtags on every post. Instead, get strategic by building and testing different "hashtag groups" for your various content topics.

For example, if you run a social media marketing agency, you might create three groups:

Group A (Instagram Tips): A set of 25-30 hashtags focused on Instagram growth, content ideas, and Reels strategy.
Group B (Agency Life): A different set of hashtags focused on work-from-home, entrepreneurship, client management, and behind-the-scenes content.
Group C (Business Tools): A third set focused on recommendations for software, productivity hacks, and useful apps for business owners.

Use each group exclusively on its corresponding content pillar for a few weeks. Then, calculate the average "Impressions from Hashtags" for posts in each group. You may find that Group A consistently generates twice the reach of Group B, telling you that your audience responds best to the specific hashtags related to Instagram tips. This testing process takes the emotion out of it and gives you clear data on where to focus your efforts.

Using Instagram Search to Research Hashtags

A proactive part of tracking analytics is doing your upfront research to pick tags with high potential. Using Instagram's search feature is the best way to gauge the competitive landscape for any hashtag and see if your content is a good fit.

Here’s what to look for:

Tap the Explore tab (magnifying glass icon) and tap the search bar at the top.
Select the Tags filter.
Type in a hashtag you’re considering using.

Instagram will show you a list of related hashtags and, most importantly, the number of posts associated with each one. This number is your guide to understanding its size and competitiveness.

Huge Hashtags (1M+ posts): Tags like #marketing or #entrepreneur are like a major highway. There's a ton of traffic, but your post will fly by and vanish in seconds. Use a few of these sparingly for broad reach.
Medium Hashtags (80k - 500k posts): These are usually more specific, like #contentcreationtips. This is the sweet spot. They have an active audience but your content won't get drowned out immediately. Focus a large part of your strategy here.
Niche Hashtags (under 80k posts): Tags like #smmatipsforbeginners are highly targeted. The audience is smaller, but they're actively looking for this exact topic, making them incredibly valuable. You also have a much higher chance of ranking in the "Top posts" section for these hashtags.

A strong strategy uses a mix of all three sizes, tilting heavily towards medium and niche hashtags where you can realistically compete and capture targeted attention.

Once you search for a tag, click on it and look at the content under the "Top" and "Recent" tabs. The "Top" section shows you the style of content that performs well under this hashtag. Ask yourself, "Does my content look like this?" The "Recent" tab shows you how frequently people are posting with the tag. This gives you a sense of its current popularity and how quickly your post may be pushed down the feed.

Final Thoughts

Tracking your Instagram hashtag analytics helps you move from hoping for reach to building a predictable system for growth. By consistently checking your post Insights to see which content received the highest impressions from hashtags, you can learn what's truly resonating and refine your strategy based on hard data rather than guesswork.

We know that pulling reports can be the most time-consuming part of a marketer’s job. Manually checking insights across Instagram, Google Analytics, Shopify, and your ad platforms can eat up an entire day that could’ve been spent on strategy. Here at Graphed , we created a single platform to connect all your data sources so you can pull reports and build dashboards using simple natural language. Instead of spending hours wrangling CSVs, you get back to focusing on actionable insights and making better decisions faster.