This guide will walk you through how to authenticate or reauthenticate Instagram Insights and Instagram Public Data in Supermetrics for Google Sheets, Data Studio, and Excel, as well as data warehouse destinations like Google Cloud Storage, BigQuery, and the Supermetrics API.
Note that data for Stories, Reels, and IGTV isn't available in the Instagram API that Supermetrics pulls data from, so it can't be included in Supermetrics reporting.
Before you begin
Instagram permissions
To connect to Supermetrics, the account you use with Instagram Insights must be:
- An Instagram Business Account (may also be called "professional account") or a Creator Account that uses Facebook authentication and is not restricted, age-limited, or private.
- Visit Instagram’s help center to learn how to change your account type.
- Linked to an active Facebook Page, and the linked Facebook Page may need to be "claimed" before it can be properly connected.
Facebook permissions
The Facebook account you use has to meet these requirements:
- It must have sufficient access to the linked Facebook Page, which means it needs a valid Facebook user account with permissions sets View Page performance and Create ads.
- Admin access ( "Admin Access — Manage Page"), while not required, will also work.
- If you’re using the new Pages experience, you must have full control access to the Facebook Page linked to the Instagram account.
If you're connecting to Instagram Public Data, the Facebook user account linked to the Instagram account (either a Business or Creator profile) you use for this needs the Manage Page user role level. See how to manage roles in a shared Instagram account.
Query types: Instagram Public Data
Profile info
- Returns the current amount of followers, follows, and posts for the account user search for.
- Returns basic account info: name, username, Instagram ID, bio, profile pic URL, website link.
Recommended uses
Keep track of an account's follower count, or its posting frequency, using the Supermetrics “Combine new results” feature.
Limitations
- Private, restricted, or age-limited data can’t be fetched.
- Error: Invalid profile name” can mean that the account name is invalid or that the account is restricted, age-limited, or private. Historical data of account followers or post amounts can't be fetched. However, you can use the “Append results” and scheduled refresh features to gather data over time.
Profile posts
- Returns posts of pages that are publicly available.
- Post types include image, video, and carousel.
- Can fetch data from the past and from a selected time period. Can also be used to get data on posts that are otherwise geo-restricted.
- Shows basic post metrics (likes, comments), post URL, image URL (first image for carousel), post type, caption, and more, together with profile information.
Recommended uses:
- Follow new posts from multiple accounts, that are difficult to manage.
- Find and analyze top-performing posts from other accounts, like. which content types, hashtags, and captions are performing well.
Post search
Allows you to search for posts tagged with a specific hashtag.
The hashtag can be either in the post caption or in as a comment. Hashtags can be added only by the original poster.
Post search has two query types: Top and Recent.
- Top returns a list of 100 top posts based on Instagram's algorithm rather than on likes or comments.
- Recent returns a list of posts made within the last 24 hours with the specified hashtag.
Recommended uses:
- Follow discussions happening with specific hashtags.
- Follow and store new posts with specific hashtags.
- Find other hashtags used together in popular posts.
- Find which profiles are popular and are discussing using specific hashtags.
Instructions
Before you can authenticate the data source in Google Sheets, you need to install the Supermetrics add-on.
- Open a new Google Sheets file.
- Navigate to Extensions → Supermetrics → Launch to open the Supermetrics sidebar.
- Under Data source, select Instagram Insights or Instagram Public Data.
- Click Start.
- A Facebook login page will open. Enter your credentials and click Log in.
- Alternatively, if you're already logged into Facebook in the browser, click Continue with Facebook.
- Click Continue as to authenticate with that user account, or click Log into another account.
- Select the accounts you'd like to use in your reporting and click Next.
- Select Pages you'd like in your reporting and click Next.
- For Instagram Public Data:
Navigate to Report configuration.
Select your query type.
Under Instagram profiles, insert the Instagram profiles.
For Instagram Insights:
Under Select accounts, select the accounts.
- Open the Supermetrics data source gallery.
- Navigate to Instagram Insights or Instagram Public Data and click Try.
- Click Authorize.
- If you're authenticating the data source for the first time, log in with the Google Account you use with Supermetrics. Click Allow.
- Click Authorize.
- A Facebook login page will open. Enter your credentials and click Log in.
- Alternatively, if you're already logged in to Facebook in the browser, click Continue with Facebook.
- Click Continue as to authenticate with that user account, or click Log into another account.
- Select the accounts you'd like to use in your reporting and click Next.
- Select Pages you'd like in your reporting and click Next.
- For Instagram Public Data:
Select your query type.
Under Instagram profiles, insert the Instagram profiles.
For Instagram Insights:
Under Select accounts, select the accounts. - Scroll down to the bottom of the page. To create a report with our template, select Use report template for new reports. To create a blank report, deselect this option.
- Click Connect on the top right-hand side.
- Click Create report.
- Click Add to report.
Add or remove a user account in Data Studio
- Click the edit icon next to the data source's name in the Data Studio sidebar.
- At the top left of the connection pane, click Edit connection.
- Scroll down to Parameters.
- Browse team, account, and license management options in the section beginning "To add more/manage accounts..."
Connections
If you use Excel and no other Supermetrics products, you’ll be able to connect accounts to data sources and share these connections with your team. You can manage connections either within the add-in sidebar or via the Supermetrics Team Site. Learn more about shared connections.
Before you can authenticate the data source in Excel, you need to install the Supermetrics add-in.
- Open an Excel file.
- Click Data → Show Supermetrics.
- Under Data source, select Instagram Insights or Instagram Public Data.
- Choose to make this connection shared or private.
- Click Start.
- Alternatively, if you're already logged in to Facebook in the browser, click Continue with Facebook.
- Click Continue as to authenticate with that user account, or click Log into another account.
- Select the accounts you'd like to use in your reporting and click Next.
- Select Pages you'd like in your reporting and click Next.
- For Instagram Public Data:
Navigate to Report configuration.
Select the query type.
Under Instagram profiles, insert the Instagram profiles.
For Instagram Insights:
Under Select accounts, select the accounts.
Explore our guides to set up data transfers to various destinations.
- BigQuery
- Data warehouses and cloud storage (Amazon S3, Google Cloud Storage, Snowflake, Azure Storage, or Azure Synapse)
- The Supermetrics API
Reauthenticate the data source
Troubleshooting
- If you still don’t see the right Instagram account in Supermetrics after following these steps, use this guide to troubleshoot the issue.
- If you encounter an authentication error such as “authentication failed”, “you need to reauthenticate” or similar, see this guide.
- If you encounter a permission error such as “user permission denied” or similar, follow this guide.
