How to link Instagram to Google Looker Studio
By pulling Instagram data into Google Looker Studio, you can create dashboards which show how well your posts, stories and reels are performing and how this impacts your website and your business. But how do you do it? Let’s find out…
Google Looker Studio (formerly known as Google Data Studio) is a powerful tool which enables you to pull in data from various sources and display them in any format you want – be it in tables or various types of graph – and really drill down into your data.
Instagram, one of the most popular social networks around, offers very limited analytics within its own platform.
Business accounts can view Insights via the Instagram mobile app and see data on interactions, reach and impressions for individual posts, stories, reels or promotions. However, there’s no way to see this on a desktop, or perform any kind of complex analysis on the data.
By pulling Instagram data into Google Looker Studio, you can see all of your Insights data in a much more user-friendly format, and you’re not restricted to flicking back and forth on your cell phone. You can combine this with other data sources such as Google Analytics or eCommerce data, and start to see how your Instagram account is growing your business… or how your website traffic is helping to grow your Instagram profile.
Choosing a 3rd party connector
Adding Instagram as a data source in Google Looker Studio requires a 3rd party connector.
Supermetrics and Power My Analytics are two of the biggest companies making Google Looker Studio connectors, and between them enable you to pull in data from 100+ data sources.
We have a review comparing the two here. While both have their own advantages and disadvantages, Supermetrics is by far the easiest if you want to get instant access to your Instagram data within Google Looker Studio. It connects directly to the Instagram API and can be set up in a matter of minutes.
Power My Analytics is a Data Warehouse solution, and will need to import your data into its warehouse before you can then pull it into Looker Studio. Data Warehouse solutions are typically useful if you’re importing huge amounts of historical data, but as Instagram’s API already provides instant historical information, it’s slightly overkill here.
Supermetrics has a 14 day free trial, so you can see if it’s the right solution for your business. After that it’s just $39 USD a month for the Individual plan, which includes 1 data source (Instagram being a data source), 1 user and 5 accounts per data source. If you need more data sources, you’ll need a more expensive plan.
How to Connect Instagram to Google Looker Studio with a Connector
1) Sign up to Supermetrics
First, sign up to Supermetrics here. They’ve got a 14-day trial which gets you access to all of their connectors, so you can try it out and see if it’s worth the investment.
2) Log into Google Looker Studio and connect your data
Once you’re all signed up, sign into your Google Looker Studio account and start a blank report.
On the ‘Add data to report’ screen, ensure you’re on the ‘Connect to data’ tab.
Then, search for ‘Instagram Insights,’ and from the ‘Partner Connectors’ list choose the ‘Instagram Insights by Supermetrics’ option.
3) Connect Looker Studio to Supermetrics
Click ‘Instagram Insights by Supermetrics’ and you’ll get to an Authorisation screen, and a title reading “Looker Studio requires authorisation to use this community connector.”
Click the blue ‘AUTHORISE’ button and follow the instructions, which grant Supermetrics permission to fetch the data.
You will get you a popup asking you to grant Supermetrics permission to use your Google account.
Once done, a second Authorisation box should appear to the right of the first one, this time reading “Instagram Insights requires authorization to connect to data.”
Click ‘AUTHORISE’ again. This time you’ll be prompted to sign into your Supermetrics account.
At this stage, you’re granting Supermetrics permission to access your Facebook account, which is how it gathers your Instagram data. Note, you need to have an Instagram business account which is linked to a Facebook page, and you need to choose a user which has admin access to that Facebook page.
If it doesn’t seem like anything’s happened, and you still see the second blue ‘AUTHORISE’ button, you may need to click it a second time. The majority of times I’ve tried adding a Supermetrics connector, I need to repeat this step a second time for it to all link up.
4) Select your Instagram account
Select your Instagram account from the ‘Select pages:’ dropdown, then click the blue ‘Add’ button.
Your Instagram account should now be a data feed within your new Looker Studio report, and you’re free to pull in all the dimensions and metrics needed to visualise your data.
For 20% off Supermetrics, use code rusticated upon signup.
We have more guides on using Supermetrics to pull data into Google Looker Studio here.