Instagram is giving creators more ways to measure Reels performance, with new metrics designed to show exactly where viewers are tuning in, or dropping off.
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The biggest update is the addition of a “Retention” chart within Reels Insights. This interactive graph shows the percentage of people who continued watching your Reel at each moment.
As Instagram explains:
“With Retention, you’ll always see a downward slope, but the flatter the line, the more engaged your audience is. Retention shows you the moments in your Reel that keep or lose your viewers’ interest, so you can learn from each Reel you share.”
Essentially, creators can now pinpoint which parts of their content keep audiences hooked and which moments make them swipe away.
Instagram is also tweaking another key stat: “View Rate” will be replaced by “Skip Rate.”
“With the addition of Retention, we’re also replacing the view rate metric with skip rate in the coming weeks. While view rate shows what percentage watched past the first 3 seconds of your Reel, skip rate is the percentage of views from people who decided to skip your Reel during those first 3 seconds.”
That means creators will now have clearer visibility into how engaging their hook is, if skip rate is high, it’s a strong signal that your intro isn’t grabbing attention.
Together, these new metrics join the expanded Reels insights Instagram rolled out earlier this month, giving creators sharper tools to refine their content strategy and improve performance in the app.