You're the PM for Instagram Shopping. What 3-5 metrics would you want to track?

I would like to discuss what is Instagram shopping and just confirm if I understand it correctly à Businesses with Instagram accounts setup shops i.e., digital storefronts which users can visit and search through the catalogue of products. These will be personalized as per the customer profile. The businesses provide the option of directly checking out from Instagram itself or redirect the user to their ecommerce website to check out.

Also, businesses might post content in Instagram with “shoppable” icon, indicating to the user that they can purchase that item through Instagram shops.

Instagram might take a cut off the transactions that happen through Instagram shops.

Is there any business objective that I should be aware of before deciding on the metrics? à None

So, I will structure my answer my discussing the mission and goals of Meta, Instagram, and this specific feature to arrive at a business objective before deciding the metrics. Then I would like to go over the user actions of Instagram Shopping. Next, I will look at the metrics, mainly the important 3-5, keeping in mind the business objective.

We all know that the mission of Meta is to give people the power to build communities and bring the world closer together. Similarly, the mission of Instagram is to provide people the means to capture and share the world’s moments. The provision to share through images and videos (considered to be very strong forms of entertainment and communication) ultimately lead to bringing of people together.

Now, the Instagram shopping feature’s idea of bringing people together is by giving consumers/users the opportunity to browse latest trends from favorite brands and creators and to shop what they love. Purchasing and possessing specific items of your favorite brands leads to creation of closely knit communities.

Instagram has been facing stiff competition from other applications such as Tiktok and YouTube and has been introducing newer features to retain the users and grab much of users’ attention. Meta mainly earns through advertisements through all its platforms. So, I will consider here the major objective of Instagram shopping feature is to mainly increase engagement of users so that users tend to spend most of their time on Meta products rather than on any competitor’s.

Let’s look at mainly the user actions of a shopper:

1. Sign up and log into Instagram.
2. Scroll through content and visit the shop of an account by clicking on a shoppable post posted by the business account
3. Directly search for the business account and go to their “shop”
4. Scroll through the account’s catalogue
5. Get redirected to their ecommerce website or add items to cart within Instagram or Return without doing either of the former
6. Checkout on Instagram
7. Close the application

Metrics:

Acquisition/Activation:

1. No. of active Instagram users who have visited the “Shop” of an account at least once
2. No. of active Instagram users who have purchased from the “Shop” of an account at least once

Engagement:

1. No. of accounts with “shops” setup on Instagram in a month
2. No. of incoming visitors/account to “shops” monthly (total and unique)
3. No. of purchases (or transactions)/account monthly
4. Total number of users visiting “shops” of accounts D/W/M
5. Total number of users purchasing through “shops” of accounts D/W/M
6. Total number of “shop” visits D/W/M
7. Total number of purchases through “shops” D/W/M
8. Total number of shop visits without any purchases D/W/M
9. Average time spent on “shops” of Instagram by users daily, weekly and monthly

Retention:

1. Monthly churn rate of accounts with “shops” setup in Instagram
2. Frequency of purchases of users through Instagram “shops”
3. 6-month user retention for Instagram “shop” feature

Keeping in mind the business objective of the Instagram “shop” feature of “increasing the engagement of new and existing users”, the most important metrics are around the number of accounts with “shops” setup (more such accounts è more scope for users to engage with the “shop” feature), the number of visits to “shop” of accounts and the subsequent purchases and the number of users engaging in the above activities.

Talking about the guardrail metrics:

• Positive/Negative reviews or user feedback on Instagram “shop” feature
• Overall health metrics of engagement on Instagram
• Engagement metrics of other important Instagram features as this specific “shop” feature should not be cannibalizing the usage of other features