In the world of digital marketing, knowing where the traffic to your content is coming from means having control over your intended strategy on social media. On Instagram, Facebook, and other platforms, source of traffic shows which channels users are using to reach your posts. 📬

On Instagram, sources of traffic include the home page (followers who see your post), the explore page (new users to whom Instagram recommended your content), hashtags, profile visits, and shares. If most of your views come from the explore page, the algorithm favors your content. If hashtags are the main traffic source, you need to further research and optimize them to increase the reach of your posts.

A very interesting and useful segment when tracking traffic sources on Instagram are external links, which can contribute to increasing traffic. External links are all the links that lead to your profile and posts from other digital platforms.

External links can be obtained via websites and blogs by linking to your Instagram post; through email marketing with newsletters and promotional emails; from descriptions on YouTube or TikTok where you place Instagram links; through forums and groups where you participate as a user, such as Reddit or Facebook groups, where you share links to your posts. 📲

Within Instagram Insights or Facebook analytics, external links are usually shown under the section Other or External, which means that views are coming from outside the platform itself.

Finally, within source of traffic, ads (Ads) represent the overview of interactions that came through paid posts and campaigns on Instagram or Facebook. By analyzing paid ad analytics, you can see which ads are going viral and deserve more investment—and which ones cost more than they bring in.

Analytics isn’t just for viewing; it needs to be analyzed in order to make the smartest decisions for growing your profile and posts.