Instagram Analytics API & Other Ways For Smarter Social Media Insights

Understanding your audience, market trends, and competitors on social media platforms like Instagram is essential for success. Missed insights can cost you customers. What if we told you that instead of blindly guessing your potential audience preferences, you can see clearly and plan a few steps ahead? That’s where Instagram Analytics APIs come into play. They provide businesses, marketers, and developers with the tools to gather, analyze, and act on critical data. 

But which solution is better suited for social media analysis and product development — Instagram’s own API, or a third-party tool like Data365? Let’s dive deeper.

Instagram Stats API — What It Was and Why It Still Matters

Instagram’s official API has evolved significantly over the past decade. The Instagram Stats API and Instagram Analytics API, once separate and related sets of tools offering broad data access, are now integrated into the Instagram Graph API, which replaced the open Legacy API in 2018. 

The Instagram Stats API was a set of tools and endpoints that allowed developers to access and extract data from Instagram, such as user demographics, post performance, engagement metrics, and audience behavior. 

The main task of the Instagram Analytics API was to monitor and analyze posts, competitors’ accounts, customers’ accounts, and so on. However, there were other features that helped users grow their business profiles and make their social media experience easier:

• Audience insights (age, gender, location, active hours);
• Content performance tracking (photos, videos, Stories, Reels);
• Campaign monitoring;
• Automated reporting.

Despite restrictions, the Stats API and Analytic API remain critical for businesses communicating with Instagram’s 2 billion monthly active users, especially for marketing and engagement driven by trends like Reels and influencer campaigns. Analytics from these tools help businesses optimize campaigns, target audiences effectively, and measure ROI. 

Given the Graph API’s limitations (e.g., restricted to owned business/creator accounts, no public/competitor data), businesses seek reliable ways to collect data because the Stats API’s core value—actionable insights—drives strategic decisions. 

With the Legacy API’s open access gone, companies face challenges accessing data for further analytics, or creating their own solutions. These tools provide public and competitor data, enabling businesses to track trends, monitor brand sentiment, and identify influencers. 

Do you need data for your analytics? Discover how Data365 can support your goal. Leave your request, and we will help you explore the best options.

Instagram Stat API: Current Challenges

If you started using the Instagram Graph API after 2020, you might be surprised by how much data the Legacy API once provided. Originally, Instagram gave broader access to its data through APIs, enabling developers to build apps and services for analytics, automation, and insights. 

Due to privacy concerns and misuse (e.g., the Cambridge Analytica scandal impacting parent company Meta), Instagram deprecated the Legacy API in 2018, replacing it with the Instagram Graph API. 

The Graph API, designed primarily for business and creator accounts, imposes stricter limitations:

• Requires app review and approval by Meta;
• Limited to business/creator accounts with linked Facebook Pages;
• No access to competitors’ public data or non-authenticated user insights;
• Rate limits and data access tied to specific permissions.

These changes reduced functionality for developers, making it harder to access comprehensive analytics or public data. As a result, many turned to third-party alternatives that allow them to build analytics according to their own standards and needs, overcoming the challenges of one-fits-all solutions that actually rarely fit in practice. 

Get Instagram Analytics API or Create Your Own Analytical Tool? — Seeking The Way Out

The first step is choosing the right tool to rely on. You’ll need to decide whether to buy a ready-made Instagram Analytics API, or use a third-party solution, or build your own. All the options come with their own pros and cons:

• Ready-made Instagram Analytics API or its analogs are a simple and budget-friendly option but be ready to get all the pack of built-in features with only a part of them useful for your project;
• Building your own analytical tool takes time and the price can be much higher, yet, it will be fully customized to meet the needs of your business.

H3: Data365 Social Media API: Building Your Perfect Analytical Tool

There is a smart compromise: you can get a ready-made social media API like Data365 that can become a part of a bigger solution. Data365 delivers real-time, public data insights from Instagram, providing you with competitor and audience analytics. Trusted by over 200 clients from different industries with all kinds of goals, it provides deep data that helps to build analytics without gaps and that is up-to-date. The main benefit of this option is the quality and full data you get in the form it was posted to use for further analytics. It's possible because by using Data365 you already can:

• Find influencers by collecting hashtags, profiles, comments, topics of interest, and more;
• Research your competitors;
• Monitor what customers are saying about your company;
• Identify changes in popularity by tracking likes, reposts, comments, hashtags, mentions, and more;
• Gather alternative data to make effective investments and business decisions;
• Improve and track your brand/product;
• Understand reputation by collecting data on comments, and likes;
• Learn more about your target audience: engagement levels, demographics, popular hashtags, posting frequency, subscriptions.

Data365 will support your intentions by providing publicly-available, raw data depending on your requests and current moment needs. Here is a short comparison of the main features of Instagram Graph API and Data265 Social Media API so that you can see the difference:

So, in this case, you will get all the advantages of Data365 Social Media API, which helps to get a large amount of raw (as it is) public profile data based on a database of IDs or usernames of the target profiles. This provides you with data to be used for further analysis to meet your business’s unique needs by getting deeper insights.

Additionally, Data365 API allows you to gather public data using POST requests and GET requests to retrieve real-time results, providing them in JSON format.

Data365 API: Application Example

Imagine you run a small fitness business aiming to boost Instagram engagement. With over 2 billion users, Instagram is key, but how to reach competitor trends, for example? Scroll through them manually? Here’s how Data365, as part of a larger analytics solution, changes that.

Data365 social media API allows you to collect publicly available data like hashtags, comments, and engagement metrics across Instagram profiles. For example, you discovered trending fitness hashtags like #HomeWorkout, used in high-engagement posts, and now can identify top influencers by analyzing their public content performance. Data365’s real-time insights will help you reveal your competitors’ content patterns, such as posting Reels at 7 p.m. for peak reach (the best time to change life and start a fitness journey). 

Then, these raw insights can be integrated into your analytical tool and turned into tailored content and schedules to reach a wider audience. 

Conclusion: Faster Way to Reliable Instagram Analytics

The world changes constantly every day, yet the need for precise analytics remains. The quality of data and tools you use to build your strategy defines the quality of your strategy. The pursuit of raw, accurate data leads to a crossroads: official APIs, third-party solutions, or your own?

If you need a full, untouched picture, Data365 is your way to go. Gather data and integrate it into an analytic tool to get a complete view to fine-tune your strategy. Want to see how it can work for your project? Contact us, and our team will walk you through the possibilities.