In this video, we’ll walk you through the key metrics available in HypeAuditor’s Instagram analytics reports, and explain how to use them to evaluate influencer quality and performance.
Starting with report basics
In the top-right corner of your screen, you'll see your report balance — this shows how many influencer reports you can still generate.
You can use your balance across multiple platforms, including Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Twitch, and X (Twitter).
To generate a new report, just enter an influencer’s handle in the search bar, select their profile from the drop-down list, and the report will open.
Each report:
Lasts for 12 months
Is accessible anytime during that period without using extra credits
Only uses one report credit per profile
Most report metrics are refreshed monthly, but a few — like engagement rate — are updated daily.
Top metrics to focus on
When evaluating an influencer, your goal is to ensure their audience is authentic and engaged. Let’s highlight the metrics that help you do exactly that.
✅ Engagement Rate
Displayed right next to the follower count, this shows the average likes + comments on the last 12 posts.
It’s updated daily, so it reflects current activity.
✅ Audience types
We break down audience into four categories:
Real People – Verified individual users.
Influencers – Users with 5,000+ followers.
These two types are considered authentic or quality audience.Mass Followers – Accounts following more than 1,500 profiles.
Often bots or inactive users. Even if some are real people, they’re unlikely to see influencer content in their feed due to algorithm filtering.Suspicious Accounts – Bots, empty profiles, and fake accounts.
These are not reachable or relevant for marketing outcomes.
✅ Quality audience
This metric shows what portion of followers belong to the authentic types — Real People + Influencers.
A high quality audience is a good indicator that your content has a better chance of being seen and making an impact.
✅ Authentic engagement
This metric tells you how many real people and influencers are actively engaging with this account — not just any likes or comments, but engagement from authentic users only.
It's a stronger indicator than general engagement rate, as it filters out bots and suspicious activity.
✅ Audience Quality Score (AQS)
AQS is HypeAuditor’s proprietary rating — a score from 1 to 100.
Naturally, the higher the score, the better the audience quality.
While it’s a great quick reference, we don’t recommend relying on AQS alone to make partnership decisions. Every case is unique — so always review the full report and other supporting metrics.
Still, AQS works like a map — a good first indicator. If the score is low, you’ll often see an explanation next to it, and you can scroll down the report to explore specific red flags.
✅ Audience reachability
This shows the percentage of the influencer’s audience that is likely to actually see their content — excluding mass followers, who are unlikely to engage.
If you’re considering brand awareness or reach-based goals, this is an especially valuable metric.
✅ Audience authenticity
This is similar to Quality Audience, but shown as a percentage, not an absolute number.
It tells you what share of the influencer’s followers are real people or influencers — your real potential customers.
A handy benchmark is included next to this metric (and many others), so you can compare the influencer against others in the same follower tier.
This helps normalize evaluations across different account sizes.
✅ Follower growth & Following dynamics
Scroll down to the Growth section and review these two key graphs:
Follower growth — Check how the influencer is gaining followers over time.
If you spot sudden spikes or sharp drops, it may indicate unusual activity, such as potential follower purchases.We don’t accuse anyone — even influencers sometimes get bots sent to them by competitors — but the graph helps flag irregularities.
Following dynamics — If the graph shows sharp fluctuations, it may suggest use of automated follow/unfollow tools to boost visibility — a practice that’s outdated and not reliable.
Any anomalies here will also be reflected in our system’s automated notes, helping you make an informed decision.
Evaluating Engagement Quality
Once you’ve reviewed follower authenticity and reachability, the next step is to analyze engagement quality, not just quantity. That’s where the Engagement section comes in.
✅ Engagement rate benchmarking
While the engagement rate is shown early in the report, it only tells part of the story.
In the Engagement section, you’ll see how this influencer’s engagement compares to similar-sized accounts.
This benchmark answers key questions:
Is this engagement rate typical for influencers with a similar follower count?
Are they underperforming or exceeding expectations for their tier?
This comparison helps you interpret the number in context.
✅ Comments authenticity
This metric evaluates whether comments on posts are genuine or artificially inflated.
How do we detect inauthentic comments?
Engagement pods: Private groups where influencers agree to comment on each other’s posts to boost engagement.
Low-effort comments: If most comments are just emojis or generic phrases, they may come from bots or automated services.
Suspicious commenters: We assess the quality of accounts leaving the comments — fake or inactive profiles are a red flag.
The result: a clear assessment of whether the influencer’s comments are likely coming from real, engaged users — or not.
✅ Likes–comments ratio
This ratio tells you if the number of likes and comments are proportionate.
For example, if an influencer receives unusually high comments but few likes, it could indicate artificial manipulation.
A natural balance is a good sign — wide discrepancies may suggest automation or engagement pods.
✅ Like spread
Like Spread shows you how evenly likes are distributed across recent posts.
Here’s why it matters:
Consistent likes suggest a stable, engaged audience.
Major spikes or dips could indicate bot activity or boosted posts.
This metric helps spot inconsistent or engineered engagement patterns.
✅ Advertising performance
This is one of the most telling metrics in the whole report.
It shows the engagement rate on posts with brand mentions, helping you evaluate how the audience reacts to ads.
Why is it important?
An influencer may have great overall engagement, but branded posts might fall flat.
That can mean:
Poor ad creativity or messaging
A mismatch between the influencer and the brand
An audience that tunes out sponsored content
This metric helps you avoid investing in influencers whose audience ignores paid promotions.
These metrics give you essential clues about whether:
The influencer’s audience is truly engaged
Their audience responds to ads
There’s any suspicious or artificial activity
Understanding Audience Demographics & Interests
Beyond authenticity and engagement, the real power of an influencer lies in who follows them. This section of the report helps you evaluate whether the influencer’s audience aligns with your brand’s goals.
✅ Audience geography
Start by reviewing the audience distribution by country and city.
The top five countries are listed first.
If the United States appears in the top five, you’ll also see a state-level breakdown.
This is especially important if you're running geo-targeted campaigns or aiming to localize your messaging.
✅ Age, gender, ethnicity & language
You’ll also find breakdowns by:
Age groups — helpful for youth-targeted or senior-oriented products
Gender — great if your brand or campaign is gender-specific
Ethnicity — gives cultural context
Language — to ensure communication happens in your audience’s preferred language
Use this data to confirm that the demographic profile matches your ideal buyer persona.
✅ Estimated reach
If you're working with KPIs tied to impressions or reach, this metric is crucial.
HypeAuditor uses a proprietary algorithm to estimate reach based only on public data.
Instagram’s policies prevent tracking private reach data, so this is a predicted range (min–max) based on engagement behavior, audience size, and platform trends.
Use this to forecast campaign exposure and compare it across multiple influencers.
✅ Audience interests
Here’s where you confirm content–audience fit.
This section shows what the audience actively engages with, including:
Hobbies
Brands
Content categories (e.g., fashion, gaming, beauty, travel)
You can determine whether your product or service would resonate naturally with the influencer’s audience.
✅ Socioeconomic segmentation (income, education, marital status)
These three data blocks provide advanced segmentation options:
Income Level: Use when promoting premium products (e.g., luxury goods, fine wine).
Education: Crucial for services like online learning, finance, or tech.
Marital Status: Relevant when promoting products like dating apps, wedding services, or parenting brands.
For example:
If you’re advertising high-end wine, you’ll want an audience with higher income.
If promoting e-learning, aim for those with upper secondary or university education.
If pushing a dating app, you’ll want a base with a high share of single or divorced users.
This part of the report ensures that even if an influencer’s engagement looks perfect, you’re still targeting an audience that is relevant, interested, and qualified to act on your offer.
Beyond audience size and engagement, strong influencer selection also relies on evaluating how their audience behaves, which brands they follow, and how much working with this influencer might cost you.
✅ Audience brand affinity
This section helps you understand what brands the influencer’s audience already interacts with.
These are external brand accounts the audience follows, engages with, or frequently sees.
For example, if you're launching a beauty product, and you see that the influencer’s audience interacts with Sephora, Glossier, or Fenty Beauty, this indicates strong contextual fit.
This data gives you a sense of where your product might naturally land in their feed and how well it aligns with existing preferences.
✅ Notable followers
To evaluate how much influence this creator holds among peers, check the “Notable Followers” section.
This highlights other influencers (over 5K followers) who recently followed or engaged with this account.
If your influencer is followed by creators in the same niche, that suggests industry credibility and cross-network potential.
This is especially helpful for community-driven or expert-led campaigns.
✅ Mentions by Others
In the same way, you can review which other accounts or brands have mentioned this influencer in the past 90 days.
This includes influencers and brand accounts alike.
Frequent mentions can indicate organic popularity or recent collaborations.
This section gives you a picture of the influencer’s visibility and relevance across the platform.
✅ Estimated Pricing
In the Value section, you’ll find estimated prices for:
Instagram posts
Stories
These are based on an internal HypeAuditor pricing algorithm that factors in:
Audience size and type
Engagement metrics
Region
Account quality
Note: These are not real rates disclosed by influencers. Actual prices may vary depending on negotiations or past relationships.
Use these estimates to:
Budget for campaigns
Compare influencers
Forecast ROI
✅ CPE (Cost per engagement)
If your performance metrics are based on cost-efficiency, CPE is a key KPI.
It is calculated by dividing the estimated post price by the expected number of engagements.
This gives you a benchmark cost per like or comment, helping compare creators with different audience sizes.
✅ EMV (Earned media value)
EMV estimates the advertising value of the influencer’s reach.
It shows how much it would cost to achieve the same exposure through paid ads on Instagram.
This metric is commonly used by PR professionals to measure campaign efficiency.
Use EMV to demonstrate the financial equivalence of influencer activity to traditional media or ad spend.
When selecting influencers, you’re not just looking at performance metrics — you’re also assessing risk, tone, and content fit. This section helps you avoid reputation issues and quickly scan how the influencer presents themselves online.
✅ Brand safety analysis
Brand Safety is a critical metric to avoid working with creators who could potentially damage your brand reputation.
In this section, we show whether the influencer has recently published content on sensitive or controversial topics, such as:
Alcohol
Tobacco
Gambling
Adult content
Violence
Political or religious discourse
This doesn’t necessarily mean the influencer is unsuitable. For example:
If you’re a wine or beer brand, alcohol-related content is expected and relevant
But if you're a family-oriented or health-focused brand, the same mention could be a red flag
Use this section to quickly check content alignment and risk level.
✅ Content overview (visual media review)
This section saves you time by letting you preview the influencer's content directly inside the report, without switching to Instagram.
Key features include:
Media type filters: View all content or narrow it down to just Posts, Videos, or Reels
Time range control: Default view shows the last 30 days, with options to expand to 90 or 180 days
Sort options:
Most engaged
Most liked
Most commented
Most viewed
This gives you a clear sense of the content style, production quality, and visual branding. It helps answer: “Does this creator match the tone and image of our brand?”
✅ Comment sentiment analysis
This section shows you how audiences feel about the influencer's content.
You’ll get a breakdown of:
Positive comments
Neutral comments
Negative comments
Even if an influencer has:
High engagement
Authentic followers
Genuine comments
…it still matters what people are saying.
A high percentage of negative comments may suggest:
Poor communication or product placement
Audience backlash
Controversial opinions
Before starting a collaboration, it's important to spot these issues early — especially if you're investing in a long-term partnership or ambassador program.
To wrap up the report, we’ll look at two final areas that help you better understand the influencer’s brand partnerships and discover similar profiles for your campaigns.
✅ Brand Mentions & Ad Frequency
In the Brand Mentions section, you’ll find:
A breakdown of how often the influencer posts in general
A comparison to how often they post sponsored content
A list of brands they've worked with in the past 180 days
This helps answer key questions:
Are they promoting too many brands (potential ad fatigue)?
Do they work with any competing or complementary brands?
Is their ad frequency aligned with your campaign expectations?
It's a quick way to spot conflicts of interest or brand fit opportunities.
✅ Similar Accounts
At the bottom of the report, we suggest three accounts that are similar in terms of:
Content category
Audience quality
Top country of distribution
These profiles may vary in size — so the comparison is not limited to follower count, but rather focused on relevance and quality.
If you want to discover similar influencers with comparable audience size, and you have access to our Discovery tool, you can:
Click straight into Discovery from this section
The filters will auto-populate with matching criteria
Add your preferred follower range
Explore lookalike profiles that meet your specific needs
This is a great way to scale influencer searches based on a profile that already fits your brand.