Instagram Reels impressions metric missing: use views instead

If your Reels report shows no impressions, that is expected. Instagram's insights reference says the impressions metric is deprecated for media created after July 2, 2024, and remains available for older media. For newer Reels, read views and reach.

From the IG Media insights reference, read 2026-10-02.

What replaces it

These are the closest metrics on the page.

Why one number does not replace the other

Impressions counted showings of a post. Views count plays, and reach counts unique people. They answer different questions, so a chart that used to divide something by impressions needs a new denominator. Pick views for per-play rates and reach for per-person rates, and say which in the chart title.

The page also flags views as in development, so keep the pull date in your data.

Fixing a dashboard

Steps for an existing report.

• Split reports at July 2, 2024: older media can still return impressions, newer media cannot.
• Do not backfill zeros for missing impressions. Missing is not zero.
• Use media_product_type to tell Reels from other media, since a published Reel reports media_type as VIDEO.
• For cross-posted Reels, choose between views, crossposted_views and facebook_views once and keep it.

Where Sume fits

Sume does not read Instagram metrics. It can help you act on what the numbers say. Video inspect returns stills and, when you request it, a transcript for one clip, so you can compare the first seconds of a high-view Reel and a low-view one on the same footing.