Instagram Insights for brand deals — the four screens that matter.

What a brand is checking when it asks

Follower count answers none of the three questions, which is why the request comes even when your numbers look good. A brand buying a post from you is renting your audience for one moment. It wants to know that the audience exists, that it lives in the places and age bands the product is for, and that it saves, taps and replies rather than scrolls past.

It is also a fraud check. Bought followers and engagement pods leave marks in Insights that do not show on a profile: audiences in countries the content was never made for, reach that is a sliver of followers, likes with no saves behind them. Clean screenshots move you from 'maybe' to a shortlist faster than anything else you can send. You need a professional account to see any of this, so switch before you pitch.

The four screens that get asked for

Audience. Age ranges, gender split, top cities and top countries, for followers. This is the screen that decides fit, and the one most creators never send unprompted.

Accounts reached, last 90 days. Total reach, the split between followers and non-followers, and which content types drove it. The 30-day view is too easily distorted by a single reel, in either direction.

Per-post insights on two or three recent reels close to the brand's category. Reach, plays, saves, shares, comments, profile visits and follows from the post. Pick relevant pieces, not simply your best-performing ones; a brand can tell the difference, and relevance is what it is buying.

Story insights with a link sticker. Reach per frame, sticker taps, replies. For a brand that wants traffic rather than awareness this screen matters more than your reel numbers, and a small creator with real sticker taps beats a larger one with none.

How to read age, gender and cities

Age. Look at the two largest buckets together. That pair is your audience in one phrase, and the phrase belongs in every pitch. A spread that is flat across all buckets means your audience is undefined, which is a weaker position than a small, sharp one.

Gender. Read it against the category, not against an ideal. A skewed audience is a strength for skincare, menswear, baby care or gaming and a question mark for a family phone plan. Know your split and lead with it when it helps.

Cities. Instagram shows your top five. If they are concentrated, that is targeting a brand cannot buy any other way: a creator whose audience is Indore, Bhopal and Jabalpur is exactly what a regional D2C brand or a clinic chain wants, and no Mumbai macro account can offer it. If your top cities are scattered, say pan-India and mean it. If a foreign country you have never made content for is on the list, expect the question; if you bought followers at some point, the honest move is to say so and show the last 90 days instead.

Language. Insights does not show it, but cities imply it and brands infer it. A Coimbatore and Madurai audience for Tamil content is a coherent story. Tell it explicitly rather than leaving the buyer to work it out.

What good looks like at your tier, without a number

• Non-follower reach on reels. A meaningful share of reel reach coming from non-followers means the platform still distributes you, which is what a brand is renting.
• Consistency over spikes. A brand buys one post; it wants to know what a typical post does. A flat or rising line across 90 days beats one viral outlier followed by a trough.
• Saves and shares relative to likes. Likes are cheap. Saves mean intent and shares mean the content travelled. Content that gets saved is content a brand can sell with.
• Comments that are sentences. Questions about the product, 'where did you get this', disagreements. Emoji strings and 'nice' are what pods produce.
• Profile visits and follows after reels. Proof that people act after watching, which is the whole point of a sponsored post.
• Your own average as the yardstick. Brands compare you with other creators in your tier and niche, not with celebrities. Show that your sponsored posts hold up against your organic average and you have answered the question that matters.

Putting it in a media kit

Screenshots, straight from the app, uncropped, with your handle and the date range visible. Brands trust a slightly ugly screenshot over a beautiful chart, because the chart could say anything. Refresh them monthly; a media kit carrying January's Insights in September says you stopped caring.

What to include, in order: your top two age buckets, your gender split, your top five cities, 90-day accounts reached with the follower split, average reel reach across your last ten or so, and your engagement rate by reach, which the engagement rate calculator works out. Under each, one line saying what it means for a brand. 'Mostly women 25 to 34 in Hyderabad and Vijayawada, Telugu-first' is a sentence a buyer can act on.

The media kit tool lays these out on one page in the order brands read them. Keep the Insights screens as a second page so the first stays scannable, and keep the rate question separate from the audience story.

The same signals are what our matching reads. Your profile carries audience age, gender, city and language alongside content style and engagement quality; a brief is matched against it, and a strategist checks the fit before you hear from us. Join as a creator; it is free, and it means the brands that see your Insights are already the ones your audience suits.