Unpacking Instagram’s Focus on Sends Per Reach

TODAY’S EDITION

• Instagram head Adam Mosseri elaborates more on the importance of sends per reach metric — I dive into the short history of Instagram’s focus on shareable content, tips for creators and brands, implications for influencer marketing, and more.

• Threads celebrates its one-year anniversary — a study with Wakefield uncovers how people have been using Threads in its first year.

• Meta updates its label for AI content after backlash from the photography community.

• YouTube improves its Erase Song tool to help creators easily remove copyrighted music from their videos.

• Amazon says creators can’t use music in their shoppable videos ahead of Amazon Prime Day.

DEEP DIVE

Unpacking Instagram’s Focus on Sends Per Reach: A Timeline, Why It Matters, and Tips for Creators & Brands

You've likely heard phrases like 'sends per reach' or 'send rate' if you’ve been paying attention to Instagram recently. Adam Mosseri, Instagram's head, has been discussing this metric more frequently. If you’re unfamiliar with it, it's the rate at which people see your content and share it via direct messages (DMs).

A Timeline of Sends Per Reach

At the end of May, Mosseri first mentioned this during his Ask Me Anything session. Someone asked whether watch time is more important than likes or comments. He responded that send rates are actually more important for reach. Since then, this topic has surfaced several times, including in a recent interview with Colin & Samir, where he provided more detail. This week, he elaborated on how sends per reach is one of the most important signals in Instagram’s ranking.