By some accounts, brands are seeing more engagement from their instagram ads than they are from other social networks like Twitter and Facebook. Instagram, which only began allowing ads less than a year ago, is taking things slow. Your Instagram feed hasn’t been inundated with ads yet because there simply aren’t that many ad partners yet. It appears as if Instagram really wants to avoid a backlash.

But there are some ads on Instagram, and brands need to know how they’re performing. With that in mind, instagram has just announced a new suit of tools for brands to track advertising performance across the network.

It’s a three-pronged approach to ad analytics. Instagram highlights Account Insights, which will “allow businesses to see how they’re increasing brand awareness on Instagram through impressions, reach, and engagement”; Ad insights, which will “show the performance of paid campaigns with brand analytics (impressions, reach, and frequency) for each individual ad delivered to the target audience”; and Ad Staging, which “allows advertisers and their creative teams to preview, save, and collaborate on ad creative for upcoming campaigns.”

All current Instagram advertisers now have access to these tools, and Instagram says their feedback will help fine-tine the product before it goes wide to more brands “later this year.”

According to Instagram, this was an oft-demanded feature.

Instagram is getting more and more serious about ads, even though they’re taking it quite slowly. We’re still waiting for the global launch of the ad product, but Instagram recently made a big personnel move by appointing Facebook Regional Director James Quarles to the newly-created position of Global Head of Business and Brand Development at Instagram.

Image via Instagram