Root-Cause a 10% Decline in Instagram Content Impressions

You are a product manager at Instagram, and impressions are down 10%. How would you figure out why? ```hint Break the metric apart Before listing causes, write impressions as a chain of simpler quantities and find the link that moved. ``` ### Clarifying Questions - How is an impression counted: content loaded on screen, or on screen for a minimum time, and do repeat views of the same item count again? - Does the figure cover organic content, ads or both, and across which surfaces (Feed, Stories, Reels, Explore)? - Did the drop happen in a single day or build over weeks, and against which baseline: last week, last month or the same period last year? - Have daily active users and time spent moved too, or only impressions? ### What a Strong Answer Covers - Confirming the definition, the baseline and data integrity before diagnosing - A decomposition of impressions into users, sessions, browsing time and items shown, to locate the factor that moved - Segmentation by surface, content format, platform and app version, region and user cohort - Hypotheses across demand, content supply, ranking and ad load, performance and logging, each paired with the evidence that would confirm it - The business impact (ad inventory, creator reach) and a response plan once the cause is known ### Follow-up Questions - Impressions are down 10% but daily active users and time spent are flat. What does that point to, and what would you check first? - Reels impressions are up while Feed impressions fell by more. Is that a problem, and how would you decide? - If the cause turns out to be a deliberate change, such as stricter filtering of low-quality content, how would you decide whether to keep it?