Forward vs Next Story: Instagram Metrics & Tool Review (2026)

On Instagram insights, "forward" means a user tapped to see your next slide, while "next story" means they swiped to skip your content entirely. For advertisers in 2026, "forward vs next story" also brings up marketing tools. We compare the exact Instagram metrics and review the software platforms Forward and The Next Stories.

Decoding forward vs next story Instagram metrics

When analyzing your Instagram insights, understanding user navigation patterns is the first step to lowering your customer acquisition cost. The difference between a tap and a swipe dictates how the Meta algorithm grades your creative.

A "forward" tap means retention within your own story sequence. If you publish three story slides, a forward tap on slide one means the user is advancing to slide two. They are engaged but consuming content rapidly.

A "next story" swipe is a complete exit. The user rejected your content and swiped left to view a completely different account's story. In media buying, a high "next story" rate is the metric that kills your return on ad spend. Meta interprets frequent swipe-aways as low creative quality, which actively penalizes your auction bids and spikes your CPMs.

The data behind winning Instagram story ads

If your ads generate high "next story" metrics, your creative is failing the three-second hook test. At Crush, our platform, we track competitive ad intelligence to see exactly what stops the scroll.

Crush's ad library tracks 1,748,025 unique Facebook ads (443,161 currently active). When we filter our database, 1,514 tracked ads match "instagram" (118 active right now).

Among top "instagram" ads, average run time is 225 days; 184 of the top 400 ran 90+ days (the "proven winner" threshold).

Longevity requires stopping the swipe. To prevent users from navigating to the next story, top advertisers rely on aggressive, direct calls to action (CTAs). Based on our proprietary data, the most common CTA buttons on "instagram" ads are learn more (36%), shop now (19%), and whatsapp message (17%).

Examples of ads that prevent next story swipes

Winning ads hook the viewer in the first sentence. Here are five verbatim examples from the Crush ad library that achieved massive longevity with zero creative relaunches, proving they continuously beat the "next story" swipe.

• KlickPiloten: ran 2216 days, relaunched 0x, CTA "contact us", opening line: "Die Digital-Marketing KlickPiloten Beratung & Agentur aus #Stuttgart, #Hamburg und #Berln: SEO, SEA, Social und Amazon Kampagnen für B2B & B2C."
• wilov: ran 2189 days, relaunched 0x, CTA "learn more", opening line: "wilov, la 1ère assurance auto à l’usage pour arrêter de payer plein pot. Nous résilions votre ancienne assurance pour vous. Sans engagement."
• Genera Studios: ran 1863 days, relaunched 0x, CTA "learn more".
• ALEC at the University of Tennessee: running 1373 days, relaunched 0x, CTA "learn more", opening line: "Our highly flexible programs will allow you to obtain a degree through traditional coursework or entirely online."
• LGCY Power: ran 1334 days, relaunched 0x, CTA "learn more", opening line: "LGCY Power has been recognized by @bestcompanyUSA's 2022 Companies to Watch! We're experiencing unprecedented growth and have been consistently recognized as on".

Forward vs Next Stories: Comparing the marketing software

If you searched this query to evaluate marketing software, you are comparing two entirely different functions. Forward handles backend retention, while The Next Stories handles AI creative production. Here is a direct review of their features, pricing, and user sentiment.

Forward: Features, pricing, and user reviews

Forward is an email, SMS, and WhatsApp marketing platform designed to engage shoppers and drive revenue after they click your ads.

According to the Pricing | Forward page, the 'Scale Plus' plan for Forward's email and SMS marketing software costs $199 per month. This tier includes 200,000 free email credits per month. After exhausting the free email credits, additional emails on the 'Scale Plus' plan are charged at a rate of 800 emails per $1 after 50,000 emails.

For testing, Forward offers a 7-day free trial where users can send up to 2000 emails or 130 SMS messages. Paid plans for Forward have no limits on features or contacts.

User Sentiment and Praise: Forward holds excellent user feedback across major review platforms.

• According to G2 reviews, the 'Forward' marketing intelligence platform is praised for being specifically built for Shopify brands, enabling merchants to engage with shoppers and drive revenue across multiple channels.
• B2B agencies highly rate the software for revolutionizing the client engagement process and providing a centralized digital salesroom that reduces friction in the sales process.
• Users appreciate its ability to save time, boost team productivity, and significantly reduce the sales cycle. One reviewer stated they "can't think of anything we haven't liked so far" and commended the support.
• On Trustpilot, ForwardEmail.net is praised for outstanding security, rich features, and reliability. Users commend the support for being fast, responsive, and quickly handling requests like increasing forwarding limits with no hassle.

Limitations: The primary drawback of Forward is its ecosystem restriction. Forward currently supports only Shopify stores.

The Next Stories: Features, pricing, and user sentiment

If your primary issue is high "next story" swipe rates on Instagram, you need creative volume. According to The Next Stories website, The Next Stories is an AI-powered platform designed to redefine creative production for advertising and marketing.

The tool leverages AI to automatically generate advertising content, including storytelling, staging, voice-overs, music, and editing. Its first product, Autoya, is a SaaS platform built for automotive dealers, distributors, and OEMs, enabling them to convert everyday vehicle photos into premium, catalog-grade visuals at scale.

According to The Next Stories pricing page, all plans include access to all models and high-priority in the generation queue. The tiers scale by generation limits.

• The Starter plan costs 29,00 Euros per month. It includes video generation up to approximately 6 minutes, image generation up to approximately 1.2K, clip video up to approximately 70, voice generation up to approximately 190 minutes, and soundtracks up to approximately 40 minutes.
• The Plus plan is available for 49,00 Euros per month. It provides usage limits including video generation up to approximately 14 minutes, image generation up to approximately 2.4K, clip video up to approximately 140, voice generation up to approximately 380 minutes, and soundtracks up to approximately 80 minutes.
• The Pro plan costs 89,00 Euros per month. It offers limits of up to approximately 28 minutes for video generation, up to approximately 4.8K for image generation, up to approximately 280 for clip video, up to approximately 760 minutes for voice generation, and up to approximately 160 minutes for soundtracks.

User Sentiment and Limitations: Unlike Forward, The Next Stories currently lacks public user sentiment data. In our research, there are no verified reviews on platforms like G2 or Trustpilot praising or complaining about the product. Prospective buyers must base their decisions strictly on the listed features. Furthermore, its flagship Autoya product is heavily niched toward automotive dealers.

Crush (our product): Automating ad execution

Once you have AI creative from The Next Stories and a backend salesroom from Forward, you need a system to execute your media buying. Crush is an AI Facebook-ads platform built for practitioners.

Our platform fully automatically runs Facebook ads. It creates campaigns, scales winners, and kills losers without manual intervention. Because we track competitors' Facebook ads via the Meta Ad Library (and keep history, including ads that were taken down), you can reverse-engineer what works in your niche.

When you identify a top-performing creative in our free public ad library (or learn how to search the Facebook ad library), Crush can generate ad-creative iterations directly from that winning reference ad. Paid plans start with a trial; you can check current pricing here.

Feature and pricing comparison table

Here is a direct breakdown of how these three distinct tools integrate into a media buying workflow.

Who should pick which tool?

Evaluating your tech stack requires looking at your actual bottlenecks. If you are struggling with your Instagram metrics, select the tool that fixes your specific drop-off point.

1. Choose Forward if your problem is backend retention. If you operate a Shopify store and need to maximize lifetime value through automated email and SMS touchpoints, their Scale Plus plan delivers massive volume limits.
2. Choose The Next Stories if your bottleneck is creative production, specifically in the automotive space. If your ads are getting high "next story" swipe rates on Instagram, leveraging their AI to turn raw vehicle photos into catalog-grade video assets will lower your CPMs.
3. Choose Crush if your bottleneck is ad execution and scaling. If you have the creative and the backend ready, our platform will automate your Facebook ads, generate new creative iterations from proven winners, and manage your budget dynamically.

How we got this data

The numbers in this article come from Crush’s ad library: 1,748,025 unique Facebook ads tracked via the Meta Ad Library, 443,161 of them active at the time of writing. Ad examples reference real advertisers and their public ads. Data queried on 2026-08-08. Third-party product facts are attributed inline to their sources.