Measure Your Influencer Campaign

In a world majorly dependent on social media for news and entertainment, it only makes sense that brands should utilize this wide scope for marketing as well. Social media personalities hold the key to persuading audiences, thus “influencers”. When it comes to online marketing, KPIs, or Key Performance Indicators, are critical measures used to analyze the success and reach of your influencer campaign. The type of KPIs you follow vary based on the industry and business goal, so here are the top five KPIs you should use to measure your influencer campaign.

1. Engagement Rates

Arguably more important than reach, engagement rates show the return on investment based on total audience engagement through multiple inputs. To use this KPI, find the total sum of comments, likes, shares and clicks across all influencer posts. Likes and comments are easiest to measure, as most platforms show the number on each post.

Shares such as retweets and reposts are also easily trackable, and notable for their ability to essentially multiply an audience. Clicks are harder to track, as they need a dedicated UTM, but the information gathered is invaluable in seeing what content drives users to your website.

2. Conversions 

Among other KPIs, conversions help determine if your influencer campaign efforts were worth it. Due to an influencer’s power in driving traffic, brand awareness, and engagement, the brand must ensure the influencer fits the brand image and vision in the initial stages of campaign development. There are several means for tracking conversions. You can reach a general idea by comparing sales before and after implementing the influencer campaign.

This gives you results through straightforward financial figures. For a more in depth approach, set up affiliate links, campaign-specific promo codes, landing pages, and links. You are then able to track specific parameters, especially since brands differ in terms of their conversion rules.

3. Referral Traffic

One of the most valuable assets of online influencers comes in the form of referral traffic. It’s important to keep track of these users because they are most likely first time visitors unaware of your brand. Your actions are critical in ensuring that they become returning customers. While this number is often confused with sales, it is more likely that the campaign brought in a flux of visitors who did not convert.

Keep a system where you can accurately monitor referral traffic through customized hashtags and URLs. This will give you a clear picture of what your influencer is bringing to the table. To do this, make sure and have a detailed analysis of your website and numbers before the campaign for comparison.

4. Quality Content

Managing an effective influencer campaign means more than just the numbers. The quality of the content an influencer posts can help you understand the data from the campaign. Make sure to keep track of the blog posts, videos, and photos being posted to ensure enough original content is being produced.

It’s also useful if the content is reusable, then you can re-post it on your own account to increase the number of likes, shares, and comments. Tracking the type and frequency of the content being posted will help you create and maintain a successful influencer campaign.

5. Return on Investment (ROI)

In order to determine whether your influencer campaign was worth the money, you need to effectively track the return on investment. However, this tends to be one of the most difficult KPIs for which to reach a concrete number. As important as the generated buzz and traffic from influencers are, they do not always equate to better sales. To judge whether the spends you are undertaking for the campaign justify sales created by the influencer, pay attention to some of these benchmarks:

  • Accurate budgeting
  • Estimate influencer worth
  • Set goals
  • Measure costs

By Punit