Influencer marketing is one of the fastest growing marketing channels out there, and with brands on track to spend up to $15 billion on influencer marketing by 2022, analytics are more important than ever.
This global investment in branded social content is not without justification. 89% of marketers say that ROI from influencer marketing is comparable to or better than other marketing channels. But how did we get to this point? Read on for a deep dive in measuring campaign success.
In addition to keeping an eye on your KPIs, the most common measurement of influencer marketing is your ROI. The most straightforward way to measure ROI is with this tried and true formula:
For example, if you were to spend $150,000 on a single campaign and that were to go on to generate $1,200,000 your return on investment (ROI) from this campaign would be 800%.
However, while knowing the ROI from your influencer marketing campaigns is an important insight into how successful they are, the ROI alone does not tell the full story when it comes to overall campaign success— that requires a few more metrics. These metrics may include engagements, impressions, brand/sales lift, or more nuanced outcomes like sentiment or other qualitative trends.
RhythmInfluence’s campaign with Betty Crocker resulted in a 99% positive sentiment among viewers of influencer content.
For a holistic view of your campaign you need to have your finger on the pulse of a variety of metrics. And with so many different potential platforms and tiers of influencers you could be working with, it can be overwhelming to rake through your collected data looking for the insights that really matter.
But before you roll up your sleeves to begin analyzing your collected metrics, take a moment to review your goals. The metrics you collect will be useless unless you are able to visualize how the data directly correlates with the goals you have set out to achieve.
For example, if your goal is to grow brand awareness then your most essential metrics to analyze would be qualified reach, brand lift, and social mentions. If you don’t stop to set specific goals, you run the risk of ending up with a lot of data and no direction.
Benchmarks for engagement rates and awareness/reach vary by influencer tier, campaign length, and other factors. Some baseline benchmarks for engagement rates on various social platforms include:
If brand awareness isn’t your goal, others may be:
Now that you’ve chosen the goal, it’s time to dive deeper into the specific marketing metrics that will get you there.
There are two primary types of influencer marketing metrics to keep track of:
Typically, the success of one means the success of the other. But to really see the full picture of your campaign you will need to keep your eye on the metrics generated by both sides of this branded partnership coin.
Before you begin a campaign, you will run through these metrics and more to see if the person of choice is a good fit, but the metric tracking doesn’t stop just because your partnership has begun. Track these metrics throughout your brand partnership to gain an understanding of social media performance.
Now for the other partner in this partnership, track these metrics to see how the engagement on your influencer’s sponsored posts translate to engagement with your company:
Once your campaign has ended there are a few more influencer marketing metrics you should calculate to gain an even more in-depth view of how well your campaign performed. Remember, your analytics will only be as insightful as how they contribute to the goals you set before your campaign.
Review your goals before calculating the success of your influencer marketing campaign with these metrics:
It’s worth noting that focusing your efforts on one of these metrics will impact the other. For example, campaigns with an efficient CPE will likely have a strong engagement rate. However, since a higher engagement rate results in a lower volume of impressions, this could result in a higher CPM. It’s important to determine first which metric is most important in defining success for your campaign.
Just like there is no one right way to execute an influencer marketing campaign there is no one influencer marketing KPI that stands above the rest in terms of importance. The most important KPIs to your campaign are dependent on your campaign goals.
For any campaign, set goals and track metrics, then they can serve as benchmarks for future campaigns. The more data you collect, the better you’ll understand how each campaign performs based on audience, category/niche, or budget.
With those goals in mind, let’s run through the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) to watch out for during your next influencer marketing campaign.
Conversion rates work hand in hand with lead generation. The key here is to first take stock of your conversion rates of specific influencers and platforms, then embrace what is working so you can replicate it. By adjusting based on your conversion rates, you can continually optimize and produce more high performing content, and in turn generate more website traffic. Speaking of...
One clear-cut way to see the impact is by checking if and in what ways it has generated you more website traffic. When your goal is to increase brand awareness and sales, the first step is to get users to your website. The following metrics will give you insight into if you are generating increased website traffic:
You didn’t think we forgot about sales, did you? Simultaneously the most simple to track and the most consequential figure, the amount of sales generated by your influencer marketing campaign is a clear indicator of how successful your campaign was.
To track sales generated by specific influencers have them post trackable links and unique promo codes. This way you will be privy to the exact source of all of your sales, so you can adjust your marketing efforts accordingly.
It’s also important to set up attribution modeling on your site to fully gauge how influencer is driving sales. Often, the influencer post won’t be the last click to conversion as a person might first discover your product, then research reviews, then comparison shop, then finally convert. If your analytics is set up to only assign sales credit to the last visit to your site, you won’t be tracking influencer sales properly.
And remember, if your sales aren’t where you would like them to be during the course of your campaign, influencer marketing isn’t set in stone. Instead, stay flexible so that you can adapt your branded posts in order to better reach your audience.
Now that you’ve taken the crash course it’s time to put what you’ve learned to the test. How are you going to put what you’ve just learned into effect in your next influencer marketing campaign? Subscribe to the RhythmInfluence blog to learn more about analytics, engagement, and ROI on your next brand partnership.