There’s no doubt that influencer campaigns are an effective form of marketing — at least, that’s what 92% of marketers think. But one area that campaign managers struggle with is measuring the success of influencer marketing in precise and concrete numbers.
So, if you’re struggling to get a grip on the ROI of your influencer marketing campaigns, here are some tips for measuring its success:
#1: Set your goals carefully
Selecting the right influencer for your campaign is a struggle in itself. You need to make sure your influencer matches your target audience, produces great content, and is a trustworthy partner worthy of your budget spend.
But even when you’ve found the right person (or people), it’s essential to set a specific goal for the campaign so you can track its success. Brand awareness is nice, but one of the most difficult metrics for marketers to measure.
Instead, choose influencer goals with solid results that you can easily track and measure, such as:
- Direct sales
- Website traffic
- Social media mentions
- Post engagement rate/shares
- Social media following increases
Once you’ve established your goal, the path to tracking the success of your influencer campaign will become much more clear.
#2 Track engagement rates
Why do we hire influencers to promote our brands? Lots of reasons. But usually, it’s because they:
- Can help us reach a new target audience
- Have more Instagram followers than existing brand channels
- But the main reason is their engagement rates.
While a brand might struggle to get people interested in even the most creative content, influencers have carefully cultivated a loyal following. They are there to entertain, and so their engagement rates are naturally higher.
By sponsoring influencers’ posts on social media, your brand is sure to gain more traction. To measure its success, ensure your influencers are sending you the reach and engagement rate for each sponsored post. It’s also a good idea to monitor your own follower and engagement rates around the time of your influencers’ posts. If you notice a spike, that means it’s working!
#3: Conversion rates
One of the most-sure fire ways to track the success of influencer marketing is by tracking conversion rates. For example, that conversion could include:
- Email subscriptions
- Product sales
- Free trial sign-ups
But how can you identify whether those conversions came from your influencer campaign? You have two main options:
- Create a specific landing page
Whether it’s for a particular product or piece of content, provide your influencer with a link to a landing page created for the sole purpose of tracking their campaign. When conversions occur on that page, you’ll know exactly where they came from.
- Use UTM tags
If you’re providing any type of website link for your influencer to promote, make sure to add UTM tags to the link. That way, you can track page visits and conversions on Google Analytics or any marketing automation software that you use.
Everyone uses UTM tags differently, but the key is consistency. You might use “utm_source=instagram” along with “utm_medium=influencerXYZ” to track conversion rates on the link you provide to your influencer.
#4: Discount codes
In some ways, e-commerce businesses have it a lot easier when it comes to measuring the success of influencer marketing. The conversion goal is pretty simple: online product sales.
What is trickier is proving that your influencer campaigns had a part to play in driving those sales. You don’t want to see a spike and be struggling to differentiate between two or three reasons that might have happened.
Discount codes are super easy to set up on almost every e-commerce platform or website. They’re also a great incentive for engaging influencers and for their audience to follow through and complete an online purchase.
Just like with UTM tags, make sure you can easily identify the influencer and specific campaign for every discount code you provide. When tracking your online sales, it will be easy to spot the ones driven by influencer marketing channels!
#5: Website traffic
If your marketing goals are a little less defined, website traffic is a simple and easy way to measure your influencer marketing success. Not only that, but it can yield incredible results if increased website traffic is part of your marketing objectives.
Metrics such as shares, impressions, and increased reach and voice share to measure the impact of influencer activities. But more concrete ways to measure influencer success in creating website traffic include the landing page, UTM tags, and discount codes mentioned above.
#6: Vary your goals
A perfectly planned, executed, and measured marketing campaign is a rarity, especially if it’s your first foray into influencer marketing.
So, if you try a tracking mechanism that doesn’t work the first time around, don’t be disheartened. It doesn’t necessarily mean the campaign has had no effect, just that you need to get tighter processes around tracking and measuring.
Step one in this case is to switch up the goals you are using. If you’re finding it difficult to track website traffic, for example, try choosing a specific conversion goal around a single piece of content.
The more you engage with influencer marketing, the more confident you will get about tracking its ROI.
#7: Switch up your influencers
Not all influencers are created equal. You may have misjudged the audience match or had the misfortune to engage with a less-than-trustworthy influencer. If you’re not finding success with your campaigns, there are plenty more fish in the sea! Try using different influencers and measure the success of each individual rather than lumping them all into one “influencers” campaign. You’ll quickly see who’s working and who is not.
Takeaway
So, if you have felt let down by influencer marketing in the past, don’t despair! Try these tracking and measuring tips to make sure you’re getting the biggest bang for your buck when it comes to influencer campaigns. Be sure to check out the Influencer Marketing services we offer, and connect with Good Commerce today to up level your Influencer marketing strategy!