Measuring performance: all you need to know about tracking your influencer marketing campaigns.
Learn how to use the different KPIs to measure and understand your performance.
Word of mouth is the primary factor behind 20 to 50% of all purchasing decisions according to a McKinsey Study. When carried by individuals seens as highly credible among their peers, the message is even more powerful. That is the reasoning behind influencer marketing.
Once you have identified the right influencers and decided on the type of content you want them to post, you need to properly measure the results. Influencer marketing is not only about content and awareness. A campaign backed with solid data will evaluate what works and what doesn’t. Therefore, tracking your campaign will give you key learnings for the future.
81% of marketers who have used influencer marketing said it was effective. Yet 3 out of 4 marketing professionals aren’t sure how to measure their campaign performance. Here are some tips to help you use the different metrics at your disposal.
If your main objective is to boost sales :
Tracking links
Probably the most effective way to get concrete results, tracking URLs, tailored to each influencer, allow for a direct analysis of the number of clicks generated on a post. By far the most efficient way to identify top-performing influencers.
Coupon code
Create custom coupon codes for each influencer that followers can use while making a purchase. Using the influencer’s name as the code is more personal and drives engagement.
Sales
If you do a concentrated influencer marketing push, that is if you collaborate with an influencer for a simple and direct product shot, you can connect your brand sales to this specific campaign. It is really easy to implement, but note that it does not allow you to identify exactly where the results are coming from.
Key metrics to measure and boost brand awareness
Here are relevant metrics to help you assert how well your brand awareness is doing.
Number of followers
Compare the number of followers before and after the campaign to estimate the recruitment generated by the campaign.
Website traffic
Use google analytics to review traffic on your website at the period of the campaign. Pay attention to “referral stats”, this will give you insight into which influencer drove the most qualified traffic to your website.
Engagement
The engagement rate indicates how close to their community an influencer is. It is calculated by dividing the number of likes by the number of followers. A good metric to evaluate the success of a campaign is the engagement rate, as it gives an accurate picture of how the audience received the message.
In a report, Lefty compares the engagement rate during the campaign to the average engagement rate of the influencers, to measure the performance of the campaign.
Earned Media Value
Last but not least, a powerful tool to estimate the success of a campaign is the Earned media Value. It transforms the value created by influencers' publications into an estimation of the campaign’s revenue.
Lefty’s EMV formula is Impressions x CPM / 1000, and we use a CPM of $15.
According to the Ayzenberg’s Earned Media Value Index, each impression, like, and comment has a monetary value. In a successful campaign, this number should be superior to the production cost.
When used right, influencer marketing can be extremely powerful. But it needs to be measured to be justified. Lefty has developed a powerful software to help you get a clear picture of your campaigns’ performance. By giving you insights on all the metrics (impressions, likes, comments, clicks, audience…), we remove the complexity and allow you to easily track your ROI.
Now using the different metrics at your disposal will help you evaluate the success of your brand’s influencer marketing program.
