While modern influencer marketing has the potential to expose a company’s offerings to a broader range of target audiences, it is often difficult to accurately quantify the actual impact. Even knowing what metrics to track can be a challenge, as influencers may use multiple channels and innovative models to promote a brand.
Here, 12 leaders from Forbes Agency Council discuss how to accurately measure the ROI of influencer marketing campaigns and the most important performance indicators to keep an eye on.
1. Get Aligned On KPIs Before Launch
In advance of a campaign launch, we always get aligned on KPIs, such as impressions, reach, click-through rates, etc., as well as set up tracking links. We also require backend reporting from all paid content creators. This helps identify who is generating the best results, allowing our team to optimize future outreach to personalities across various platforms depending on the performance of influencer content and KPIs. - Joey Hodges, Demonstrate
2. Use Influencer Videos As Social Media Ads
When setting up influencer marketing, make sure you have the rights to show their videos as ads on social media. These videos often have fantastic view-through and click-through rates because they don’t feel like ads, and because people trust them. In terms of ROI, these types of ads will usually outperform even some of the very best creatives. - Brian Meert, AdvertiseMint
3. Track Visits, Referrals And Registrations
We track influencer activity using metrics such as website visits, referrals and registrations. We focus on campaigns that bring value to our followers, including fitness classes, mindfulness webinars and dietitian workshops. Engaging with subject matter experts and delivering relevant content can make the time spent engaging with your brand meaningful to your followers and foster a deeper affinity. - Alana Sandel, Marketing For Wellness
4. Measure Sales And Brand Lift
There are so many ways to measure influencer marketing that people who say it’s just for awareness are either taking the easy way out or just don’t understand the space. While it’s difficult for any marketing to attribute every last sale conclusively, if you set your influencer program up correctly from the start, you can measure sales lift online, sales lift at retail and brand lift. - Jim Tobin, Carusele and Ignite Social Media
5. Check Sales, URLs And Hashtags
First, watch the month-over-month impact on sales or KPIs. Next, you can look at the URLs through which users are entering the website—through another website such as Linktree, for example, which is often used by influencers. Finally, and this is possibly the most effective way, have influencers use a hashtag or keyword phrase and see how many users search for it. - Larry Gurreri, Sosemo LLC
6. Look At These Three Metrics After Three Months
Influencer marketing takes time to marinate with the target audience. Reactions are not as quick as they are in advertising. Influencer campaigns should run for three months, or more. Brands should then measure ROI in the subsequent three months, looking at the only metrics that matter: revenue, orders and new customers. - T. Maxwell, eMaximize
7. Use Swipe-Up Links And Brand Tags
If you’re working with influencers on Instagram, ensure that they include swipe-up links on stories and tag your brand. Metrics around link clicks and sticker taps to your account are strong indicators that consumers want to learn more about your service or product. Use a UTM tracking link so that your internal team can track website traffic coming from the influencer marketing campaign. - Heather Kelly, Next PR
8. Leverage Unique Promo Codes
Offer promo codes to influencers that are unique to each of them. These promo codes will definitely tell you which influencer has generated the most sales initially. It might cut into your margin at first, but then you can target the influencers that drive more revenue. - Jonathan Laberge, Reptile
9. Use And Track Affiliate Links
Using affiliate links is still the best way to do it. You can establish long-term relationships to ensure that there is a way to move forward with new influencers. Giving each their own link will ensure that you are able to track and report through all of the apps out there. - Jon James, Ignited Results
10. Leverage Dedicated Landing Pages
Influencer marketing is a great way to reach your ideal target audience. To measure the effectiveness of your influencer campaigns, you can consider leveraging unique landing pages to track conversions specific to those influencers. You can also use unique promotional codes and/or call tracking numbers to track purchases and overall activity from your influencer marketing efforts. - Elyse Flynn Meyer, Prism Global Marketing Solutions
11. Closely Monitor Engagement Health
Measuring ROI across social platforms is tricky. Engagement data is often private, and bot activity can inflate metrics. Most influencers are followed by bots, often unknowingly. Using AI, marketers can understand if a sizable percentage of engagement is bot-driven. If so, they can closely monitor the influencer for engagement health, which ultimately determines ROI. - Ricky Ray Butler, BEN
12. Use Personalized Purchase Codes And Surveys
The ROI of modern influencer marketing can be monitored by the use of personalized purchase codes and surveys. Giving influencers their own code that customers can purchase with is the simplest way to track whether influencer marketing is successfully reaching audiences. Surveys at the time of purchase give customers who do not use a code the opportunity to acknowledge who referred them to the product. - Katie Schibler Conn, KSA Marketing
