- How to set and measure influencer marketing KPIs
- Published 30/05/2023
- 12 min Read
- Written by Julia Shandrokha
Table of contents
Brands from all industries from ecommerce to iGaming have already recognized the profits of influencer marketing, but not everyone knows how to actually measure influencer marketing campaign success, what metrics are vital, how to set and evaluate KPIs. Let’s explore this issue.
Influencer marketing is all about using the popularity and trust of online personalities to influence what people buy. These personalities, called influencers, have a big following and can really sway people’s opinions and choices. They endorse or promote products and services, which can have a huge impact on what consumers decide to purchase.
Influencer marketing is not just about choosing a popular online personality and having them post about your brand. It’s a strategic process that requires careful planning, goal setting, and most importantly, precise measurement of outcomes. This is where Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) play a crucial role.
KPIs are like scorecards that tell you how well something is working. In influencer marketing, KPIs help you see if your campaign is doing a good job or needs some tweaks. They show you things like how engaged your audience is, how many people know about your brand, how much traffic your website is getting, how many leads you’re generating, how many sales you’re making, and if you’re getting a good return on your investment. It’s all about figuring out what’s working and what needs improvement.
Setting and measuring KPIs in influencer marketing is not just important—it’s essential. Without clear, measurable objectives, businesses might struggle to gauge the success of their campaigns or justify their investments in influencer marketing. By defining the right KPIs, brands can ensure that their influencer marketing efforts align with their broader marketing goals, driving meaningful results that contribute to their bottom line. Moreover, they can monitor these KPIs throughout the campaign to make data-driven decisions, adapt their strategy as needed, and ultimately maximize the return on their investment.
In this article, the experts from the Famesters influencer marketing agency will help you delve deeper into the various KPIs relevant to influencer marketing, how to set them based on your business goals, and how to measure them using different tools and methodologies. Whether you are a seasoned marketer or a business owner venturing into influencer marketing for the first time, this guide will provide you with a comprehensive understanding of how to effectively set and measure your influencer marketing KPIs.
UNDERSTANDING KPIS IN INFLUENCER MARKETING
What is a KPI in influencer marketing?
Key Performance Indicators, commonly known as KPIs, serve as the compass that guides businesses on their journey to success. These powerful metrics provide a tangible way to measure progress and assess performance against predetermined goals. In the dynamic realm of influencer marketing, KPIs play a pivotal role in unlocking valuable insights that can revolutionize your campaigns. From measuring reach and engagement to tracking conversions and assessing return on investment (ROI), these KPIs empower savvy marketers to make data-driven decisions and propel their brands to new heights.
Relevance of KPIs in influencer marketing
Any KPI in influencer marketing is not just about numbers or data; KPIs represent the real impact of your campaigns on your target audience and ultimately, your business. They provide valuable information about your audience’s behavior and response to your influencer marketing efforts, helping you understand whether you’re successfully reaching your target market, engaging them, and persuading them to take desired actions.
Moreover, KPIs enable you to evaluate your influencers’ performance, determine which influencers are driving the most valuable results, and identify opportunities for optimization. By closely monitoring your KPIs, you can make informed decisions about your influencer partnerships and strategies, allocate your resources more effectively, and maximize your ROI.
How to сhoose the right KPIs based on your marketing objectives
The first step in choosing the right KPIs for your influencer marketing campaign is to clearly define your goals. What do you want to achieve through your campaign? Are you aiming to increase brand awareness, drive traffic to your website, generate leads, boost sales, or improve customer loyalty? Your goals will guide your selection of KPIs.
For instance, if your objective is to enhance brand awareness, your KPIs might include reach, impressions, and engagement metrics like likes, shares, comments, and mentions. If you aim to drive website traffic, you’ll want to track metrics such as referral traffic from your influencers’ posts, new users, and total sessions. For lead generation and sales objectives, conversion rates, sales, and ROI would be relevant KPIs.
It’s essential to choose KPIs that are relevant, measurable, and directly tied to your marketing objectives. Remember that the quality of your KPIs matters more than the quantity; it’s better to focus on a few critical KPIs that directly reflect your goals rather than a multitude of indicators that might dilute your focus and resources.
KPIS FOR INFLUENCER MARKETING YOU NEED TO CONSIDER
Influencer marketing KPIs provide quantifiable evidence of how effectively your marketing efforts are achieving business objectives. Here, we will provide a detailed description of critical KPIs for influencer marketing.
Engagement
Engagement is a critical measure of how actively involved your audience is with your influencer’s content. This is gauged by interactions such as likes, shares, comments, saves, and mentions. High engagement indicates that the content is resonating with the audience, encouraging them to interact with it and potentially boosting your brand visibility. Tools like Instagram Insights or Twitter Analytics can provide comprehensive data about these interactions. Also, you can use comprehensive influencer analytics platforms to get all the data in one place.
Audience growth
In influencer marketing, a key objective often is to reach a wider audience and grow your follower base. Audience growth can be measured by tracking the increase in your brand’s social media followers or subscribers after the launch of an influencer campaign. A significant spike in follower count could indicate a successful collaboration with an influencer. Social media platforms provide built-in analytics tools to track these changes.
Website traffic
Website traffic measures the number of visitors driven to your website through your influencer campaigns. Tools like Google Analytics can be used to track this metric. Key data to monitor includes new users (first-time visitors), total sessions (number of individual visits), time on site, total pageviews, and visits from referrals (direct traffic from the influencer’s content).
Lead generation and conversion rates
Lead generation refers to the acquisition of potential customers, often measured by the number of users who fill out a form, subscribe to a newsletter, or perform any other intended action. Conversion rate, on the other hand, is the percentage of those leads who make a purchase or complete a desired action. These metrics can be measured using tools like Google Analytics or a dedicated Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system.
Sales
Sales, one of the most direct measures of success, refers to the number of products or services sold as a result of your influencer marketing efforts. Using unique tracking codes or affiliate links for each influencer can help attribute sales to specific campaigns. This metric provides a concrete measure of the financial success of your influencer collaborations.
ROI
ROI measures the profitability of your influencer marketing campaigns. It’s calculated by subtracting the cost of the campaign from the revenue it generated, then dividing that number by the cost of the campaign, and multiplying by 100 to get a percentage. This KPI helps assess whether the financial benefits of your influencer marketing efforts outweigh the costs.
HOW TO SET KPIS FOR INFLUENCER MARKETING
Let’s break down the process of setting KPIs for influencer marketing into manageable steps.
1. Goal setting: define what you want to achieve with influencer marketing
The first step is to clearly define what you aim to achieve with your influencer marketing campaign. This could be increasing brand awareness, boosting engagement, driving website traffic, generating leads, increasing sales, or improving ROI. Your objectives should align with your overall business goals and be specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART).
2. Establish KPIs that align with your goals
Once you’ve defined your goals, the next step is to establish KPIs that align with these objectives. For instance, if your goal is to increase brand awareness, your KPIs might include engagement rate and audience growth. If your goal is to boost sales, you may focus on KPIs like lead generation, conversion rates, sales, and ROI.
3. Set realistic and quantifiable targets for each KPI
After defining your KPIs, it’s time to set realistic and quantifiable targets for each of them. If your goal is to increase website traffic by 20%, for example, your KPI target could be a 20% increase in new users or total sessions on your website within a specific timeframe. Setting realistic targets is crucial as it gives you a clear benchmark to aim for and helps avoid setting unachievable expectations.
4. Track each KPI from the beginning of the campaign
From the moment your influencer marketing campaign launches, you should start tracking each KPI. Tracking KPIs from the start gives you baseline data that you can use to measure the progress and impact of your campaign over time. It also allows for real-time adjustments, helping you optimize campaign performance and maximize your ROI.
By following these steps, you can effectively set and track KPIs for your influencer marketing campaign. This will not only guide your strategy but also provide you with valuable insights into the effectiveness of your marketing efforts, helping you make data-driven decisions for future campaigns.
HOW TO MEASURE INFLUENCER MARKETING KPIS
Measuring influencer marketing KPIs is essential to assess the success of your campaign and make informed decisions. In this section, we will explore the importance of data in measuring KPIs and various tools and methods available for accurate measurement.
Data plays a crucial role in measuring influencer marketing KPIs. It provides you with valuable insights into the performance of your campaign, helps you identify areas of improvement, and allows for informed decision-making. Without accurate and reliable data, it becomes challenging to gauge the impact of your influencer marketing efforts.
Tools and methods for measuring different KPIs
- Social media and web analytics tools. Social media platforms offer built-in analytics tools that provide valuable data to measure various KPIs. Platforms like Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook offer insights on engagement metrics such as likes, shares, comments, and reach. These analytics tools give you an overview of your influencer content’s performance on the respective platforms.
- Google analytics and customer acquisition report. Google Analytics is a powerful tool for tracking website traffic and user behavior. It allows you to measure important KPIs like new users, total sessions, time on site, and referral sources. By leveraging the Customer Acquisition Report in Google Analytics, you can track the performance of your influencer campaigns in terms of leads generated, conversions, and the impact on your overall website traffic.
- Affiliate links, promo codes, and UTM parameters for sales tracking. To measure the impact of influencer marketing on sales, you can use trackable links, unique promo codes, and UTM parameters. These techniques allow you to attribute sales directly to your influencer campaigns. By using affiliate links, you can track the number of sales, click-through rates, and average purchase values. Promo codes provide a way to track future purchases and assess the long-term impact of your influencer collaborations.
- Comparative analysis using historical data. If you have historical data from before implementing your influencer campaign, you can conduct a comparative analysis. By comparing pre-campaign data with data collected during the campaign, you can determine the specific impact of influencers on various KPIs. This analysis helps you understand the incremental improvements or changes directly influenced by your influencer marketing efforts.
By leveraging these tools and methods, you can effectively measure influencer marketing KPIs and gain insights into the performance and success of your campaigns. Remember, accurate measurement is crucial for evaluating ROI, optimizing strategies, and refining future influencer marketing endeavors.
UNDERSTANDING AND CALCULATING ROI IN INFLUENCER MARKETING
ROI is the ultimate measure of success in influencer marketing. It’s all about the financial value you gain from your investment in influencer campaigns. ROI tells you if your efforts are paying off and if your marketing strategy is delivering the desired results. By comparing the benefits you receive to the resources and money you put in, ROI provides a clear picture of the profitability of your influencer marketing endeavors. It’s the key performance indicator that determines whether your investment is worth it and if your efforts are yielding positive returns.
How to calculate ROI: the benefits derived versus the investment made
Calculating ROI in influencer marketing involves comparing the benefits derived from your campaign to the investment made. To measure ROI accurately, consider the following steps.
- Define your campaign goals. Clearly identify the objectives of your influencer marketing campaign like we discussed earlier in the article. Whether it’s increasing brand awareness, driving website traffic, generating leads, or boosting sales, define specific goals that align with your overall marketing strategy.
- Assign monetary value to benefits. Assigning a monetary value to the benefits derived from your influencer marketing efforts can be challenging, especially for goals that are not directly tied to sales. However, there are methods to estimate the value of non-monetary benefits. For example, you can calculate the earned media value (EMV) by estimating the value of interactions generated by the campaign, such as reach and engagement.
- Calculate investment costs. Determine the total investment made in your influencer marketing campaign. This includes costs associated with influencer fees, content creation, tracking tools, and any other related expenses.
- ROI calculation. Once you have the value of the benefits and the investment costs, you can calculate ROI using the following formula:
ROI = (Benefit – Investment) / Investment * 100
The result will be a percentage representing the return on your influencer marketing investment.
Read more on the topic:
Challenges in calculating ROI and solutions to overcome them
Calculating ROI in influencer marketing is not without its challenges. Some common obstacles include:
- Attribution. Determining the direct impact of influencer campaigns on sales or conversions can be complex due to various touchpoints and customer journeys. To overcome this, utilize unique tracking links, promo codes, or UTM parameters to attribute specific actions to your influencer collaborations.
- Quantifying non-monetary benefits. Measuring the value of goals like brand awareness, sentiment, or audience perception is subjective and difficult to quantify in monetary terms. Consider utilizing alternative metrics such as reach, engagement, social sentiment analysis, and surveys to gauge the impact of influencer campaigns on these non-monetary goals.
- Consistent measurement. Ensure consistent measurement and data collection throughout your influencer campaigns. Establish a standardized approach to track and measure KPIs across different influencers and campaigns. This consistency enables accurate comparison and analysis, helping you make data-driven decisions.
WRAPPING UP
Setting and measuring KPIs in influencer marketing offers several benefits. It allows you to align your campaigns with specific goals, track the performance of your influencers, and optimize your strategies based on data-driven insights. By selecting KPIs that align with your marketing objectives, such as engagement, audience growth, website traffic, lead generation, sales, and ROI, you can evaluate the success of your influencer campaigns and make informed decisions to improve results.
Remember, each brand and campaign is unique, and the choice of KPIs should be tailored to your specific goals and target audience. For example, while developers and mobile app brands may need to track cost per install of their mobile apps, iGaming ones often focus on the number of new deposits and their cost per deposit. Regularly monitoring and analyzing KPIs throughout your influencer marketing campaigns is crucial for identifying trends, refining your approach, and maximizing the impact of your investment.
Start harnessing the potential of influencer marketing by effectively utilizing KPIs, and unlock new opportunities to engage your target audience, build brand awareness, and drive conversions. The Famesters influencer marketing agency is here to help you with this. Contact us via [email protected] if you are ready to start working on your next successful influencer marketing campaign. Our experts with 7+ years of experience will manage everything for you – from research and competitive analysis to negotiating with influencers and measuring the KPIs.
Frequently asked questions about KPIs in influencer marketing
What is a KPI in influencer marketing?
A KPI, or Key Performance Indicator, is a quantifiable measure that businesses use to gauge their success in achieving specific objectives. In influencer marketing, KPIs provide insights into the effectiveness of campaigns by measuring aspects such as engagement, reach, and conversion rates. By monitoring these metrics, businesses can determine if their influencer strategies are successful and align with their broader marketing goals.
Why are KPIs important for influencer marketing?
KPIs are crucial for influencer marketing because they offer a structured way to evaluate campaign performance. They enable businesses to track how well their influencer marketing efforts are resonating with audiences, identify areas for improvement, and make informed decisions. By acting as a scorecard, KPIs help marketers focus on what matters most, ensuring that campaigns are effective and aligned with strategic goals.
How do I choose the right KPIs for influencer marketing?
To select the right KPIs for influencer marketing, you should start by clearly defining your campaign objectives. Consider what you aim to achieve, such as increasing brand awareness, driving website traffic, generating leads, or boosting sales. Choose KPIs that directly align with these goals, ensuring they are relevant, measurable, and actionable. Tailoring KPIs to your specific objectives allows you to track progress effectively and optimize your strategies.
What are the key KPIs for influencer marketing?
Key KPIs for influencer marketing typically include engagement, audience growth, website traffic, lead generation, sales, and ROI. Engagement measures how actively audiences interact with influencer content, while audience growth tracks increases in followers or subscribers. Website traffic assesses how many visitors influencers drive to your site. Lead generation focuses on acquiring potential customers, while sales track product purchases. ROI measures the profitability of your influencer marketing campaigns.
How do I set effective KPIs for influencer marketing?
Setting effective KPIs for influencer marketing involves several steps. Start by defining clear goals for your campaign, such as increasing brand awareness or boosting sales. Next, establish KPIs that align with these objectives, ensuring they are specific and measurable. Set realistic and quantifiable targets for each KPI, providing benchmarks to aim for. Finally, track each KPI from the beginning of the campaign to monitor progress and adjust strategies as needed.
What challenges might I face when measuring influencer marketing KPIs?
Measuring influencer marketing KPIs can present challenges such as attribution issues, difficulty quantifying non-monetary benefits, and ensuring consistent measurement. Attribution can be complex due to multiple touchpoints and customer journeys, but unique tracking links and promo codes can help. Quantifying non-monetary benefits, such as brand awareness, requires alternative metrics like reach and sentiment analysis. Consistent measurement is crucial for accurate analysis and can be achieved through standardized tracking approaches.
How do KPIs help improve influencer marketing campaigns?
KPIs help by providing actionable insights into what’s working and what needs improvement. By tracking and analyzing KPIs, businesses can identify successful strategies, uncover issues, and make data-driven decisions. This allows for continuous optimization of influencer marketing efforts, ensuring campaigns align with business goals and deliver maximum impact.
How often should I review my influencer marketing KPIs?
We advise you to review influencer marketing KPIs regularly throughout the campaign. Frequent reviews allow you to monitor progress, make real-time adjustments, and ensure alignment with objectives. Regular monitoring also helps identify trends and insights, enabling data-driven decision-making and optimizing campaign performance.