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If you’re here reading this, then you are already aware of how influencer marketing can push brand marketing to the next level. Every brand big or small uses influencers to get their message out there because it works much better than traditional marketing and costs less to get more out of.
Having said that, how do you really measure your influencer marketing efforts? Is it the same as traditional marketing? Well, why don’t we find out?
KPIs In Influencer Marketing
Unlike marketing efforts before, today there is a much more measurable and streamlined approach to brand promotion. The digital age of advertising has given marketers the tools to highlight several important metrics that are key performance indicators (KPIs) for marketing efforts. We have rounded up a few of these KPIs that we think are essential if your brand carries out or is looking to employ influencer marketing.
KPI No.1– Referral Traffic
One of the most significant benefits of having an influencer marketing your brand is the massive influx of referral traffic that they can bring to your brand webpage. This is really important because it is likely that people who are taking this route are first-timers who aren’t aware of your brand. You need to take this initiative to make sure that you turn them into your customers.
A lot of people confuse this number with sales. It is entirely possible that the campaign brought you a lot of new visitors, but for some reason, they did not convert. You need to have a system where you can accurately monitor referral traffic so you can get the right picture about what your influencer is bringing to the table. You can do this through customized hashtags, URLs and the like. Also, remember to have an in-depth analysis of your website and numbers before you started on the campaign. Here are a few metrics that you need to have:
- New users
- Total sessions
- Total page views
- Time on site
- Referral sources
KPI No.2– Brand Awareness And Reach
Influencers have access to a large number of followers who are willing to engage. If you want to build brand awareness, engagement is an important factor on any social media platform. One method of tracking this is to find out how many people you’ve “reached” with your campaign and potential prospects that you have a higher chance of converting into customers.
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You can measure this by using data from various social media platforms on tracking impression data regarding types of content like blogs, posts, videos, and more that you’ve created for the campaign. Most social media platforms have this when you opt for business accounts. If you want to track this on your website, Google Analytics offers a comprehensive suite of metrics that can help you get a better picture of how your influencer marketing campaign is performing.
KPI No.3– Conversions
Among the several KPIs that determine if your influencer marketing efforts were worth it, conversions are the ultimate goal of any campaign. Influencers can drive traffic, brand awareness, engagement, and several other factors, conversions though depend equally on the influencer and the brand. The brand reaching out to the influencer needs to make sure that they are the right fit for the brand vision and image.
Tracking conversions are carried out through several means. The broad scope method includes comparing your sales numbers before and after implementing the influencer campaign. This can give you the most straightforward data – financial figures. A more in-depth approach would be to set up affiliate links, campaign-specific promo codes, landing pages, and links. This makes it a lot easier to track different parameters. Also, some campaigns might have a different rule for conversions, and it might not always be sales. It could be downloading a PDF or visiting a webpage. So conversion rates differ for various campaigns based on the goals.
KPI No.4– Engagement
A lot of people consider this as the most important parameter when it comes to influencer marketing. In fact, 81% of people feel that engagement is the real goal of influencer marketing compared to other goals.
While this seems like a sweeping view of influencer campaign goals, engagement numbers are definitely important. Engagement refers to how many people actually “engage” with your content; people who have interacted with it in one way or many. There are several KPIs that you can use to track how much engagement your influencer marketing campaign is drawing.
Clicks refer to how many people have actually clicked on your content to find out what it was about. Usually, you will find that clicks are generally a bit higher for the content than the rest of the methods of engagements.
Likes are the simplest form of engagement that is available on a social media platform. These can help you find out how much “buzz” is generated by your brand.
Comments happen when people want to let you know what’s on their minds about what you posted. This can help you determine if what you posted aligns with the tastes of your audience.
Mentions can help you figure out how often your brand is being mentioned on a specific social media platform.
Shares are when your audience thinks the content is good enough to be shared on their feed. This is definitely one of the top ranking signals as far as engagement is concerned.
KPI No.5– ROI
Now that you’ve selected the right influencer for your brand, and they have delivered on their promise to get you a truckload of followers and buzz for your brand, it’s time to find out if they were worth the dollar spent. However, it is not that easy to come up with a concrete number for this attribute. Marketers find calculating ROI the most difficult task by far during an influencer marketing campaign, as evidenced by Linqia.
An important thing to understand when it comes to influencer marketing is that while they can improve your brand awareness and give you tons of engagement, they do not directly equate to better sales numbers. You need to measure the spend you are undertaking for the sales your influencers create.
A few things that can help you with determining the right ROI for your engagement is:
- Accurate budgeting
- Estimate influencer worth
- Set goals
- Measure costs
Paying attention to these details can help get your spends under control as well as estimate accurate ROI.
In Summary
Influencer marketing has been around for centuries, but the modern take on this method is set to be the fulcrum on which brands are going to balance their marketing efforts in the future. Influencer marketing offers significant benefits for your marketing spend, and it gives brands the chance to connect with a more niche-oriented audience quickly with very little prep time. People relate to influencers much more than a brand, and this makes building trust a much easier exercise for the brand.
