The world of marketing has evolved. Influencer marketing is now a popular and reliable way to spread the word about your brand.
Just look at the statistics! The influencer marketing industry is now worth an estimated $2 billion. And 67% of marketers already feel that influencers have helped them to reach a much more targeted and engaged audience.
But when it comes to measuring influencer marketing ROI, many marketers are still finding their feet. If you’re looking for ways to test and prove the value of your influencer marketing campaigns, here are a few pointers to get you started:
What are Your Goals?
As with any marketing campaign, you need to establish your goals. They should be devised with your brand, your influencer and your joint audience in mind. Goals should also always be S.M.A.R.T. – specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time-based.
How Will You Assess Those Goals?
Your marketing goals need to be created with an eye on available metrics too. It’s pretty pointless putting a target in place if you can’t work out whether you’ve met it successfully, right?
Every goal needs to be countable. You could aim to boost website views, get a certain number of brochure downloads or increase sales by a set amount each month. You can also set broader targets like “raise brand awareness” as long as you can pin that “brand awareness” down in the form of brand mentions across the internet or additional social media followers.
Here are a few different metrics you can use to inform and assess your influencer marketing goals:
-
- click through rate (CTR)
-
- sales
-
- content downloads
-
- email signups
-
- website traffic
-
- brand mentions
-
- social media followers
-
- likes, favourites and shares
-
- comments
- social media sentiment
Top Tips for Measuring Influencer Conversions
So you’ve got your goals and your metrics covered. But if you really want to know which of your influencers is driving conversions, you need to go one step further. Luckily, there are a number of strategies you can employ.
#1 Tracking Pixels
If you want to know how many people are visiting your site via a specific influencer, get the influencer to install a tracking pixel. It’s a teeny tiny image that can be used to count how many visitors come to your website from your influencer’s social media page. And they work even if users don’t click on a link directly.
#2 Promo Codes
An oldie but a goodie – promo codes can come in really handy when working out which influencers are generating the best ROI. Give each influencer their own unique voucher code to promote and then track how many times it’s used by customers making a purchase. Simple!
#3 YouTube Cards
Create (or get your influencer to create) YouTube cards within their videos to track ROI. These cards pop up during a video and give users the option to click through to your website. It’s much more obvious that hiding a link away in the video description. And by using a link specific to each influencer, you know exactly where your web traffic is coming from.
Measuring influencer marketing ROI is easier than you think. And once you’re successfully measuring the conversions each influencer provides, things get even simpler. With the right data at your fingertips, you’ll find ways to tweak and improve your influencer marketing strategy. That means better campaigns and more conversions as time goes on.
