Influencer marketing is a powerful way to grow your podcast audience and reach new listeners. But how do you know if your influencer campaigns are paying off and generating a positive return on investment (ROI)? In this article, you'll learn how to measure the ROI and impact of influencer marketing on your podcast growth, using some simple tools and metrics.
Before you launch any influencer marketing campaign, you need to define your goals and key performance indicators (KPIs). What do you want to achieve with your influencer partnerships? Do you want to increase your podcast downloads, subscribers, ratings, reviews, or social media engagement? How will you track and measure these outcomes? You need to set clear and realistic goals and KPIs that align with your podcast strategy and budget.
It's smart to define your goals by looking at what the competition is doing. If you set goals too high, or with an unreasonable timeline, you're setting yourself up for failure.
Attribution is key, but tricky. How do you know the downloads are coming from the influencers unless the listeners are literally clicking a direct link from their post? I’ve found a good way that has varying efficacy is to simply monitor the spikes of downloads and traffic to my podcast after an influencer posts about it. That said, having target KPIs and tracking user activity to the best of your ability is the way to stay ahead of this curve, although only loosely.
The next step is to choose your influencers and platforms that match your podcast niche, audience, and goals. You want to work with influencers who have a loyal and engaged following, who share relevant and quality content, and who have a genuine interest in your podcast topic. You also want to consider the platforms where your potential listeners are most active and where your podcast can be easily discovered and consumed. For example, you might choose Instagram, YouTube, or TikTok for video or audio snippets, or Twitter, Facebook, or LinkedIn for links and testimonials.
Ask potential influencers what past campaigns they are most proud. Focusing on one specific KPI can cause you to miss out other options from well-positioned and relevant influencers. For example: - An extremely engaged email list with a high open and click-thru rate. - Experience running ad sets on social media. Some influencers have high-performing Meta audience ad sets that perform and offer detailed measurements and results. - Ask for two work samples- creative and informational. Many brands veer towards information, clicks, and offers. Looking at how they delivered when given creative freedom can tell you a lot.
You can also consider networks that you might not turn to every day, like Clubhouse or Twitch, to bring in a new audience that isn't yet aware of your content. By bringing in individuals who haven't seen your brand, you can significantly increase your reach.
Know your influencers and their audiences. Just because an influencer mentions you and your show to their audience doesn’t mean you’ll get quality traffic - UNLESS their audience is your audience and their social capital resonates with their audience as well.
Once you have identified your influencers and platforms, tracking and measuring the impact of your influencer campaign on your podcast growth is essential. Depending on the type and scope of your campaign, you can use promo codes or referral links to track downloads, subscribers, or conversions. Additionally, creating custom landing pages for each influencer or platform can help you monitor the traffic, bounce rate, and conversion rate. You can also use social media metrics to measure reach, engagement, and sentiment of your influencer campaign. Tools like Sprout Social or BuzzSumo can track likes, comments, shares, mentions, hashtags, or clicks generated by each influencer post. And tools like Brandwatch or Mention can help you monitor the online reputation and sentiment of your podcast across different platforms and sources.
The best part of these tools is that many of them have free trials. This makes them the perfect thing for even entrepreneurs just starting up.
The final step is to calculate your influencer marketing ROI and compare it to your initial goals and budget. To do this, you need to assign a monetary value to each of your KPIs, based on your podcast monetization model and customer lifetime value. For example, if you monetize your podcast through ads, sponsorships, or donations, you can estimate how much each download, subscriber, or rating is worth to you. Then, you can use this formula to calculate your influencer marketing ROI:
ROI = (Revenue - Cost) / Cost x 100
Revenue is the total value of your KPIs generated by your influencer campaign. Cost is the total amount you spent on your influencer campaign, including fees, commissions, or incentives. The result is a percentage that indicates how much profit or loss you made from your influencer campaign.
A lot of influencer marketing is non-measurable. The challenge for marketing departments is sticking with promoting a podcast or other influencer channels when they are not 'directly' bringing in revenue or leads. I say 'directly' as most influencer channels are not the last click in attribution analysis or reports, but are part of the journey that makes a protective customer think of you in the first place.
When optimizing your influencer marketing strategy, it’s important to identify what worked well and what didn’t, and make adjustments accordingly. This may include continuing or scaling up your collaboration with high-performing influencers or platforms, testing new influencers or platforms that match your podcast niche and audience, experimenting with different types of content, formats, or calls to action, improving your podcast landing pages or analytics tools, and adjusting your goals, KPIs, or budget. By measuring and optimizing your influencer marketing ROI and impact, you can maximize this powerful strategy and grow your podcast audience and revenue.
The optimisation is EVERYTHING. Don't expect epic results from your first campaign. Rather try out several influencers / influencer types. Then continue with the best, and repeat, and repeat, and repeat.
Many influencer campaigns are more for awareness and exposure than specific attribution and executed calls to action (CTAs). An influencer can say they love the show and later people may seek it out on Spotify, Apple Music etc but not have clicked a link from the post. Ultimately if you get more downloads and traction to your show after influencers mention it, you’re likely getting a positive ROI, depending on what the influencer charged and how you monetize your podcast.