KPIs essential for your influencer marketing campaign

Influencer marketing has thrived by utilising a word-of-mouth approach on social media, turning into a $2.1 billion industry. While it once relied on a select group of influencers or celebrities, today’s influencers vary widely, from nano influencers with fewer than 1,000 followers to macro influencers boasting up to a million followers.?

Brands can now harness influencer marketing to promote virtually anything and reach their target audiences more effectively, especially with AI simplifying the process of finding the right influencers. This strategy isn't just confined to Instagram anymore; platforms like TikTok, YouTube, and Facebook are also key players.

As a marketer, it’s crucial to assess whether your strategy and chosen influencers are delivering results. Just like any other digital marketing channel, this means tracking performance through key performance indicators (KPIs). In this blog, we'll delve into six essential KPIs to monitor for your influencer marketing campaigns:?

• Traffic
• Engagement
• Conversions
• Brand awareness and sentiment
• Audience growth rate
• Return on Investment (ROI)

1. Traffic

Traffic is an important metric for any digital marketing campaign as it shows how many people are actually seeing your content!?

Traffic will give you a good idea of the campaign’s reach, but also because it can tell you a lot about its overall success.

For example, if you notice an increase in traffic but not conversions, that’s an indication that something isn’t working on the page. Solutions would be to tweak the landing page or A/B test content or call-to-action buttons to see what people are reacting to.

Metrics that you can track for traffic are:

• New visitors
• Total sessions
• Referral sources
• Total page views
• Time on site

2. Engagement

Engagement is a key KPI because it gives a deeper insight into how well your campaign is received. While metrics like traffic and reach tell you how many people saw your content, engagement shows how well it resonated with your audience. High engagement indicates relevance and customer loyalty.

Engagement can be measured by various actions taken by your audience, depending on the platform:

- Likes

- Reactions

- Shares

- Comments

- Clicks

- Votes

- Pins

- Video views

- Brand mentions

To calculate engagement, divide the number of interactions (likes, shares, comments) by your follower count and multiply by 100.

3. Conversions

The ultimate goal of any campaign is to drive growth and sales, making conversion rate a crucial KPI. Track changes in sales before, during, and after the campaign to measure its impact. For a more detailed analysis, use affiliate links, UTM parameters, promo codes, landing pages, and link tracking. These tools help you see where your converting traffic is coming from.

If your campaign aims to drive sales, track not just lead generation but also how many leads turn into actual purchases.

4. Brand Awareness & Brand Sentiment

Influencers can boost your brand’s visibility, which is essential for increasing brand awareness and building new relationships. This is especially beneficial for smaller or niche brands.

Brand awareness and sentiment are top-of-the-funnel KPIs that show how people perceive your brand. Partnering with influencers who share your values can enhance trust and create positive relationships with your audience.

Measure brand awareness by tracking how many people your campaign reached, how many new prospects became aware of your brand, and how well it reinforced your brand with existing prospects. Use social media analytics and GA4 to track impressions on your posts.

To gauge brand sentiment, use social listening tools like SparkToro or Talkwalker to monitor conversations about your brand. Surveys or polls on social media can also provide feedback on your influencer campaign.

5. Audience Growth Rate

Audience growth differs from reach and awareness because it focuses on converting people into loyal customers. Simply impacting someone with your campaign doesn’t mean they engaged with your content.

For instance, if someone visits a restaurant’s website after clicking a blog post but doesn’t find suitable menu options and leaves, this counts as reach and traffic but not audience growth. However, if they find the menu appealing and follow the restaurant on Instagram, that’s a success in terms of audience growth.

Track audience growth by monitoring your social media followers and comparing the number of new followers gained during the campaign to pre-campaign numbers. The same method applies to email lists by comparing new sign-ups during the campaign to previous numbers.

Calculate audience growth rate by subtracting the pre-campaign follower count from the post-campaign count, dividing by the pre-campaign count, and multiplying by 100 to get the percentage growth rate.

6. Return on Investment (ROI)

Return on Investment (ROI) is crucial for any marketing campaign because it measures profitability. A positive ROI shows that your revenue surpasses your expenses, including the cost of your influencer and other related costs. This not only proves the success of your campaign but also justifies running future campaigns.

However, ROI isn’t solely about profit. Marketers also value Earned Media Value (EMV), which quantifies the value of the organic exposure generated by your influencer campaigns. EMV is another important metric for assessing the ROI of your campaigns.

CONCLUSION?

Influencer marketing was once thought to be a fleeting trend or a strategy only for big brands with large budgets. With the rise of TikTok, some even predicted it would be replaced by content creators.

However, the emergence of nano and micro influencers has enabled brands of all sizes to leverage influencer marketing effectively. The key is to clearly define your goals, select the right social platform, and partner with an influencer who aligns with your brand and message.

By focusing on these six KPIs, you’ll gain a comprehensive understanding of your campaign’s success and be able to make adjustments if needed. Ultimately, it’s about building a successful partnership with an influencer who truly connects with your audience.