How do you know if an influencer marketing campaign is going well? It takes more than just a feeling. You need cold, hard numbers and facts to get a real sense of whether your campaign is successful or not. That’s where influencer marketing analytics come in. With analytics, you’re able to see what aspects of a campaign are working, and which ones aren’t.
Influencer Marketing Analytics Defined
It can be tricky to find a plain language definition of analytics. For example, the definition offered by SAS might be enough to make your head spin.
But the simplest way to define analytics, and influencer marketing analytics in particular, is as data and statistics. For example, you might look at the number of people who took action after looking at a post from an influencer, or at how many people liked or commented on a post from an influencer.
Often, influencer marketing analytics include the following:
- Number of published posts or other content
- Reach of those posts
- Post views
- Post engagement
- Return on investment
- Number of shares
Measuring Influencer Marketing Analytics
You have several options when it comes to measuring influencer marketing analytics. First, it is important to know what you’re measuring. To know what to measure, you need to think about your goals for the campaign.
If you want to boost visits to your site, you will look at certain types of analytics. But if your goal is to turn social media users into customers, it will make sense to measure a different set of analytics.
You can track and measure analytics manually, using a tool such as Google Analytics, or you can use an influencer marketing platform. While going the manual route has some advantages, using an influencer marketing platform lets you take advantage of a full suite of services, as well as key performance indicators that are specific to influencer marketing.
Influencer Marketing Key Performance Indicators
Key performance indicators (KPIs) are the specific metrics your brand will look at to determine if an influencer marketing campaign is providing the results you want. KPIs aren’t exclusive to influencer marketing (they are commonly used in sales, HR, and other types of marketing). But there are a few KPIs that are specifically for influencer marketing:
Click-through Rate (CTR)
This is the number of people who actually click on the link in an influencer’s post to end up on your brand’s site. You can use a special tracking URL, such as one you create with bit.ly, to see who is coming from where.
Sales/Conversions
How many people end up buying from your brand as a result of a influencer marketing campaign is an important metric to measure. You can give your influencers a customized coupon code to share with followers to see who’s sending the most sales your way. Although coupon codes are an older technique, “Forbes” notes that it’s still one of the best.
Social Engagement
Are your influencers actually influencing others? Measuring engagement, such as likes, comments, and follows, lets you know for sure.
Views
How many views is a particular post getting, especially in comparison to its anticipated reach? Using a tracking pixel on posts lets you count how many people are viewing a specific blog post.
Is Your Influencer Marketing Campaign a Success?
KPIs and analytics can shed a light on whether or not your influencer marketing campaign is a success. In fact, there are a number of analytics that can help you see how well your campaign has fared:
Total Social Value (TSV)
The total social value of a campaign is the amount you paid for content in the your campaign plus the earned value of shared content.
Return on investment (ROI)
ROI is the total social value divided by the amount you paid for the campaign. For example, if your total social value is $45,000, and your paid value is $15,000, your ROI is 300 percent.
Cost-per-engagement (CPE)
The CPE is the amount you end up paying for each engagement. For example, if you paid an influencer $75 for a post and that post gets 300 engagements, the CPE is 25 cents.
Influencer Marketing Platforms Help Measure Campaigns
Although you can track influencer marketing analytics by hand or with tools like Google Analytics, there are several influencer marketing platforms and software available to handle the tough math for you. IZEA’s software includes an analytics dashboard that lets you track and measure your campaigns in real time. You can look at the overall performance of the campaign, including total reach, total views, engagements, ROI, and TSV. You also have the option of looking at how each influencer is performing.
