Unlike most ads, influencer posts bring an authenticity that audiences notice and appreciate.  

As your brand considers integration of influencer marketing into your marketing mix, it’s important to understand what you want to be tracking to show how your investments are impacting your goals and determine if it is a solid investment!  

What Are You Trying to Accomplish? 

• Are you looking to increase visibility (awareness) of your brand, product, and/or service? 
• Do you want to see how interested and engaged users were with the product, service, messaging, etc. that the influencer featured?  
• Are you asking the influencer to promote one of your brand’s channels to increase follower count or website traffic? 
• Do you want to increase subscriptions to a service or list, such as a newsletter or offers email? 
• Are you wanting users to trial/purchase the product(s) that the influencer is featuring? 

Below are metrics to consider as key performance indicators (KPIs) for the following goals.   

Recommended Reading: Integrating Influencers to Maximize Target Customer Impact

Metrics for Awareness-Driving Activities 

Sometimes, we just want to be on an audience’s radar. By measuring how many times a campaign was viewed or how many people saw the campaign, you will get a sense of the number of eyes that were on your product. The more eyes on the content, the more opportunities to reach new followers and potentially, new customers. Metrics to consider tracking: 

• Reach 
• Impressions 
• Visits 
• Views 

Metrics for Activities to Increase Audience, Subscribers 

You’re working with the influencer because their audience mostly aligns with your target customer. If your goal is to increase the number of followers/subscribers that are interested in your brand, products, and/or services, here are metrics to help you determine the success of your efforts.  

Increase Audience 

• Follower Growth over campaign time period 
• Link Clicks from Influencer content (trackable links, influencer reported numbers) 

Increase Subscribers 

• Subscriber Growth over campaign time period 
• Link Clicks from Influencer content (trackable links, influencer reported numbers) 

Metrics for Activities that Drive Interest, Participation 

By measuring the number of shares, likes, comments and click-throughs, you are seeing how impactful the content is. Would you click through a post, if you had no interest? Normally, no. By measuring how an audience is choosing to interact with a post you are seeing whether your campaign was effective toward your target audience. 

• Engagement (specific) 
  • Link clicks from Influencer content to specific resources/information such as a product page on your website (trackable links, Influencer reported) 
  • Comments 
  • Shares 
  • Like/Interaction 
  • Attendance 
  • Check-in 
  • Use of campaign hashtag(s) 
• Engagement Rate 
• Click-Through Rate 

Metrics for Tracking Trial, Purchase 

To see how the messaging and activities of the Influencer are impacting sales you can set up affiliate links, promo codes, landing pages, and link tracking for the campaign. Although we usually connect conversions with sales, it is really any time a potential customer completes an action that directly relates to your goal. 

• Redemption Code usage 
  • Total 
  • Unique Users 
• Promo Code usage 
  • Total 
  • Unique Users 
• Submissions 
• Link Clicks from Influencer content (trackable links, influencer reported numbers) 

Social Media Value 

If you’re familiar with earned media value, then the idea of social media value will be familiar as well. Basically, Social Media Value is going to assign a dollar amount to measure how much a post is worth in comparison to paid social advertising.  

Qualitative Relationship Consideration 

As you progress through multiple partnerships with influencers, you will experience a wide array of personalities and levels of professionalism. 

• How well did they collaborate? (A good partnership is collaborative where direction and feedback is welcomed.) 
• Was the content submitted by the deadline and in the manner in which it was requested? (Getting the wrong format, for example, is a huge pain.) 
• Did they do what they said, when they said they’d do it? 
• How easy was it to get in contact with them?   
• Did they communicate in a manner and frequency that worked well with your team?   
• Were they engaged with your team? How did they engage with your team? 
• Was the creator willing to revise content if needed? 
• Will this be a repeat partnership? 

If they worked out, if they seem invested in the relationship, if they love the products, they may be on the path to being one of the most invaluable assets to you and your brand – a Brand Advocate.  

Making an Impact With Influencer Marketing 

As an extension of your team, let us know if there is anything that we can do to assist in helping you develop, evaluate, or measure influencer marketing for your brand. Please feel free to connect with your partners at Pathfinders, or at the link below.