Influencers have become an integral part of digital marketing strategies. Brands are increasingly leveraging influencers to promote their products and services. However, it’s crucial for brands to track the performance of their influencer campaigns to determine ROI and optimize future collaborations.
Why is it important to track influencer marketing activity?
There are several reasons why brands must track influencer activity:
- Calculate campaign ROI: Tracking performance metrics allows you to quantify the returns you are getting from influencer marketing spend. This includes metrics like engagement rate, clicks, conversions, and sales.
- Optimize campaigns: Analytics provide insights into which types of influencers, content formats, CTAs etc. are working well. You can double down on what’s successful.
- Identify fraud: Fake followers and engagement are common problems in influencer marketing. Performance tracking helps identify shady practices.
- Benchmark results: Analytics give you data to benchmark your influencer program’s success against past campaigns and industry standards.
- Justify spend: Hard numbers on ROI and impact demonstrate the value of influencer budgets to stakeholders and decision-makers.
Without tracking influencer actions, you are essentially flying blind and unable to optimize the return on your investment.
What are the key influencer marketing KPIs to track?
Here are some of the most important influencer marketing metrics to monitor:
Reach
The total number of unique users who viewed the influencer content. This indicates the potential scale of the campaign. Compare reach to the influencer’s follower count to gauge authenticity of audience.
Impressions
The number of times the content was displayed to users. More impressions signal better visibility for your brand.
Engagement rate
Engagement rate shows how well the content resonated with the audience. It is calculated as: (Likes + comments + shares) / total followers x 100. Benchmarks vary by niche but a good rate is 2-5%.
Clicks
The number of clicks on embedded links like product pages and CTAs. More clicks demonstrate interest and traffic being driven to your assets.
Conversions
The number of users who took the desired action after clicking, like making a purchase or downloading content. This helps determine actual ROI.
Sales
Total revenue or sales generated from the influencer posts. This shows exactly how much monetary value the partnership is driving.
Sentiment
The tone and emotion expressed by the influencer about your brand. Useful for gauging how your collaboration was received by their audience.
How do I track influencer marketing campaigns?
Here are some tips to track the performance of your influencer collaborations:
Use campaign tags and trackers
Create specific UTM campaign tags and tracking links for your influencer initiative. These help identify and collate all related activity in your analytics.
Measure clicks with link shorteners
Use link shortening tools like Bitly to create trackable shortened links for your influencers to share. This makes it easy to monitor clicks and traffic sources.
Integrate analytics platforms
Connect your social media analytics, web analytics, and influencer marketing platform to get a unified view of campaign data.
Measure conversions with UTMs
Use UTMs to track downstream conversions on your website from influencer traffic. This shows the impact on your bottom line.
Monitor branded hashtag performance
Track branded hashtags used by influencers to gauge user-generated reach and engagement on social platforms.
Use affiliate links
Dedicated affiliate links for each influencer help accurately measure sales driven by them and calculate commission payouts.
Review influencer analytics
Many influencers share post-level analytics from their end. Review these for additional insights into audience engagement.
Conduct social listening
Social listening reveals qualitative data like sentiment, feedback, and conversations sparked by your campaign.
Request audience demographics
Ask influencers to share audience gender, age, geography and other demographic information to better understand who you reached.
What tools can I use to track influencer campaigns?
Here are some handy tools to monitor the performance of influencer marketing:
| Tool | Key Features |
|---|---|
| Google Analytics | UTM tracking, conversion tracking, campaign tagging |
| Sprout Social | Social media analytics, audience demographics, sentiment analysis |
| BuzzSumo | Influencer search, content performance analytics |
| Iconosquare | Instagram analytics, engagement metrics |
| TapInfluence | Influencer management, campaign tracking |
| Bitly | Link shortening, click tracking |
| Affiliate marketing platforms | Affiliate link generation, sales tracking |
| Brandwatch | Social listening, sentiment analysis |
What are some best practices for tracking campaigns?
Some tips for effectively tracking influencer marketing performance:
- Agree on tracking expectations upfront in influencer contract
- Buildcampaign-specific tracking links with UTMs for each influencer
- Ensure influencers use designated trackable links only
- Identify relevant macro and micro conversion events to measure
- Connect social platforms to analytics for unified data
- Analyze metrics segment-wise for deeper insights
- Regularly refresh tracking links to capture ongoing activity
- Monitor campaign performance in real-time and course correct
- Review metrics from influencer’s analytics also
- Compare results across influencers, campaigns, time periods
What are some common tracking mistakes to avoid?
Some tracking errors that brands make include:
- Not using campaign tags and UTMs
- Forgetting to integrate analytics platforms
- Not tracking the full customer journey
- Failing to refresh links for ongoing tracking
- Not tracking branded hashtag engagement
- Forgetting influencer-specific affiliate links
- Not monitoring UGC content and stories
- Not capturing offline or in-store activity
- Focusing only on vanity metrics like followers and views
- Not tracking against clear benchmark goals
Avoiding these common mistakes will help ensure your influencer analytics provide actionable, optimized and impactful data.
Conclusion
In summary, comprehensive influencer tracking provides tangible insights that allow you to refine your influencer strategy for optimal returns. Define relevant metrics based on campaign goals, use appropriate tools to capture all activity, and regularly analyze performance to make data-driven optimizations. With the right KPIs and measurement methodology, you can extract maximum value from influencer collaborations.
