Quick Answer
Influencer marketing has become a key way to connect with your target audience. By working with influencers you can create product reviews, sponsored content and long term partnerships that increase brand awareness, build trust and drive customers to action.
However, to get the best from your influencer marketing campaigns you need to ensure you are measuring the right things.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) will help you to measure how well your influencer marketing efforts are working. Influencer marketing KPIs will give you insight into how well your audience is responding and if your investment is helping you reach your goals.
Rather than focusing on follower and like numbers, you should look at a range of metrics including reach, engagement, traffic, conversions and monetary values. The right metrics will depend on your campaign goal and what actions you want your audience to take.
What Are Influencer Marketing KPIs?
Influencer Marketing KPIs are measurable metrics that help you understand how well you are performing with your creator collaborations.
They can help you to see how effective your campaigns are at reaching your audience, driving engagement, increasing traffic to your website and helping you meet your business goals.
If your campaign goal is to launch a new product you will want to know how many impressions, reach and video views you are getting. Whereas if you are promoting a product you may want to look at referral traffic, conversions and cost per acquisition in more detail.
KPIs will also help your marketing team to understand which creators are performing well, what content is working and make informed decisions.
12 Important Influencer Marketing KPIs Every Brand Should Track
- Reach
Reach is how many unique users have seen your influencer content.
This will give you an insight into how many individuals you have reached with your campaign.
So if your sponsored post was seen by 25,000 unique accounts then that is how many individuals you have reached.
Why it matters: Reach is a great KPI to use if your goal is to increase brand awareness. It will help you to understand if the creators you have chosen are helping you reach your target audience.
2. Impressions
Impressions is how many times your content has been shown. This includes multiple views from the same user.
So in the example above, if you had 40,000 impressions from 25,000 unique accounts, some users would have seen your content more than once.
Why it matters: This will give you an insight into how many times your content has been seen. This should be taken alongside the reach.
3. Engagement Rate
Engagement rate is how engaged your audience is with your influencer content.
This can include likes, comments, shares and saves. This can vary depending on the platform and how you measure.
The most common way to calculate is:
Engagement Rate by Reach = (Total Engagements / Total Reach) x 100
So if your campaign post received 1,500 engagements and reached 30,000 accounts,
Engagement Rate = (1500/30,000) x 100 = 5%
Why it matters: Engagement rate will help you to understand if your content is engaging your audience. You can get a high engagement rate meaning your audience are interested but it doesn’t mean you will have any sales.
4. Video Views & View Through Rate
Video views will show you how many times your video has been viewed based on how the platform counts it. The view through rate shows you how many of your audience watched a particular portion of your video.
For example, you may want to look at how many people have watched past the first few seconds of your creators product demo.
Why it matters: This will help you to understand how well your videos are performing, how engaged your audience is and how well your storytelling is. Be aware of how your platform is counting views and how they define completed views.
5. Click Through Rate (CTR)
Click through rate will show you the percentage of people who have clicked through to your campaign link.
CTR = (Total Clicks / Total Impressions) x 100
So if your creator has got 600 clicks from 20,000 impressions, your CTR is 3%.
Why it matters: This will help you to understand if your influencers content and call to action is encouraging your audience to look further into your product, website or offer.
6. Website Traffic & Referral Traffic
Website traffic will tell you how many people have visited your website. Referral traffic will show you how many people have come from an external source such as from your campaign.
You can track this by using unique links and UTM parameters to see which creators and campaigns are bringing traffic.
Why it matters: This will help you to see how your influencer is performing and bringing people to your website. It will also help you to see which creators are bringing traffic.
However, just because someone has visited your website it doesn’t mean they will convert. Look at what they did once they arrived on your website.
7. Conversion Rate
Conversion rate will tell you the percentage of people who completed an action after interacting with your campaign.
This can vary depending on your campaign but can include:
- Purchasing a product
- Signing up to your newsletter
- Registering for an event
- Downloading an application
- Completing an enquiry form
Conversion Rate = (Total Conversions / Total Visitors) x 100
If your influencer campaign brought 1,000 visitors to your product page and 40 conversions then your conversion rate is 4%.
Why it matters: This will help you to understand if your campaign is driving real actions.
8. Cost Per Engagement (CPE)
Cost per engagement tells you how much you are spending to get each engagement with your influencer content.
CPE = (Total Campaign Cost / Total Engagements)
If you spent ₹20,000 on a campaign and gained 2,000 engagements then your cost per engagement is ₹10.
Why it matters: This will help you to understand which creator collaborations are driving the most engagements. However, you should also look at the quality of engagements, relevancy and what your goal was.
9. Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)
Cost per acquisition tells you how much you spent to gain a specific acquisition or conversion.
CPA = (Total Campaign Cost / Total Acquisitions)
If your campaign cost ₹30,000 and you gained 60 purchases then your cost per acquisition is ₹500.
Why it matters: This is a great KPI to use if you are looking for a performance driven campaign. It will help you to understand how much you are spending on your campaign to gain customers.
Be aware of what costs are being counted towards your campaign. This can include creator costs, production costs and paid promotions.
10. Return on Investment (ROI)
Return on investment will tell you how much money you are making from your campaign.
ROI = ((Revenue from Campaign – Campaign Cost)/Campaign Cost) x 100
If your influencer campaign cost ₹50,000 and you made ₹80,000 in revenue from your campaign then your ROI is ((80,000-50,000)/50,000) x 100 = 60%.
Why it matters: This will help you to understand if your investment in influencer marketing is giving you value.
However, it can be tricky to attribute revenue if your customers interact with multiple marketing channels. Decide on your attribution rules and understand what revenue is being attributed.
11. Audience Relevance & Quality
Just because a creator has lots of followers, doesn’t mean they have a quality audience. Some profiles can have suspicious follower behaviour, strange engagement and audiences that aren’t relevant to your target market.
Look at:
- Demographics and location of the audience
- Are the followers growing?
- Is there consistency in engagement?
- Are the comments relevant?
- Any signs of fake engagement?
Why it matters: This will help you to understand if your creator has a relevant and genuine audience. Reduces the chances of making decisions based on fake numbers.
12. Brand Sentiment & Share of Voice
Brand sentiment will help you to understand how your brand is being talked about in relation to your campaign. Share of voice will help you to understand how visible your brand is in relation to your competitors.
This can include positive conversations, questions and recommendations around your product from your creator campaign.
Why it matters: This will provide you with some context around your metrics. It will also help you to understand what your audience think, what they are saying and how your influencer collaborations are helping your brand visibility.
How to Choose the Right KPIs
Don’t get overwhelmed with too many metrics. Focus on the KPIs which align to your main goal.
Campaign Goal
Prioritise KPIs:
- Increase brand awareness – Reach, Impressions, Video Views
- Drive engagement – Engagement Rate, Comments, Shares, Saves
- Drive traffic – Link Clicks, CTR, Referral Traffic
- Generate leads – Leads, Conversion Rate, Cost Per Lead
- Increase product sales – Purchases, Conversion Rate, CPA, Attributed Revenue
- Monetary Value – ROI, Revenue, Campaign Cost
- Brand Reputation – Brand Sentiment, Audience Feedback, Share of Voice
Whilst you may have multiple goals, decide on your main goal and choose metrics to support this. This will help keep your reporting focused.
If you want to explore working with creators or talk about your campaign opportunities get in touch with our team.
How to Measure Influencer Marketing Campaigns
Start by setting up your tracking before any creators publish any sponsored content.
- Set your campaign goal
What do you want to achieve with your campaign? Do you want to increase brand awareness, drive traffic, generate leads or increase sales?
This will help you to know which KPIs to focus on.
2. Choose relevant creators
Look at creators who have an audience that is relevant, quality content, genuine, engagement and aligned to your brand.
Don’t just look at how many followers they have.
3. Set a baseline and goals
Look at how they have performed historically and set realistic goals. Take into consideration the platform, creator, content, audience and budget.
4. Set up tracking
Use UTM parameters, unique referral links, discount codes and conversion tracking. Ask creators to provide their analytics from their platforms and campaign reports.
5. Track
Keep track whilst your campaign is running. See how your content is performing, how many people are engaging, clicking and how your audience is reacting and converting.
6. Analyse
Compare your results to your campaign goals. See how each creator is performing, what content is working and how your audience is reacting.
7. Improve
Use your findings from your campaign to improve your creator choices, creative, budgets and collaborations. Only use metrics that are providing useful information.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Even if you are tracking your campaign data, there are some common mistakes that you should avoid.
- Don’t just look at follower numbers. Just because they have a large audience doesn’t mean they will perform better. Look at how relevant their audience is and the quality of engagement.
- Don’t assume likes = success. Whilst they can indicate interest, they may not be driving traffic, leads or sales.
- Don’t compare creators with different metrics. Different platforms may be calculating views and engagement differently. Ensure you are using the same terms when comparing.
- Don’t ignore audience relevance. If they have strange follower growth and low quality engagement then this can affect your numbers.
- Don’t forget to track your costs. Creator costs may not be the only cost. There could be production, samples, logistics and paid promotions involved.
- Don’t track everything. This can cause confusion. Focus on the metrics that will help you to answer if you achieved your goal.
How Influencer Analytics Can Help You Make Better Decisions
Influencer analytics will give you a clearer picture of what is happening throughout your creator collaboration. Using the data you can make informed decisions on which influencers to work with. Rather than choosing popular influencers, marketing teams can use the data to understand if they have an audience that fits, quality content and how their campaign is performing.
Some creators may be giving you more reach whereas others may be bringing in more relevant traffic and purchases. They will be performing differently and should be measured against your campaign goal.
Having a structured process when finding and working with creators will make it easier to compare their profiles, understand if they fit your campaign and identify potential partnership opportunities. Platforms such as Vitaay will help support the creator to brand ecosystem. Helping brands and creators to find each other.
The key thing to remember is to use the analytics alongside your judgement. Whilst numbers can show trends, you need to look at the quality of the content, relevance of the audience, credibility of the creator and if they fit your brand.
Final Thoughts
You cannot rely on just one number. You need to look at reach and impressions to understand how visible you are, engagement rate to understand how engaged your audience is, traffic and conversions to see how they are acting and ROI to understand your monetary results.
The best way to do this is to choose the right KPIs, set up your tracking and keep track throughout your collaboration.
By accurately measuring your campaigns, whilst ensuring your creators are genuine and your audience is relevant you can make more informed decisions around your influencer marketing and build more effective long term partnerships.
Follow Vitaay on Instagram to keep up to date with creator collaborations and campaign opportunities.
