How to Track Influencer Campaigns with Spreadsheets (Template)

If you need to manage influencers and their content, spreadsheets are a life-saver.

Because creator campaigns involve a ton of moving pieces.

Posts and performance. Contracts and shipping. That doesn’t even scratch the surface!

Managing all of the above without a dedicated tool is a huge organizational headache. Whether you're overseeing a new or ongoing campaign, spreadsheets can streamline the process.

Below we break down how to manage influencer campaigns with spreadsheets step-by-step. 

Don’t want to start a spreadsheet from scratch? No worries! We’ll also share our own influencer tracking template for Excel and Google Sheets you can snag for yourself.

How to Organize an Influencer Spreadsheet by Stage

First thing’s first: how many tabs do you need to keep your spreadsheet organized?

There are plenty of details and deliverables to track. That said, you don’t want to go overboard. 

After all, your spreadsheet should make your job easier and not create even more chaos.

We recommend separating your spreadsheet into three tabs: outreach, agreements and posts. These tabs are based on the key stages of influencer management.

Outreach

This tab documents the progress of your influencer outreach efforts. For example, you can track when you last emailed your potential influencers and whether they responded. We recommend also making notes about their level of interest in your pitch.

Keeping your creators’ contact details consolidated means no more digging through email chains. This highlights how spreadsheets save time and reduce stress. Below is a snapshot of the outreach tab from our Instagram influencer tracking template:

Note: If you want to speed up your influencer outreach even more check out our templates for collaboration emails and outreach messages.

Agreement

This tab contains high-level information about your influencers’ status with your company. Details in this tab should include:

• Whether your influencers have signed their contracts and agreements
• Which products you’re sending to influencers for your campaign
• Whether those products have been sent and received

Post Tracking

This tab tracks influencers' social posts and content performance. Here you also can see if influencers have met their posting requirements.

For example, you might have specific creative instructions for a campaign. This includes details like posting a particular format, using hashtags and @tagging accounts. Note influencers you want to continue working with on this tab, too.

Here you’ll also want to make sure you keep track of your influencer marketing metrics and KPIs. This will highlight how your campaign and individual influencers are performing. For example, your spreadsheet should document metrics including:

• # of pieces of content created (think: photos, videos, Reels) 
• “Likes” and/or view count
• Comments
• Link clicks and promo code redemptions (if relevant)

Oh, and don’t forget to link back to your influencers’ posts so you can refer to them ASAP.

Not 100% sure how to format or fill out your own template? Start with our influencer tracking spreadsheet you can customize yourself! Our spreadsheet is already organized by the stages above. If you want to add or remove columns, go for it. Also, you can easily adapt our template whether you’re running a campaign on Instagram or TikTok.

What Essential Details Does Your Influencer Spreadsheet Need?

How in-depth you go with your campaign information is totally up to you.

We’ll say it again, though: you don’t want to overwhelm yourself with nitty-gritty details. If you want your spreadsheet to be useful, it needs to be manageable. 

For example, there are standard columns for every influencer campaign template. These essential details must be consistent across each tab of your spreadsheet. They should be linked together so you can track your influencers’ information accurately. This includes:

• Influencer names
• Influencer emails
• Influencer handles on each platform
• Follower/subscriber count
• Influencer type/category
• Location

We always cover these details in Statusphere's own influencer management processes. This includes the spreadsheet we’ve made available to you. 

Note: when you input information such as an influencer’s name, @handle or email address, our spreadsheet will automatically populate it from one tab to the next.  Our spreadsheet also has check-boxes to mark requirements off when an influencer fulfills them. These boxes make it easy to assess campaign progress at a glance.

Why Spreadsheets Are So Useful for Tracking Influencers

With so many moving pieces, anything you can do to keep your campaigns organized is a plus. 

Below are a few specific reasons why influencer spreadsheets are so valuable for brands.

Complete Your Campaign Tasks Consistently

It’s not hard to lose track of your influencer’s requirements and creative tasks if you don’t stay on top of them. This rings true whether you’re managing a handful or hundreds of creators.

Imagine trying to confirm the status of an influencer’s agreement, post requirements and content status all within your inbox. Now multiple that time spent searching based on how many creators are participating in your campaign.

Yikes! No matter how long finding those details takes, it’s time and stress that shouldn’t be on your plate. With an influencer spreadsheet, you can instantly confirm campaign details without digging.

Spreadsheets Are Easy to Share With Your Team

Love ‘em or loathe ‘em, spreadsheets are a staple of doing business. 

Everyone understands them. You don’t really need to explain how a spreadsheet works to your teammates. As a result, they’re super easy to share and collaborate on. 

Need to show your campaign status to a stakeholder? Want teammates to help you fill in details? Doing so is a cinch! For example, you can instantly copy and share our influencer Excel template to your company’s shared drive. Now your team has a quick reference point for your influencer campaigns.

Keep a Better Pulse on Your Influencer Campaign Performance

Spreadsheets help you hone in on your most important campaign insights and results. For example, you can quickly answer questions such as:

• Which types of posts and products earned the most engagement?
• Who are our top-performing influencers? 
• How many pieces of content did our campaign generate?
• Did all of our influencers fulfill their creative requirements?
• Who hasn’t posted yet?

Having these answers at your fingertips means keeping a pulse on your influencer campaigns. You can quickly provide answers to teammates regarding performance and ROI, too. After all, your campaign data should be transparent and not fragmented. 

3 Tips for Tracking Influencers with Spreadsheets

Spreadsheets are useful tools but they won’t organize your campaigns all by themselves. Here are some organizational tips to help you maximize the impact of your tracking efforts.

1. Keep Your Data Up to Date 

An influencer tracking spreadsheet is only valuable if its data and details are timely. We recommend setting aside time in your schedule to edit and update your spreadsheets. Don’t let your document disrupt your day by updating it at random. Put time on your calendar!

We recommend refreshing your campaign information at least once a week per campaign. Also, update your influencer list(s) at least once a month to ensure accurate follower and post engagement data.

2. Create Spreadsheet Copies for Each Campaign You Run

Organizing your spreadsheets by each campaign you run is crucial.

You don’t want to mix up your campaign data between social platforms. For example, you should maintain unique Instagram and TikTok influencer spreadsheets. Your “master” influencer list should also be organized separately from your individual campaigns.

Note: With our influencer tracking spreadsheet, you can make quick copies via Excel or Google Sheets. Then, you can instantly adapt the template based on your campaigns and platforms of choice.

3. Take Meaningful Notes for Your influencers and Their Posts

This is particularly important if you’re managing dozens of influencers and their content. Detailed note-taking makes it easier to recall specific posts and events during your campaigns.

Not every influencer needs a novel’s worth of notes. However, consider how note-taking can help you highlight campaign details such as:

• Posts that went viral
• Notable audience interactions or comments
• Whether an influencer’s content was late

When to Move Your Campaign Tracking Beyond Spreadsheets

Fair question! While we’re all about spreadsheets here at Statusphere, they aren’t the be-all, end-all of managing influencers. To wrap things up, here are some signs that it’s time to level up your campaign tracking beyond spreadsheets.

• Your influencer list is getting out of control. Once you’re dozens of influencers deep, your spreadsheet can feel pretty daunting. Managing it all can start to feel like a full-time job as your list grows.
  
  
• You’re struggling to keep your spreadsheet updated. We’ll bite: data entry is super tedious. You may reach a point where you flat out just don’t want to do it anymore. Hey, you shouldn’t have to! Your time is valuable. Besides, campaign management shouldn’t make you miserable.
  
  
• Your spreadsheet is demanding too much of your time. Food for thought: the average worker spends multiple hours per day on manual data entry. Ideally, updating spreadsheets shouldn’t be eating up that much time in your schedule. You could potentially outsource your influencer tracking to someone else, but then you have to decide if it’s worth the investment for them. 

How to Keep Track of Influencers Without Wasting Time

If you haven’t already, make sure to download a copy of Statusphere’s influencer tracking template! You can adapt our spreadsheet for any campaign and edit it instantly via Excel or Google Sheets.

But let’s say you’re bogged down with data entry or just want to move beyond spreadsheets.

What’s the next step? What’s the best platform for managing influencer campaigns once they’ve gotten too big? Well, Statusphere can help there, too!

Our scalable platform manages your influencer data and makes it transparent for your team. This includes content performance and campaign results. We also take care of tasks like influencer matchmaking and fulfillments to save you even more time.

Want to learn more about how it all works? Contact one of our consumer-to-consumer marketing specialists to understand our influencer management process and what it can do for your brand.

This article was first published in November 2019. It was last updated July 29, 2022.