Influencer Marketing Strategy

11 Influencer Marketing Metrics & KPIs to Track Campaign Success

Overwhelmed with influencer marketing tracking? Narrow down your KPIs! Here are eleven easy-to-track influencer campaign metrics and tips to measure them.

influencer marketing success metrics cover photo

The more influencer marketing grows, the more pressure brands face to measure its effectiveness.

And tracking the right influencer marketing metrics is key to decoding your creators’ business impact.

With data-backed influencer tracking, you can set yourself up to...

  • Run campaigns and make creative decisions with confidence
  • Showcase influencer marketing ROI to key stakeholders without breaking a sweat
  • Align campaigns with business goals based on concrete KPIs

Of course, influencer campaign tracking is often a headache with so many metrics and moving pieces. While many brands struggle with incomplete influencer data, others are drowning in it.

 Below we dig into the best influencer marketing metrics to track and which KPIs to prioritize. 

11 Influencer Marketing Success Metrics and KPIs to Track

Brands are overwhelmed with so many performance metrics for their influencer campaigns today.

And pinpointing the most crucial metrics to track hinges on your influencer marketing goals.

Boosting brand awareness. Getting repurposeable content. Supporting sales. The list goes on!

Once you've nailed down your end-game, you can work backward to nail down your numbers. Below are eleven influencer marketing success metrics to help you measure your creators’ business impact:

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1. Engagement Rate 

Influencer engagement rate is the ratio of interactions your content receives compared to how many times it was viewed in total. 

For TikTok videos and Instagram Reels, you can use this simplified formula to calculate influencer engagement rates across an entire video campaign:

(Total Video Interactions / Total Video Views ÷) x 100 = % Engagement Rate 

Let's say you run a TikTok micro-influencer campaign resulting in these influencer marketing metrics:

  • 450,000 TikTok loops
  • 40,000 likes
  • 4,000 comments
  • 250 shares

Now, let's crunch these numbers with our engagement rate formula above:

(44,250 ÷ 450,000) x 100 = 9.83% engagement rate

It's no surprise that engagement rate is the most common influencer success metric to track.

Because interactions indicate interest from your audience while a high volume of views means you're giving the algorithms what they want.

Interactions and views are also public-facing. That means they can be tracked easily, especially if you use an influencer marketing platform to crunch the numbers.

While some skeptics regard engagement rate as a "vanity metric," consider that the top goal of most influencer marketing campaigns is to increase brand awareness (based on our firsthand experience).

Most brands' mentality is "the more, the merrier" when it comes to engagement rate and rightfully so. 

But on that note, remember that higher follower counts don't necessarily result in higher engagement (or even more views).  

Time and time again, micro-influencers have proven themselves to be favored by social algorithms and likewise drive more meaningful engagement because of their authentic followings. Check out the creator's below's high engagement, for reference:

Example of IG engagement  Example of IG engagement

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What’s considered a “good” engagement rate largely depends on your industry and the types of creators you partner with. That said, we've seen firsthand how micro-influencer campaigns can earn consistent engagement rates exceeding 10% (and higher among top-performing brands).  

2. Reach

Influencer reach calculates the total number of unique people who've viewed and/or interacted with a piece of influencer content.

Engagement and reach go hand in hand. The more interactions you drive, the more reach you earn.

As an influencer metric, reach simply represents the individual eyes on your content. This serves as a simple and yet crucial indicator of whether you're building brand awareness.

Measuring reach on an individual level is easy enough. Just hop into your native social analytics.

Instagram reach calculate in profile

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However, calculating reach across a campaign requires more in-depth influencer reporting tools.

For example, a platform like Statusphere aggregates not only unique content views but also the total amount of social media followers reached on both TikTok and Instagram thanks to our API access. 

influencer marketing success metrics dashboard

3. Total Plays, Loops and Views

Plays and loops are the cumulative number of views your influencers' video content receives during a campaign. This includes views across TikTok and Instagram Reels.

Brands rely on this metric to gauge the reach and engagement of their influencer content.  

Plays and loops are examples of influencer metrics where both quality and quantity matter.

Because context matters, too. A high volume of views can't tell the full story of a campaign.

For example, a campaign that earns 1,000,000+ views but a ~1% engagement rate isn't exactly a success story. If anything, it's probably a sign of influencer fraud. On the flip side, 100,000 players and a 10% engagement rate from a niche, high-intent audience is far more valuable.

4. # of Posts (UGC)

This metric simply refers to how many pieces of influencer-generated content your campaign produces over time.

For a typical influencer marketing campaign, this metric hinges on your budget and bandwidth.

Bigger budgets don't always result in more posts by default, though. This is especially true in the case of micro-influencer collaborations where you can get a high volume of creator posts with the same budget you might get a handful from "bigger" creators.

This matters if your brand is scaling repurposable influencer content for UGC ads. Since formats like Spark Ads see relatively fast performance decay, it's important for brands to rapidly cycle out ad creatives. That's why more and more brands are after rights-ready influencer content.

Earning more posts can also help brands see results beyond ads. For example, brands like recycle and repurpose their influencer posts and UGC for their organic feed.

Brand's TikTok with UGC

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Total posts are a key metric for tracking influencer seeding campaigns and product gifting.

For example, let's say you send out 40 influencer seeding kits and earn 25 total posts.

That's a 62.5% success rate. Not amazing but not bad!

Like most metrics on our list, determining how much influencer content you need depends on your goals. Earning a minimum of 10-20 rights-ready influencer posts per month means you get wider content variety for ads and fresh posts to fill your organic feed if needed.

5. # of Creators Per Campaign

This influencer marketing metric refers to the total number of creators who collaborated with your brand and created content during a campaign.

Although total creators and total posts might seem identical, they're two different metrics.

For example, a creator could create an Instagram Reel, static post and Story for one campaign. That's three posts from a single influencer. 

Creators per campaign is a unique metric because it can vary wildly depending on your campaign setup. For product seeding or gifting, how many creators post is an unknown. The same applies when getting content from a platform that doesn't guarantee influencer posts.

On the flip side, brands using a micro-influencer platform like Statusphere can choose how many influencers they want to post before running a campaign. This means you have a better pulse on your influencer metrics and campaign expectations prior to kickoff. 

6. Sales (from Ads or Shop)

Influencer sales refer to activities from creators that result in conversions or direct sales.

While brand awareness is the primary goal of most influencer marketing campaigns, increasing sell-through is often a strong secondary goal. Sales are oftentimes a welcome byproduct of running an influencer campaign.

The catch? Tracking sales from influencer marketing is notoriously difficult. 

The impact of influencer content on conversion and click-through rates of ads is well-documented. However, not every touchpoint can be tracked so easily. Especially with ongoing changes to privacy policies and third-party cookies.

Still, positive influencer ROI should be tangible and not a big unknown.

By working through affiliate tools like TikTok Shop or ad channels like TikTok Spark Ads or IG Partnership ads, you get a more concrete understanding of how creators are moving the needle. Of course, frequent touchpoints with your target audience is ideal regardless of "hard" sales. 

7. Content Interactions (Mentions, Likes and Comments)

Content interactions are any type of engagement on your influencers' posts, including:

  • Likes
  • Comments
  • Saves
  • Shares and reposts
  • Replies

As noted earlier, interactions are among the most important influencer metrics to track.

The more interactions with your influencers' content, the more love it gets some the algorithm(s). This means more chances to trend and get picked up in relevant followers' feeds.

Defining the most important interactions is up for debate. That said, metrics such as comments, saves and shares tend to represent high-intent customers. 

example of high interactions on tiktok  example of positive tiktok comments

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Viral products often receive a flood of "saves," serving as social bookmarks for future purchases. Comments likewise are a higher-effort interaction that can help you better understand your target audience and what they want from your brand or products.

All of these influencer marketing metrics are public-facing which is nice. Ideally, you can track them in an influencer platform that aggregates creators and content rather than tracking it all in a spreadsheet.

8. Hashtag Uses

Hashtags use refers to how many times creators used a #hashtag during a campaign and/or how many posts/views were generated by that hashtag.

Tracking tags is a straightforward way to see how your influencer campaigns are performing alongside your attempts to drive more UGC. For example, an uptick in branded hashtags is a positive sign for the sake of awareness.

example of hashtags on Instagram

Hashtags are powerful for the sake of organizing and likewise tracking influencer content. Both Instagram and TikTok make it easy to see how many posts are tied to any given tag.

9. Traffic

Traffic refers to amount of website or storefront traffic received from an influencer campaign (either during or after).

Traffic can bridge social media engagement with legitimate lead generation. Brands want to see new shoppers who flock to their sites as a result of an influencer campaign. We get it!

The reality? As an influencer metric, tracking traffic is equal parts simple and complicated. 

Because the path from discovery to buying is anything but straightforward.

Conventional wisdom says only a small fraction of visitors make a beeline from influencer content to your storefront. Some will look at third-party review sites while others will check out other influencers or even make their purchases directly via apps like TikTok Shop.

Meanwhile, Google Analytics and Search Console will often dump social traffic into the "direct" bucket. This makes it difficult to understand exactly who's who when it comes to your social customers unless they've engaged with your social ads.

With traffic, we recommend making connections between on-site shopping behavior and the volume of influencer content you're producing. If you see an uptick in sales alongside your uptick in creators, don't assume it's a coincidence. As noted in our recent UGC ads panel, this has happened to many of our own brands firsthand.

10. Brand Mentions and Social Media Keywords

Brand mentions refers to @mentions of your brand on social media alongside uses of product or brand-specific social media keywords.

This influencer metric is mostly related to brand awareness. Think about the frequency with which your brand pops up in search bars or in content about your industry. Increasing those mentions and keyword uses means that you're on the minds of your target audience.

And so anything that boosts your brand's visibility in social search is a win.

For starters, consider using social media keyword research to increase your chances of ranking. 

Test out keyword phrases on platforms like Instagram or TikTok to see what you're ranking for and likewise how often you're being mentioned alongside your competitors. You can also look up which brands pop up in general product-related searches.

example of keywords on tiktok

11. Time Saved

Time saved refers to the amount of hours saved during a specific influencer campaign period.

We'll bite: this is an influencer metric specific to Statusphere's platform!

But it's one of the most important ones to track.

That's because brands can pour countless hours into manual outreach, shipping products and managing creators without even realizing how much they're losing in productivity. 

In some cases, the time saved represents a bigger financial impact than actual sales. This is especially true if you're pulling your team away from other time-sensitive marketing tasks. If your campaigns aren't actually resulting in content, you're ultimately burning through budget. 

The more efficient your campaign management, the more time and budget you save as a result.  For example, Statusphere's platform saves brands an average of 100 hours per month by automating and streamlining the tasks above.

How to Track All of Your Influencer Marketing Success Metrics in One Place

Brands today are all about data-driven influencer marketing campaigns and rightfully so.

Despite popular belief, tracking influencer marketing based on hard numbers doesn't have to be a pipe dream. We help brands do it all the time!

The more metrics you track, the more you can understand the holistic impact of influencer marketing strategy on your business at large.

But more tracking translates to more manual legwork for busy teams.

That's where Statusphere's platform and micro-influencer reporting comes in. With our platforms, brands can track all of their influencer marketing KPIs and source content in real time in the same place. No bouncing between tools required! 

Statusphere platform for tracking influencer metrics

This gives brands a constant pulse on the progress of their influencer campaigns.  Rather than second-guess campaign performance or wrangle your influencer content, you can start tracking campaigns with confidence. Not to mention save countless hours in the process.

Want to learn more about how our platform works? Get in touch with one of our experts to learn how our software can help you track all your influencer marketing success metrics in one place.

This article was first published in February 2021. It was last updated August 16, 2024. 

What are the KPIs of influencer marketing?

The key performance indicators (KPIs) of influencer marketing depend on your goals.

That said, most brands traditionally track a combination of the following (among others):

  • Engagement Rate: The ratio of interactions (likes, comments, shares) to views.

  • Influencer Reach: The number of unique individuals who view your content.

  • Sales: The number of products sold due to the campaign.

  • Traffic: The number of website visitors driven by the campaign.

  • Content Volume: The number of influencer-generated posts.

  • Brand Mentions: How often your brand is mentioned or tagged.

  • Time Saved: The reduction in hours spent managing campaigns.

These KPIs help you gauge whether your campaigns contribute to goals like increasing brand awareness, driving sales, or generating content.

How do you track influencer marketing?

Tracking influencer marketing involves monitoring key metrics with the help of specific tools:

  • Engagement: Native tools like Instagram Insights and TikTok Analytics can help you track likes, comments, shares, and overall interactions on influencer posts.

  • Reach: You can measure how many unique users saw your influencers' content using native tools or third-party platforms. This might include social management tools like Sprout Social or Hootsuite (or an influencer platform like Statusphere).

  • Sales: Brands can attribute sales to specific influencers by using affiliate links. You can also monitor promo code usage through Shopify or WooCommerce dashboards. Tools like Statusphere can also help track sales through TikTok Shop.

  • Traffic: It's possible to analyze website traffic driven by influencer campaigns using Google Analytics. Granted you set up custom UTM parameters to track the source of your influencer traffic.

  • Content: You can track the number of influencer-generated posts and their impact using native social apps or third-party tools.

Platforms like Statusphere can automate the tracking process, aggregating data from multiple sources to provide real-time insights into your influencer marketing campaigns.

How do I know if my influencer marketing is working?

To determine if your influencer marketing is effective, assess the following:

  • Engagement Metrics: High engagement rates (likes, comments) indicate active audience interest.

  • Traffic Spikes: An increase in website visits linked to influencer activity shows successful brand awareness.

  • Content Performance: Beyond engagement metrics, consider how you can measure influencer-generated content and its use in ads or social media to assess its performance.

  • Brand Mentions: Growth in brand mentions and hashtag use reflects increased visibility.

  • Sales Uplift: A noticeable increase in sales during or after the campaign suggests a positive impact. We've seen this happen with brands using our own platform!

By combining these metrics, you can get a clearer picture of your campaign's success.

Sometimes the effectiveness of your campaigns is apparent from the beginning. However, in many cases, it's a snowball effect that takes time to build.

How do you calculate reach in influencer marketing?

Reach in influencer marketing is calculated by the total number of unique people who view a piece of content. This can be tracked directly through social media analytics on platforms like Instagram and TikTok.

Influencer reach is crucial for understanding how many potential customers are being exposed to your brand through influencer collaborations.

How do you measure influencer marketing performance?

Influencer marketing performance is measured through a combination of:

  • Engagement Metrics: Likes, comments, shares, and overall interaction with content.

  • Reach: The number of unique viewers.

  • Sales: Conversion data tied to the campaign.

  • Traffic: Increases in site visits and the behavior of those visitors.

  • Content Generation: The amount and quality of influencer-generated content.

  • Customer Sentiment: Positive feedback and brand mentions in comments and discussions.

You can use these metrics to assess both the quantitative and qualitative success of your campaigns.

 

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