Reporting is crucial to assessing influencer campaign performance and ROI. This post breaks down the basics of effective influencer measurement.
How exactly do you measure the “success” of your influencer marketing efforts?
From awesome content to more engagement, the benefits of creator campaigns are clear.
But reporting those benefits and positive outcomes to your team can be tricky. This is especially true if you’re working with skeptical stakeholders.
Because “show me the data” is the mantra of many modern marketers. We totally get it.
Listen: brands should feel confident about measuring campaign data and performance. That's why it's so important to master the art of influencer reporting.
And in this post, we'll teach you how!
Before you can start reporting on influencer performance, you need to know what to track.
Enter your metrics and KPIs. These data points are the “hard numbers” marketers are always hungry for.
Just note that tracking influencer marketing ROI isn’t a one-size-fits-all affair. Priority metrics vary from brand to brand based on your goals.
Are you focused on building awareness? Supporting your sales efforts? Your KPIs should reflect that.
Let’s review the most common metrics related to influencer marketing measurement.
Engagement refers to social media interactions such as comments, shares and and “Likes.”
These details are front-and-center on most influencer posts. This applies to content on TikTok and Instagram alike.
Source(s): @abbeyyung / @madagraviet
Engagements highlight audience touchpoints and how your creators’ content was received. More interactions mean more eyes on your brand.
Digging into comments and replies, you can put your engagements into context. For example, a flood of positive comments indicates that your influencers’ audience is relevant. You might also learn why people are excited about your product and whether they intend to buy it outright.
On Instagram, metrics such as “Likes” and comments are public. Keep in mind that some Instagram influencers do hide their engagement on promotional posts.
On TikTok, metrics including plays, comments, saves and shares are all public.
Assuming their numbers are public, you can calculate an influencer's engagement rate yourself. Here’s a simplified formula to help:
(# of interactions on a post / # of followers * 100) = engagement rate (%)
Your brand might be satisfied with public metrics as far as engagement goes.
That said, you could be missing out on eye-opening campaign data.
How so? Let’s say you want to dig deeper into data points related to Instagram impressions and reach. If you don’t have full access to your influencers’ content, you don’t have full access to their analytics.
For example, an influencer’s personal analytics can break down the total number of accounts reached. You can also see how many of their followers versus non-followers were reached. These numbers are impactful for your influencer reports when a piece of content goes viral.
Source: YouTube
As a result, calculating accurate impressions and reach means having a direct line to your creators.
Note: If you’re not using an influencer platform that tracks these metrics, you’ll have to reach out to creators for them. Alternatively, whitelisting on Instagram and TikTok provides brands access to creators’ post data.
This refers to how many pieces of influencer-generated content your campaign produces.
How many posts you earn can range from a handful to hundreds (or even thousands). This really depends on factors such as:
Content earned is a key metric for influencer campaign reporting. It’s an easy KPI to overlook, too.
That’s because some marketers are obsessed with measuring performance data. The reality, though? Each piece of unique creator content you earn is arguably more important than individual post “results.”
Consider how you can repurpose campaign content across your marketing channels. This includes product pages, emails and ads. Not to mention content to repost to your own social platforms. This highlights the ongoing value of creators and how to get even more of an ROI from your campaigns.
Thankfully, measuring earned posts is easy.
If you’re working with a select few creators (or are paying for individual posts), the numbers are already in front of you. Then, monitor #hashtags and @mentions to uncover influencer and user-generated content.
Below is an example from Pacifica Beauty. The brand has a general hashtag to monitor tagged posts on Instagram. They also have campaign-specific hashtags like #activistmascara tied to influencer posts on TikTok. See how that works?
Traffic refers to visitors to your website funneled from your influencer campaigns.
No huge surprises here — traffic is traffic!
The endgame of any given marketing campaign is to generate leads, right?
Traffic highlights how many leads your influencers send to your storefront. An uptick in on-site or product page traffic following an influencer campaign is an indicator of success.
Traffic might seem like a straightforward metric to track. In most cases, it is.
But with influencer marketing campaigns, traffic is kind of complicated.
For starters, the modern customer journey is anything but linear. People are bouncing between multiple platforms and pieces of content before visiting your site.
Some shoppers might go directly from an influencer post to your storefront. The majority, though? They’re going to browse social media, read reviews and maybe even shop around some more.
The takeaway? Influencer campaigns are a brilliant way to make touchpoints with your target audience. Traffic alone doesn’t tell the whole story of measuring those touchpoints.
That’s why we recommend looking at traffic trends both during and following influencer campaigns. Doing so encourages you look at your campaigns more holistically. For example, peek at your Google Analytics to see where your social traffic is coming from.
Note: ongoing changes to Google Analytics and cookies may make it more difficult to track social traffic in the near future.
Sales refer to products purchased as the result of an influencer campaign or promotion.
We encourage brands to think of sales as a welcome byproduct of their influencer campaigns.
Again, marketing campaigns are about generating leads. Influencers tend to attract high-quality leads because they speak to your target audience.
Correlating campaigns with an uptick in sales can confirm that your awareness campaigns are working.
Like traffic, attributing immediate sales to influencers is tough.
And it’s not getting easier given the non-linear customer journey and the dark funnel.
Measuring sales from every person influenced by a creator isn’t realistic. This rings true even with tracking tools like affiliate or coupon codes. As cookie tracking becomes more challenging, so does attribution.
That said, measuring influencers’ impact on sales can be treated similarly to site traffic. Depending on your marketing stack, you can spot trends during and following your campaigns.
For example, platforms like Shopify can aggregate data from sales sources such as Instagram.
Source: Shopify
This isn’t a 1:1 correlation between sales and influencers. That said, these numbers can highlight which social platforms are your top performers when it comes to sales.
Given everything you can track, why are reporting and measurement such a roadblock? Below we break down a few common pitfalls for brands.
So much of figuring out how to measure influencer marketing is about goals and expectations.
If you or a stakeholder are laser-focused on sales, influencer reporting will be a struggle. You’re also ignoring qualitative ROI like social proof and sentiment customer sentiment.
On the flip side, engagement metrics and reach tie directly to goals such as brand awareness.
When it comes to campaign measurement, your sample size matters.
Think about it. Can you really assess the potential of a campaign when you only have two or three posts?
That’s why brands need to give their campaigns room to grow. Doing so ensures that your influencer content has time to peak and you’ve had a chance to optimize your campaigns. This process often takes a couple of months for brands working with influencers for the first time.
Are 10,000 loops on TikTok “good?” Are you happy with a 2% average engagement rate on Instagram?
Answering these questions is difficult without context. That’s why benchmarking matters. This includes:
For example, let’s say your organic posts on average earn 200 views and an influencers’ post about you earns 200,000+ views. Those numbers might be considered viral territory in a niche industry. In a more competitive field, those numbers could be par for the course.
This is why comparing campaigns between businesses is often apples and oranges. Influencer measurement should be done through the lens of your specific industry and audience.
Disorganization can crush even the most promising influencer campaigns.
It’s crucial for brands to consistently report on their campaigns and keep that data in one place. This is why we recommend brands stick to an influencer reporting schedule. Likewise, it’s all the more reason to keep your data in a single spreadsheet, database or platform.
“I have my data. Now what?”
Spreadsheets are the go-to influencer reporting method for brands on a budget. They’re collaborative, easy to understand and likewise easy to share among your teammates. You can track all of the metrics we’ve discussed so far in a spreadsheet, too.
Here are our tips for reporting influencer marketing ROI to your team:
Below is a sample influencer campaign report using our own tracking template:
Thing is, spreadsheets really work best for brands only working with a handful of influencers. The more posts you want, the more overwhelming the reporting process gets. That's because:
Note: this speaks to the value of a scalable influencer marketing platform that manages your data for you!
From assessing “success” to understanding ROI, wrangling your campaign data is a must-do.
This rings true whether you want to improve your current campaigns or get buy-in from stakeholders.
And if influencer marketing reporting is a task you want off your plate, Statusphere can help.
Our full-service platform provides up-to-date campaign metrics so you have a constant pulse on your campaigns. Since we source your campaign data right from your creators’ posts, it’s always accurate. Our platform tracks everything from engagement to hours saved and so much more.
Beyond measurement, we also manage all the moving pieces of your influencer campaigns. This includes matchmaking, fulfillment and making sure creators post their content.
Want to learn more about how the process works? Get in touch with one of our consumer-to-consumer marketing specialists today to see how we can get more people posting about your brand ASAP!
This article was first published in July 2021. It was last updated September 19, 2022.
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