Most brands now understand that partnering with influential people effectively increases brand awareness, customer loyalty, and revenue. Compared to traditional advertising methods like banner ads, the return on investment (ROI) for influencer marketing is 11 times higher.
But are you even sure that you are getting the most out of your influencer marketing efforts?
Despite its rapid expansion, only 67% of brands track influencer marketing ROI.
Here’s what you need to know to evaluate the results, whether this is your first time running an influencer marketing campaign or you’re one of the 33% who has done it before.
Brands need to know how to mold their influencer marketing approach following both short-term and long-term campaign goals to get accurate influencer marketing ROI. Track the influencer marketing ROI statistics with Qoruz platform.
What is ROI in an Influencer Marketing Campaign?
ROI is all about the measurement of important measures of how well your influencer marketing campaign performed. ROI for a brand is more than just sales or leads; it includes a wide range of key performance indicators (KPIs) in addition to sales and leads.
But the first step in figuring out how well an influencer marketing plan works is to be clear about the campaign goals. The success criteria differ depending on the brand’s goal and the campaign. However, they often include exposure, engagement, and revenue generation KPIs.
Use the following formula to figure out your ROI for an influencer marketing campaign:
ROI (Return on Investment) = Profit Return /Investment x 100
Let’s say you sell cosmetics and decide to put $5,000 into a marketing campaign that uses influencers.
You devise a plan, find a good influencer to work with and choose which social media platform to use. Eventually, you make $10,000, which looks like this:
ROI = $10,000/ $5,000 x 100 = 200% ROI
We know this is a pretty simple example, and measuring your ROI in real life can be challenging.
But each new influencer campaign will require a new approach to ROI, and even though it gets easier with time, you’ll always have to adapt to what’s happening.
Why do you Need to Measure Influencer Marketing ROI?
“Measure twice, cut once” is a saying in the carpentry world that shows how important measuring is for getting the desired results. Just like a carpenter wouldn’t randomly cut a piece of wood, marketers can’t change their campaigns without measuring how well they’re doing. ROI is a key metric for influencer marketing and overall marketing strategy.
You might think that ROI is only calculated at the end of a marketing campaign, but things are changing. Influencer marketing return on investment (ROI) is a key performance indicator that may be more important now than ever. Marketers keep it in mind from the beginning of their campaigns. It’s the key to making the most of your marketing plan and showing that the money you spend on marketing is worth it.
More importantly, knowing your marketing’s return on investment (ROI) is important for making decisions based on facts and help you keep up with the fast pace of marketing today and drive profits.
Most importantly, by figuring out the return on investment (ROI), the marketing team can see their strategy as a success. If the calculation shows that the return on investment is low, it would be clear that the campaign isn’t working. The team can then change the campaign and try again to get the desired results.
It is important to set your influencer marketing campaign goals. A goal-driven influencer marketing strategy is the only way to be successful.
Let’s look at 5 of the most important goals your brand should have for influencer marketing.
Brand awareness
One of the most important goals of influencer marketing for a brand is to get more people to know about the brand. People won’t buy from you until they start to recognize and see your brand.
You can use influencer platform like Qoruz to find out how many people an influencer reaches and who they are. Our software gives a full report on an influencer that brands can use to figure out if a specific influencer is right for them or not.
What’s the next step after finding the right influencer for your brand awareness?
You need to focus on marketing strategies to get people to talk about your brand, follow you, and share your content. Make use of valuable and relevant hashtags. This will help influencers get their followers to share your branded content.
If your goal with influencer marketing is to make more people aware of your brand, the following tips can help:
- Brand mentions
- Product reviews
- Contests or Giveaways
Traffic
One important goal of influencer marketing is to get more people to visit your website. But not every kind of traffic is the same. So, focus on getting quality traffic. Quality traffic will help you get quality leads eventually turning them into sales.
Focus on making content people want to read if you want to keep getting people to visit your website. This can be done by:
- Sponsored Blog Posts
- Guest Posts
- Sponsored Social Media Content
Sales and lead generation
The main goal of marketing is to get leads, which will lead to sales and profits.
If your goal with influencer marketing is to increase sales, you can’t just rely on shoutouts or product reviews. Keep your focus on different strategies that can help you generate quality leads and eventually sales.
- Collective Shoutouts
92% of marketers think that Instagram is the best social media platform for marketing through influencers.
When you work with more than one Instagrammer to promote your products, you can get more leads and make many sales quickly. So, work with people who have a large following and whose audience is interested in your brand and may buy your products.
- Affiliate Marketing
You should create campaigns that help the influencer and the people who follow them (potential customers). Using affiliate marketing or discount codes is the best way to reach this influencer marketing goal.
- Discount Codes
Use a custom discount code in this campaign to get people to buy something. You can also give your influencers affiliate links that will help you keep track of how many sales they are responsible for. Then, you can give the influencers a cut of every sale they bring in.
Social media followers and engagement
When you try to get more people to know about your brand, you may also get more people to follow you and interact with you on social media. These goals for influencer marketing go well together, making it easy to reach your brand and your social media.
No matter how many people follow you, we are sure you’ll always want to get more. Focus on building reliable relationships with people who have good followers as a top priority. Building strong relationships with your influencers can help spread the word about your brand and get more people to follow you.
It’s not enough to have many followers. They must pay attention to what you write. This is only possible with some exciting, out-of-the-box content that makes people want to connect with you. 90% of marketers think engagement is the best way to measure an influencer campaign’s performance.
Taking your collaborations with influencers to the next level is a great way to get many more people to follow you.
Measure Influencer Marketing Campaign ROI
Step #1: Set goals for ROI tracking
Establishing your intended outcomes is the first and most crucial stage in developing an influencer marketing strategy. What sort of influencers to collaborate with, what kind of content to create, what channels to use, etc., can all be determined once your goals have been established.
Influencer marketing goals include:
- Reach target audiences
- Boost brand recognition
- Increase sales
- Enhance brand loyalty
- Manage brand reputation
That being said, these are incredibly general objectives. More research and specific objectives are needed to make an influencer campaign a success and help monitor the campaign’s ROI more closely.
Step #2: Define campaign metrics
After establishing campaign objectives, you must choose appropriate metrics for evaluation.
Aims that are both specific and attainable should:
- Make your point. For example, specify how much in dollars or percentage growth you want if you want to raise sales.
- Set deadlines. For example, you may monitor traffic spikes a few weeks after the launch.
- Be attainable. Your influencer campaign is doomed to fail if your success criterion is unreasonable.
You do not need to select a single metric to determine whether the objective has been reached. Consider a campaign whose objective is to increase brand recognition. Your performance measures could include the number of impressions, clicks, brand mentions, increase in followers, and brand engagement.
Examine the popular performance measures used by other marketers if you are confused about which metrics to choose. According to a Linqia survey, 90% of influencer marketing initiatives utilize engagement as their primary metric. The majority of brand marketers use impressions, clicks, and conversions as well. Reach and product sales are two other popular metrics.
Step #3: Develop individual influencer goals and measurements
Knowing which of your influencers are helping and which are falling short allows you to put more energy into the former and less into the latter.
Your campaign’s objectives should reflect those of each influencer. Say your primary marketing objective is to reach a particular revenue target by a specific date range. An influencer’s personal aim would specify the minimum they’d need to generate in that time frame.
Individual influencer metrics include:
- Average engagement rate
- Total impressions
- Conversions
- Average landing page/website clicks
- Total UGC (user-generated content) created
- Revenue
Using this information, you may evaluate the efficacy of each influencer and decide whether or not to employ it in the future.
Step #4: Select an influencer tracking platform
Use an influencer platform to track ROI for influencer marketing rather than manually tracking. These influencer platforms will provide more precise monitoring of both your campaigns and your influencers’ efficacy. You can then use that extra time to focus on other projects that need your attention and effort.
Influencer platforms provide metrics for evaluating campaign success including reporting and tracking capabilities. Qoruz allows for continuous monitoring of your campaign’s progress. Engagements, Impressions, ROI, CPM, and CPE, may all be monitored. In addition, you may track the success of individual elements of your campaign, such as a post or an influencer.
Step #5: Evaluate influencers
While many companies try to gauge campaign success by tracking broad metrics, this is rarely adequate. Select core team members to kick off the campaign. Start by keeping tabs on the efficacy of each influencer. Keep track of how many people interacted with posts from different influencers and evaluate how they stack up against one another.
How to achieve that is as follows:
- Unique URLs
For each influencer, generate a unique URL to monitor the amount of traffic from their writings. Use a redirect provider like bit.ly to generate a new URL. Instead, you can append the info you wish to monitor to the URL.
- Results evaluation
You may use the data on the effectiveness of each influencer to weed out the ineffective connections and keep only the most beneficial ones. Experiment with a different combination of influencers in your next quick-term influencer program, perhaps including some who weren’t originally on your list. By following these steps, you’ll be able to successfully implement an influencer marketing program for your brand and maximize the impact of your future advertising campaigns.
It’s more prudent to run many short-term campaigns and continually weed out underperforming influencers. Long-term campaigns using a group of predetermined influencers are risky.
Final Takeaway!
In the end, influencer marketing can help a brand accomplish many different goals. Realistic expectations and in-depth knowledge of the impact of these campaigns are key to grasping the full extent to which influencers accelerate corporate expansion.
Before developing an influencer marketing plan, set your goals. Consider your product, its price, and the length of your sales cycle. Then extrapolate the entire worth of your influencer campaigns by tracking quantitative and qualitative key performance indicators (such as the number of likes, purchases, and so on).
Consider using an influencer platform for influencer marketing if you want to monitor the efficacy of your campaigns and evaluate your influencer marketing ROI. Check out Qoruz’s website now, and we’ll show you how an influencer marketing platform can improve your grasp of influencer marketing’s ROI.
