Influencer marketing campaigns often demand higher budgets to create significant results. Because marketing teams sometimes exceed their initial budget when conducting such a campaign, businesses strive to measure their influencer marketing ROI (return on investment).

After all, marketing professionals like yourself need to confirm that their efforts are paying off and increasing conversions. If you want to gain insight into your campaigns’ performances, read this post about how to measure Influencer Marketing ROI effectively.

Influencer Marketing- Meaning, Nature, and Evolution:

In recent years, Influencer Marketing has emerged as one of the best Digital Marketing strategies for brands. When it comes to social media, all brands are doing this. The standard range of influencers on social media are divided into 4 categories-

1. Mega Influencers (100K+ Followers)
2. Micro-Influencers (10K- 100K Followers)
3. Nano Influencers (1K-10K Followers)
4. Celebrity Influencers (1 Million+ Followers)

However, Influencer Marketing has been rocked by scandals in 2019. Most of the biggest names have been found to buy followers and engagement on their profiles. This includes big celebrities and mega influencers. Fortune 500 Companies like Unilever have come down hard on such people. Brands have complained that this scandal has cost them billions of dollars.

Even though Influencer Marketing has come under the radar, we can safely say that it is not going anywhere. This is because this form of marketing is sure to deliver on some high ROIs. The top Influencers on social media and elsewhere are capable of helping brands-

• Establish their authority in an industry niche.
• Directly and indirectly, contribute to sales and revenues.
• Redirect huge volumes of traffic to brand websites and Landing Pages.
• Reach out and connect with newer audiences.
• Build engagement and maintain databases.

It is clear that Influencer Marketing is a very successful medium for brands to explore. In the next sections, we will look at how brands should evaluate Influencer Marketing. From creating and evaluating campaigns to fixing KPIs, we are going to help you plan the most successful Influencer Marketing campaign for your brand.

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Establish Clear Campaign Goals:

Before you can even think about measuring your influencer marketing campaign success, you need to establish clear campaign goals. In doing so, you define what the “success” that you are measuring actually is.

Common goals include reaching your target audience and increasing your followers. Many marketers want to boost their consumer engagement while others set goals to drive more users to their landing pages. Setting a sales target is also something most brands look at. It is always a good strategy as it forces influencers to give you more coverage and stick to their words.

Determine what your campaign goals are so that you can figure out which metrics make the most sense to track during your influencer marketing campaign. Try to set a maximum of two targets for every Influencer Marketing campaign. This will help you keep track of the progress. This will also prevent the Influencer from making excuses if the campaign does not end up being successful.

Choose KPIs to Track:

After you establish clear campaign goals, choose key performance indicators, or KPIs, to track accordingly. Your choices rely heavily on the goals that you set in the first step of this process for measuring influencer marketing ROI. Utilizing KPI software can greatly assist in tracking and analyzing these metrics.

For instance, if you set an objective to increase engagement with your audience, you should track engagement rates across platforms using KPI software. Marketers with a goal to boost online store sales need to track the number of purchases made through influencer affiliate links using KPI software. Rather than go for a vague word of mouth kind of reading, you should always look at Reports that your agency and social channels provide, along with the insights provided by KPI software.

Determine the KPIs that you want to track before launching your campaign so that you can calculate your influencer marketing ROI easily when the campaign comes to an end. This will not only help you reassess your campaign midway but also help you plan for future campaigns and engagements, leveraging the power of KPI software.

Develop Individual Metrics:

Additionally, the best influencer marketing campaigns involve individual metrics. When marketing teams measure each influencer’s success, they gain more insight regarding which influencers benefited them the most. These marketing teams effectively cut their costs after each campaign by disregarding influencers with poor results.

In fact, the Scalefluence platform allows you to select influencers based on previous campaign ROI data. Some metrics to consider setting for individual influencers include total impressions, average engagement rates and amount of user-generated content created.

However, your individual metrics might change depending on the goals you set and the KPIs you track for your entire campaign. Select the best KPIs for individual influencers so you can expedite your process of measuring influencer marketing ROI.

Select Measurable Social Channels:

In order to measure influencer marketing ROI effectively, you need to select measurable social channels to launch campaigns on. These channels offer influencers numerous outlets for achieving common campaign goals. Influencers who use Instagram, for example, can post promotional content on their Instagram Stories.

There, they can include their affiliate links and urge their followers to swipe up on the page to view what your brand offers. Marketers can then track the affiliate links associated with each influencer to measure ROI. Most brands and agencies don’t realize that clicks on Affiliate Links are a great indicator to judge whether your campaign is working or not.

Almost all social media platforms offer their own tracking services for posts as well. These are the platforms, which you would want to use when trying to launch a campaign and measure ROI effectively. A combination of posts and stories works wonder especially if you are leading a high-powered campaign.

Analyze Content In Real-Time:

Finally, analyze the content posted during your campaigns in real-time. This entails monitoring every post an influencer publishes about your brand. If you keep track of posts in real-time, you can easily identify the best times to post, which language works the best and the influencers who generate the best results.

Hence, you can measure a wide variety of metrics more accurately. Moreover, you can respond to an increase in sales or demand right away. From website visits to sales, you can measure ROI quickly and properly by taking advantage of this influencer marketing return on investment method.

You do not need some sophisticated tool to see, which posts are performing. Social media platforms give us all the tools of reporting. This means that you will get access to crucial information like-

• The gender breaks up of your audiences.
• The best time to post on social media (when your audiences and followers are most active).
• Age breakup of the audiences.
• The demographic and country-wise breakup of the audiences.
• Top performing posts in terms of impressions and engagements.

How to Calculate ROIs effectively in an Influencer Marketing Campaign?

If you want to justify the capital you are spending on influencer marketing campaigns, you need to learn how to calculate your ROI. While the process is slightly trickier than it is for other types of campaigns, you can achieve a clear calculation by following specific advice.

For instance, you need to establish your campaign goals first. Then, use those goals to choose the best KPIs to track. Consider developing metrics for each individual influencer to measure ROI for each influencer as well as a more accurate campaign ROI calculation.

Another crucial component of measuring the profitability of a campaign is choosing measurable social channels. Lastly, stay up-to-date on each influencer’s success rates by analyzing content in real-time. Take these steps to effectively measure influencer marketing ROI.

Nano-Influencers- The Real Deal:

Even though Influencer Marketing has come under the scanner in recent times, no one can deny its importance. When it comes to exploring high ROI driven digital marketing channels, Influencer Marketing is right up there with PPC Campaigns.

A standard practice, which many brands are following off late, is working with Nano-Influencers. Since this category of influencers has less than 10K followers, there is no question of them faking it! Most importantly, nano influencers have been found to have higher rates of engagement that the bigger influencers.

When it comes to engaging with their fans and followers, nano influencers are the chosen group. I have personally led many campaigns with them. It is safe to say that they deliver far greater ROIs than mega influencers do. On the affordability front, you can rest assured that they are highly cost-efficient.

Conclusion:

Love it or hate it, you cannot ignore Influencer Marketing. From driving footfalls to building brand awareness, influencer marketing is a proven, time tested and profitable digital marketing strategy. No matter what size the brand, it can greatly benefit from receiving a shout out from an industry authority voice.

As millions of users relate more to influencers on social media than actors, sportsmen and other celebrities, the ROI on Influencer Marketing campaigns is always very high.

Do let me know what you thought about the article in the comments section below. Do you think Influencer Marketing really works, or is it just a fad that will pass?

Read Also:

• Top Tips for Becoming a Social Media Influencer
• How to Use Influencers to Market Your Online Business
• Top three Online Reputation Management Tactics for Start-Ups
• 10 Steps for a Successful Influencer Marketing Strategy on Social Media