10 Ways to Measure the ROI of Influencer Campaigns 

5 months ago | Kate

Measuring influencer marketing campaigns’ return on investment (ROI) is essential to understand their effectiveness and justify the cost. But it’s not always straightforward to show influencers’ value, which can make it harder to get that all-important buy-in and budget from your organisation. To make lifer easier, here are ten ways to measure the ROI of your influencer campaigns.  

  1. 1. Track Direct Revenue

  2. The obvious metric for demonstrating ROI is direct revenue, and there are some technical tactics you can use to make identifying this easier: 
  • Unique Promo Codes and Affiliate Links: Use unique promotional codes or affiliate links provided to influencers to directly track sales generated from their followers. 
  • UTM Parameters: UTM (Urchin Tracking Module) parameters are tags you add to a URL to track the performance of campaigns and content. These allow you to analyse the effectiveness of marketing efforts by identifying the source of traffic and user behaviour on websites. Add UTM parameters to the links influencers share to track traffic and conversions in your analytics platform. 

  1. 2. Monitor Engagement Metrics

  2. How are people interacting with your influencer campaign? Performance on social media gives you quick insights into whether influencer engagement is delivering. Look at: 
  • Likes, Comments, Shares: Measure the engagement on the influencer’s posts (likes, comments, shares) to gauge audience interest. 
  • Click-Through Rates (CTR): Track how many people clicked on the links provided by the influencer. 

  1. 3. Analyse Traffic Data

  2. What sort of impact is your influencer campaign having on your website? You’ll need to monitor: 
  • Website Traffic: Use Google Analytics to monitor spikes in traffic corresponding with the timing of the influencer’s posts. 
  • Referral Sources: Check the referral sources in your analytics to see how much traffic is coming from the influencer’s platforms. 

  1. 4. Measure Brand Awareness and Reach

  2. While it can be difficult to quantify improved brand trust and authority, you can crunch the data to establish the impact of influencer campaigns on awareness and reach:  
  • Impressions: Track the number of times the influencer’s content is displayed, including views on posts, stories, or videos. 
  • Follower Growth: Remember to measure the increase in your social media followers both during and after the campaign. 

  1. 5. Evaluate Audience Sentiment

  2. Is your influencer campaign hitting home? You can find out how it’s been received by using: 
  • Social Listening Tools: Use tools like Brandwatch, Mention, or Hootsuite to monitor brand mentions and sentiment on social media. 
  • Survey Feedback: Conduct surveys to ask new customers how they heard about your brand. 

  1. 6. Assess Content Performance

  2. You’ll be able to see how your target audience is responding to your influencer campaign – content that resonates is shareable and may inspire others to get involved. Look at: 
  • Content Shares and Virality: Analyse how often the influencer’s content is shared and how it spreads across social networks. 
  • User-Generated Content: Track the amount and quality of user-generated content originating from the influencer’s campaign. 

  1. 7. Calculate Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)

  2. Attaching a number to your campaign’s effectiveness in terms of cost per acquisition will help you to put it in context compared to other campaigns and assess ROI.
  3. Remember that you’ll need to put your tracking mechanisms in place from the start to make your CPA figure meaningful. However, CPA can be less useful when your typical buyer journey is drawn out and/or difficult to trace, so keep the timespan of your average buyer cycle in mind. 
  • CPA Calculation: To find the CPA, take the total cost of the influencer marketing campaign and divide it by the number of new customers acquired through the campaign. 

  1. 8. Track Long-Term Impact

  2. Don’t be tempted to stop measuring impact after your influencer campaign has completed. If possible, keep tracking how much value the customers you’ve gained deliver long term. 
  • Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): Estimate the long-term value of customers acquired through influencer campaigns by tracking their purchasing behaviour over time. 
  • Repeat Purchases: Monitor how many customers make repeat purchases after the initial conversion. 

  1. 9. Analyse Conversion Rates

  2. Look at how people are interacting with the content tied to your influencer campaign. What actions are they taking once they’re on your website? 
  • Landing Page Performance: Track the performance of specific landing pages linked from the influencer’s content. 
  • Conversion Funnel Analysis: Look at how influencer-driven traffic moves through your conversion funnel, from awareness and consideration to final purchase. 

  1. 10. Benchmark Against Goals

  2. It might sound obvious, but measurable objectives need to be in place before your influencer campaign goes live. 
  • Pre-Defined KPIs: Compare campaign results against key performance indicators (KPIs) set before the campaign, such as sales targets, engagement rates, and traffic goals. 
  • Comparison with Other Campaigns: Compare the influencer marketing campaign’s performance with other marketing channels to assess its relative effectiveness. 

Tools to Help Measure ROI 

If all these metrics sound too complicated or unachievable, you can make life easier by using software tools to do the hard work for you. 

  1. Google Analytics (GA): use Google Analytics for tracking traffic, referral sources and conversions. 
  1. Social Media Analytics Platforms: tools such as Sprout Social, Hootsuite or Buffer can measure social media engagement and growth. 
  1. Affiliate Marketing Software: if you’re going big, use platforms like ShareASale or Impact to manage and track affiliate links and promo codes. 
  1. Influencer Marketing Platforms: tools such as Traackr, Upfluence and Aspire can provide analytics and ROI tracking for influencer campaigns. 

Conclusion 

If you’re ready to start thinking about collaborating with healthcare professionals or other influencers with relevant credentials, congratulations! Done right, it’s a great way to create informative and educational content that aligns with regulatory guidelines, addresses audience concerns and enhances credibility and trust. By using these methods, you can evaluate success and provide insights for optimising future influencer partnerships and marketing strategies. 

Ready to find out more? Read our blog The Power of Influencer Marketing.  Learn how we helped one client achieve 60% engagement and become #1 for share of voice through a highly focused influencer marketing campaign targeting a niche healthcare audience.