How To Prove Influencer Marketing ROI - Sked Social

How To Prove Your Influencer Marketing ROI

December 15, 2018
By
Gareth O'Sullivan

With the rise of Instagram influencer marketing and the successful results it can deliver brands, there's no denying that it can be a worthwhile investment when executed well. However, influencer marketing ROI (return on investment) remains a mystery for many. When brands

With the rise of Instagram influencer marketing and the successful results it can deliver brands, there's no denying that it can be a worthwhile investment when executed well. However, influencer marketing ROI (return on investment) remains a mystery for many.

When brands combine authentic content and relationships with clear objectives, their influencer marketing results will likely produce outstanding moments for them on social media.

In this article, we'll cover what to do before, during and after your influencer marketing campaign to better measure and determine the ROI of your efforts. We've also included some top tips for calculating the influencer marketing ROI of your campaigns. Let's get started.

Inluencer Marketing ROI - Sked Social

What You'll Find In This Post:

Influencer Marketing ROI: What To Do Before Launching Your Campaign

Before launching your influencer marketing campaign, you need to decide and set realistic achievable goals for your campaign. How you measure your influencer marketing will depend on the goals you have chosen.Some of the most popular goals for influencer marketing is to:

  • Build brand awareness and reposition or strengthen your brand image
  • Increase social media followers and engagement.
  • Sales and lead generation (e.g. newsletter subscribers, sign-ups, etc.)
  • Gain customer insight and data
  • Drive traffic

To ensure your influencer marketing ROI is high, write down some achievable goals and set a deadline for them and then work out a suitable budget.Before launching your campaign, you first need to determine your budget. This will be very different compared to the usual marketing tactics such as email marketing, PPC etc.Next, take into account any labor costs, which involves the time and research taken to identify the influencers suitable for the campaign, reaching out to them and the costs involved of sending a product or providing the service to the influencer. This may also consist of demos you might need to provide.The cost of your content may also play a role in this. If you’re creating video content, live streaming etc, you may need to incorporate the expenses of editing, equipment and filming.There are plenty of tools on the market to help with influencer outreach and research which will reduce the time involved and costs. Some of our favourite tools include Buzzsumo and Ninja Outreach.

Influencer Marketing ROI: What To Do During Your Influencer Marketing Campaign

Once your influencer marketing campaign is live, you’ll need to keep an eye on the campaign and identify what is working and what isn’t. This feedback will be useful for the current campaign and future campaigns that you decide to launch.Some platforms such as Instagram and Facebook allow the influencer to publish a piece of content with the brand displayed, giving the brand access to insights associated with the sponsored post. [caption id="attachment_9459" align="aligncenter" width="650"]

Inluencer Marketing ROI - Sked Social

David Beckham Sponsored Post For House99[/caption]This is very useful information and that will tell you instantly how well the campaign is performing. However, you should also dive deeper and measure based on engagement, reach, sentiment and your own traffic analytics or sales generated.The key areas you should be looking at and measuring are; audience reach, impressions, engagement (this consists of all comments, likes and shares), the content shared, and lastly, conversion.

Influencer Marketing ROI: What To Do After Your Influencer Marketing Campaign

Once the influencer marketing campaign has finished, you should gather up all the results and identify how the campaign performed. What went well, what could be improved and what didn't work, how many sales and leads it generated, the total reach of the campaign etc.This data will help you understand the return on investment of the campaign and whether it was a success or not. If it wasn't, there are lessons to learn which can be applied to other campaigns you may launch in the future.It's important that you have assigned a monetary value to not just the products or services, but additional conversions. For example, how much is a valid email address worth to you?

Tops Tips For Tracking Influencer Marketing ROI of your Campaigns

When it comes to running an influencer marketing campaign, measuring the return on investment is vital.You'll want to know if the campaign was a success and what can be done to improve your future campaigns. There are many ways to measure the influencer marketing ROI of your campaigns. Below are five easy ways to keep track.

1. Using Tracked Links

Creating tracking links for the influencer marketing campaign will help you keep track of how much traffic the influencer has helped drive from their posts. Creating a tracking link for each piece of content on each platform is highly recommended.This way you can identify what channels and types of content perform the best. If the influencers you are working with are wary about the tracking links, that might be a sign they aren't worth working with.

2. Create A Dedicated Landing Page

Another fantastic way of tracking your influencer marketing ROI is by creating dedicated landing pages for the campaign. This way, the source of your traffic can easily be identified, including any sales or leads generated. If this isn't possible, it might be worth having a specific form capturing leads.Either way, when the campaign is live and if there's an increase in form submissions or sales, it might be clear where those are coming from.

3. Providing Promo Codes

A simple yet effective way to track the ROI of the campaign would be providing your influencer with promo codes dedicated to them. Mentioning the name in the promo code is usually the most common thing to do. It will also encourage them to share with their followers. A code that includes the influencers name usually is more memorable too.Providing your influencer with real-time tracking of the promotional codes will motivate them to work even harder and generate more conversions and sales for you. There are various applications on the web that allow you to achieve this.Not only will it be beneficial to track the sales generated from a promo code, but the influencer's audience will also be more likely to check out what you have to offer. Everyone loves a discount and therefore those who are very interested are more likely to commit and become a customer using the discounted promo code.

4) Create A Hashtag Campaign

A hashtag campaign is a very effective way to measure the performance of the campaign. You could encourage your influencers to use a particular hashtag in the sponsored posts, encouraging their audience to do the same. This will not only raise repeat awareness and increase the reach, but you'll also be able to measure the total amount of times that hashtag was used.

You may also like:

On To You

Influencer marketing is a fantastic strategy for driving sales and increasing awareness of your business. Just like other paid channels, there is usually a cost involved, therefore it is important to prove that your influencer marketing efforts result in a positive successful return on investment.Putting the above into practice will help you determine your influencer marketing ROI. There are also tools available that will enable you to keep track of and manage the campaign very efficiently. My top recommendations for tools include Traackr, Dealspotr and GroupHigh.Depending on the campaign, you should also consider running a remarketing campaign targeting those that showed an interest but dropped off and didn't convert to a customer. This can be achieved by installing a pixel on the website and tracking those that visit the specific page.If your first influencer campaign doesn't go as planned, don't lose hope. It's worth experimenting and trying out different ideas to increase the interest of the influencer's audience. Social media is constantly moving forward and businesses need to keep up with these trends.If you're looking to carve out hours in your social media workflow, sign up for Sked’s 7-day trial. Our all-in-one Instagram scheduler allows you to automatically post images, carousels, Stories, videos and more. Tag locations, users and products and manage all your hashtags in one place to save 5+ hours every week.

Spend less and get more with Sked Social

Get everything social schedulers are missing without writing a blank check for an enterprise platform. AI-integrated tools, custom collaboration and approval workflows, deep analytics and insights, and real auto-posting to more platforms — it’s all here.

Get Started for FREE

Contents

What to read next

Followers and engagement

LinkedIn Docs Unlocked: Turbocharge Your Brand’s Presence

April 10, 2024

Find out how brands are using Document posts to increase engagement on LinkedIn.

Followers and engagement

Why Social Media Managers Need To Think About AI Tools

December 13, 2023

Imagine a world where your social media tasks are effortlessly streamlined, leaving you more time for creativity and strategy.

Get the visual content planner for visual brands and agencies