The evolving scene of marketing seems to get more complicated with each newly-developed strategy, technique, and tool for tracking performance. Brand managers and marketers understand that marketing constantly changes because the technology used also adapts and disrupts. This makes tracking influencer marketing ROI a difficult thing to do.
But knowing how to track influencer marketing ROI is just half the job. More importantly, marketers should know why it is important to track influencer marketing ROI. In this article, we’ll walk you through the hows and whys of influencer marketing ROI tracking. By the end of this reading, you should have a deeper understanding of the need to track the performance of your influencer marketing campaigns and a working knowledge of how to go about this arduous task.
Albeit a very beneficial activity, tracking influencer marketing ROI can be a tedious job—how a company can view successful ROIs may depend on what a brand may want to achieve. If your brand has recently embarked on influencer marketing, here are a few ways to properly track the return on investment for this new approach.
Benefits of Tracking Marketing Results
After understanding the ins and outs of influencer marketing tracking, it’s good to be guided on the benefits it brings brands. Of course, this also means understanding that each brand may benefit in a different manner when exploring the data from marketing tracking.
Here are some of the benefits that most companies commonly look for when they use influencer marketing platforms for efficient tracking.
Prepare the funds for the next campaign
Tracking influencer marketing may appear to be another expense in your budget. But before you ask if this is necessary, think of every action you take in your marketing strategy. You need to track every execution to see if it’s a move that you can and should do again.
Each campaign strategy may have different approaches, but each approach should have a corresponding measure. This lets you see if the funds you allot for one execution is enough, or if a more successful campaign may require more funding in the future.
Allot the budget correctly for the next batch of influencer engagement
There’s a reason why marketing is an entire department in itself—its main function lies in the ability to reach people and transform engagement to sales. When utilizing influencer marketing, you are essentially passing the baton of this responsibility to another person. Yet there still needs to be teamwork so that you and your influencer can reap the rewards later on.
Tracking marketing ROI shows you what works and what does not. By doing this, you can be more discerning about how you will allot your budget to the different segments of the campaign. Marketing is just as much a trial and error activity as anything else. One can even say that it is more experimental, given how fast the marketing landscape evolves.
Compare results with the actual marketing spending
Marketers may need to experiment with new ways and strategies to create the best marketing campaign for their brands. But this does not mean they cannot keep an eye on the budget in doing this. If anything, you need an efficient plan so you will have more budget to allocate and experiment with.
At the end of the day, marketing is all about delivering numbers. The difference between public relations and advertising and marketing is that there is a need to deliver sales. You directly have a conversation with your market, and part of the job means knowing them well enough to improve on the next campaign even more.
Marketing spending can be a good gauge. Seasoned marketers, especially those who have been handling a specific brand for a while, already have a finger on the pulse of what the market needs. It’s a matter of finding a new way to disseminate the story so you still get the end result of their patronage.
Compare the results with competitor performance
Part of measuring results is also assessing the brand’s performance alongside other brands in the industry. Personalities and voices of brands may differ, but at the end of the day, experimenting with marketing also entails the management of expectations. Tracking marketing ROI in terms of how your brand performed against others lets you gauge and plan out improvements to your own marketing strategies.
You can learn from your competitors so you can evolve your brand through ideas and executions that are tailored to your brand personality.
5 Questions About Influencer Marketing Tracking
Adding new tools to your campaign arsenal may seem like an extra hurdle you don’t need to do when your brand is just starting out. Consider this a rookie mistake—tracking even your first campaign lets you see what you are doing right.
Here are a few burning questions that may guide you when deciding to use an efficient influencer marketing tracker.
Why track influencer marketing results?
The biggest question in deciding whether to use influencer marketing in the first place is the big “Why?” Why resort to influencer marketing, and why add to this commitment by using tracking tools to measure results?
The short answer would be this: it has shown effectiveness for many brands, small and big alike. Influencer marketing has become a go-to strategy for those who want to expand their audience reach and include other potential markets through their influencer’s following.
Another reason for doing this is you get to see your brand’s potential audience. From here, you can plan your next strategies accordingly, especially if they require a different approach to better success.
How do I track an influencer post?
When working with influencers, always remember that they need to work with you on tracking performance. Keep open communication about what you are tracking for your brand. Influencers should utilize trackable links as these can help measure traffic, engagement, and potential conversions to sales, if your tools allow it.
How do you track influencer performance?
Influencers may have different measures of performance, depending on their niche and type. For example, you can’t expect a nano-influencer to have a million likes on one post, because their follower count is in the low thousands. However, their power is in the engagement, comments, and shares, especially if their following is strongly influenced by your partner influencer.
How do you calculate influencer impressions?
Ideally, marketers look at specific markers when they calculate influencer impressions. By definition, impressions pertain to the number of individuals who were able to see the blog or social media post. A quick formula for this would be to see the blog content that was posted and compare it with the site’s unique monthly visits.
Some marketers, especially those who want concrete numbers, tend to stick to the actual impressions. This figure shows the exact number of people who were able to see and be touched by the content created by the influencer.
How do you track influencer marketing?
Tracking influencer marketing entails a more holistic approach to monitoring. Before you even purchase an influencer marketing tool, make sure you and your team will plan out a marketing strategy from start to end.
[visualizer id=”1946″] Source: influencermarketinghub.comHow to Calculate ROI of Influencer Marketing
Tracking an influencer-based campaign does not have to be complicated or expensive. But it does have to be exhaustive. Here is a quick step-by-step guide on how to measure influencer marketing and your campaign’s ROI.
Set the right goals for the campaign
Each campaign should have a specific goal in mind for the brand. Are you trying to raise awareness for start-ups? Is your brand on the verge of growth in terms of audience reach? Is it time to push a new product in the market? Are you trying to change or enhance your brand’s reputation?
By ascertaining which of these goals you are aiming to hit, you can streamline the messaging for your influencers. You can also tailor your metrics depending on the kind of engagement or conversion you need.
Choose your metrics
When tracking influencer marketing ROI, metrics are highly based on the goals. Brands who are starting out will like to gain more followers and be known in the bigger market sphere.
For those who are trying to sell a brand, conversions and promo links accessed would be good parameters. These will show how successful an influencer is in reaching out to your audience.
Metrics also need to be ambitious yet achievable. When you set a limit to tracking traffic, make sure you have a good gauge of what you deem to be a successful metric. It pays to have more than one metric to measure so that you can see your campaign from different perspectives.
Set the benchmarks for metrics
Remember that in an influencer-based campaign, the brand isn’t the only one with goals. For every partnership, influencers also have their own goals for each project.
Influencers may have different metrics that they use to give to potential partners. The most common that you can expect would include total impressions, number of clicks to the blog, average engagement rate, and conversion rates. Again, each of these data corresponds to measuring how successful you are in a specific goal. Make sure that you are setting the right metrics to measure your goals.
Use an influencer marketing platform
Even smaller brands will have a hard time manually tracking influencer marketing ROI statistics. Just because you have a marketing team does not mean you need to spread out even the smallest tasks.
Tools like Traackr can help you see a bigger picture of marketing. Choose tracking tools that understand the importance of influence. These will likely have the tools you need to monitor and study the engagements for your brand goals.
Tailor tracking for influencers
When it comes to influencers, you should not forget that each one has a specific niche. Even when two influencers fall under the same category, the measures may not be exactly the same for them.
As much as possible, set standards for your influencers’ goal metrics and performance. However, don’t forget to adjust as you go through the campaign. It’s good to have an overall view of the performance of a campaign. From there, you can work on your influencers and how they fare in delivering the expected performance.
Influencer marketing ROI does not always rely on number of sales. Sometimes, the engagement that a campaign adds to your brand’s influence can also be a measure of success.
How Often Should You Do Influencer Marketing?
The beauty of influencer marketing, as opposed to having only one main spokesperson for your brand, is that you can keep expanding. The only thing you need to remember is that the influencers you tap should be in line with your brand’s vision and needs.
Some brands opt to hold influencer campaigns almost every month. This is not excessive, especially for bigger brands with several products. Despite being under the same brand, each product that you have can talk to different audiences. This means your influencers will not only need to vary, but they should also be able to deliver a wide range of content types.
Maximizing content per influencer
A lot of the content that influencers will create depends on your brand’s needs. This will be among the many aspects you will need to measure when you set your tracking.
Long articles for your brand’s blog allows you to build your website. This is especially the case when you tap expert influencers who are thought leaders in their fields. Part of the tracking will include backlinks to the post, if it has been used as a source. It’s also good to see if the blog is ranked high in search engines, meaning many others can access it using specific keywords.
Social media: Tracking movement and engagement
If you want to build a buzz for your brand, social media is one of the easier ways to do it. The beauty of social media is that it has its own trackers that can also be connected with your chosen platform tracker.
Social media also allows your brand to be in conversation with your audience. Your brand can have its own social media channel, which can be shared by your tapped influencers. This makes tracking even more necessary, especially when you are balancing various products and services as well as different influencers.
At the same time, social media itself is a breeding ground for engagement. Just make sure that you choose the right influencer who is on the right social media platform that’s fit for your brand.
Read more about using influencer marketing on social media in “Influencing By Social Media: How to Use Influencer Marketing in Social Media Strategy.”
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