I get that this can be a little more than overwhelming. Metrics and KPIs are terms for “how to reach goals”. If this will be your first marketing campaign, fear not! We’ve got you covered!
What is Influencer marketing and why should you use it?
Traditional and modern marketing strategies blend harmoniously in influencer marketing, sculpting an innovative approach that reinvents celebrity endorsement by infusing it with a content-focused marketing campaign. Because companies and influencers work together to create the campaign’s results, that is influencer marketing’s key differentiation.
Influencer marketing can be very valuable to any business as most influencers have already collected your ideal customer all in one cluster. They ensure their relationships with their audience is always positive to ensure their loyalty is to their own personal brand.
Marketers can use this already established foundation to reach their target audience without having to go through the traditional methods of collecting those potential customers themselves. Influencers also provide valuable insights into social media and can assist you with your campaign to get the most out of your investments in working with these influencers.
What are KPIs in Marketing?
Key Performance Indicators, or KPIs, are measurements used in this context to assess how well campaigns have performed. Informed decisions may be made and the effectiveness of marketing investments can be confirmed with the help of KPIs.
I know it’s a mouthful to read the definition out loud. But all you should know is that the KPIs can show you if you have met your objectives or not.
Still don’t get it? Think of it like fishing.
The fishing rod is your business and the fish is the goal. To get to the fish you need to have the fishing line, the person holding the fishing rod and some fish food. The KPIs are all of those things that lead to the goal of catching that fish. You can tell by how well your business is doing by making sure your fishing line is strong. If the fishing line is weak then you may need new wire. The KPIs can help you to identify your strengths and weaknesses and what needs to be improved. Through careful tracking, you can reach your objectives just as easily as catching a fish!
What KPIs should I use for my influencer marketing campaigns?
According to studies, up to 89% of marketers believe social media would increase brand awareness for their business.
1. Using an Influencer analysis
Each influencer is comparable to an ad unit if we compare influencer marketing to paid social advertising. The KPIs of the influencers you want to work with can be the most important to track. These are necessary for identifying influencers.
There are a number of things to take into account, such as:
- The demographics of their followers
- The average engagement rate (comments, likes, and follows)
- The frequency of their postings
- How frequently they publish information that is pertinent to your company.
When asked, experienced influencers typically have these numbers available. Make sure to collect as much information during your influencer analysis as you can. You can decide who will produce the best outcomes from there.
2. Conversions
A conversion occurs whenever a potential customer completes a desired action. This means that conversions could be anything from a customer contacting you or to making a sale and becoming a loyal customer. The different types of objectives of influencer marketing include:
- Broadening your audience
- Boosting engagement
- Bringing more people to your website
- Driving growth and sales
The goal of the influencer marketing campaign is to compare any changes in sales that occurred while the campaign was running by tracking sales before, during, and after the campaign. Setting up affiliate links, UTM parameters, promotional codes, landing pages, and link tracking for the campaign will allow you to take a more complex approach and trace the traffic sources of customers that converted during the campaign.
3. Referral Traffic
Referral traffic refers to visitors that land on your website directly from other websites rather than going directly to Google to find you. Google monitoring systems identify a visitor as a referral when they click on a link from a social network or website and land on another website. Additionally, businesses employ UTM codes to pinpoint the origin of these traffic sources.
Backlinks are the source of referral traffic. Businesses that obtain quality backlinks additionally give reliable sources of extra traffic to their websites. Social groups typically share links from one another.
You can track these KPIs to ensure you getting quality traffic to your website:
- New visitors
- Referral sources
- Total page views
- Time on site
- Bounce rate
4. Reach and Awareness
At the top of any marketing funnel is awareness. This implies that you can calculate your conversion rates during the buyer’s journey down the funnel properly if you are aware of the brand recognition rate of your business, product, or service in the market. If you are seeing high KPIs such as impressions, but little conversions, it is most likely due to your brand either not targeting the right audience or your audience does not trust your brand.
To build trust you need to ensure you have a strong online presence that upholds your brand’s reputation.
Social Listening Metrics to consider using:
- Conversation Share
- Share of voice
- Customer Satisfaction Feedback
- Number of leads
- Unique social reach by each channel
- Influencer reach
With the use of an effective social listening platform, you can track all these KPIs. These tools give you reliable information that you can rely on when making plans for actions to raise brand awareness on social media. This also tends to come in handy when you look into ORM or online reputation management. Inflauncers generally increase your brand awareness and the trust that potential customers have with your brand. It can assist you to hold a positive reputation online and ensure your objectives are met more effectively.
5. Audience Growth
Just because a person was affected by the ad doesn’t necessarily indicate they were successfully converted. Not only are you attempting to reach as many people as you can, but you also have the objective to turn them into loyal customers. Your audience growth measures if your ideal target is growing in interest to your brand.
You can take advantage of social media site statistics to keep track of your followers, see how many new ones you add during the campaign, and compare the growth to figures from before the campaign.
6. Engagement
Engagement gives you a more detailed picture of the response to your campaign. The more engaged the target audience is, the more likely they are to convert to being a customer. The influencers you work with can show you the analytics of the videos or shout outs they make for you.
The KPIs to consider include:
- Likes
- Comments
- Shares
- Saves
- Retention rates
Most social media platforms do show these metrics under the videos and influencers can use these metrics to show you the progress of your campaigns over time. Note that platforms such as TikTok have your videos running in feeds constantly. There isn’t a set time they stop showing to customers. It can be beneficial to take advantage of the influencers knowledge of social media to ensure your campaign runs as smoothly as possible.
So, here’s what you need to remember…
The metrics you use will be based on the goal you have in mind for your brand. These objectives should already be established before you measure the relevant KPI. For example if your goal is to increase awareness, then the bounce rate on your website does not make sense to measure. It is important to know but it isn’t relevant to how many people see the video your influencers have made.
If you know your objective then the rest comes naturally and you can improve your campaign from there with ease. Trust your influencers and listen to their voice when representing your brand. If you find that their voice is better suited to the target audience, then don’t be afraid to change it up. Your campaigns will be most successful when you have an open mind and leave room to improve, adapt and apply your new acquired skills.
The types of goals you have will match what you want to achieve in your marketing funnel:
- Awareness
- Consideration
- Conversion
- Loyal customer
Remember the end goal is always to get loyal customers, but to do so, you need to ensure all other steps of the process are optimized. This means you might have more than one objective for your campaign. This is perfectly fine as long as you keep the KPIs matched to the correct objective to ensure you can successfully measure your campaigns effectiveness.
Good luck with your campaigns and I hope you find value in the KPIs you choose! Before you know it, your fishing basket will be filled with fish!