How To Measure Success with Social Influencers
Reading Time: ~3 Mins | Written by Emma Whiten
Influencer marketing is often referred to as the wild west of the marketing industry. Not only are there little to no industry standards, but many marketers struggle to measure the outcomes of their campaigns. Unlike more traditional paid marketing agreements that come with tracking data and support, influencer marketing is still considered a new concept within the industry. There is very little standardization amongst creators and brands, which means inconsistent measurements of results.
For this reason, it is important to lay out clear guidelines and a formal agreement. This will not only streamline the partnership process but also allow you to implement specific measures of success across your entire influencer campaign. By integrating these measures, you will be able to understand the results of your campaign and weigh your return on investment.
Here are ways you can track and measure your social influencer campaign outcomes.
UTM Link Tracking
UTM codes are a snippet of coded information that can be added to the end of a URL to create a custom URL address. The benefit of this custom URL is that it allows you to measure the performance of a specific link. Using Google Analytics, marketers can track UTM codes and understand where traffic is coming from, what links are clicked, and the type of medium (desktop versus mobile) people are visiting from. By associating one UTM code with one influencer, you will be able to count the number of clicks that come directly from that particular partnership. Using this coded URL, you will be able to measure the successfulness of the campaign.
You can create these codes using Google URL Builder and then provide them as the link for the selected Influencer to use for the campaign. All that’s left is to measure the clicks!
Custom Discount Codes and Affiliate Links
Depending on the type of service or product you provide, custom discount codes might be a great solution to tracking influencer partnerships! Brands can tap into new audiences by providing custom codes that creators can then share with their followers. We refer to custom codes as affiliate links when they are specific to an individual creator. These codes are easy to customize and allow you to understand where conversions are coming from. By requesting the code upon checkout, you will be able to understand what influencer is the source of the purchase.
These codes work to incentivize an audience and convert followers into buyers. For ticketed events and sales tracking, these codes are an excellent promotional way to enhance engagement and reach a new audience.
Social Media Engagement
If you are looking to measure awareness and engagement rather than website clicks and conversions, social media metrics provide a reliable solution. To measure the success of a post, you must first choose a quantifiable item such as followers, comments, or shares. Creators and brands should state in an agreement that post-campaign data is a requirement of the creator and that they will send all data following the completion of the campaign.
These metrics can provide a basic understanding as to how the audience resonated with the campaign and if they engaged with the content. The information provided can be limited but helps provide a better understanding of the campaign overall.
