In the marketing world, no matter which stage of the customer journey you are targeting your investments at it is always important to analyze and measure the effectiveness of your efforts – and influencer marketing is no exception. Although people commonly refer to influencer marketing as difficult to measure, there are in fact several KPIs that effectively and accurately capture the outcome of any influencer marketing campaign. 

KPI, short for Key Performance Indicator, is a measurable and quantifiable value that is used to demonstrate how effective a business is at achieving its objectives. As with any other marketing effort, it is highly important to set clear KPIs before running an influencer marketing campaign as it will give you an understanding of whether it was successful or not, if it contributes to reaching your overall marketing goals and what you can do to optimize for the future.

Depending on the campaign objective, there are specific KPIs more useful than others in answering the million dollar question: Was this a successful campaign? So, it is not only important that you set your KPIs before the start of the campaign, it is also important that you set the right KPIs. Below we have listed some of the KPIs that are most commonly used is influencer marketing, and when you should use them.

Reach

Influencer marketing is frequently used as a way for brands to create awareness and reach as many people as possible. A common mistake that companies make is to assume that they will reach all of the followers that the influencer they are working with has, which unfortunately is rarely true. Partly because of the social platform’s unique algorithm and the followers’ activity, your campaign will almost never reach the entire follower base. Therefore, if your objective is awareness it is important to measure how many unique people/users that have actually taken part of the campaign. This specific KPI is, not surprisingly, called reach.

Impressions

Whereas reach is a measure of how many unique people your campaign has been displayed to, impressions demonstrate the total number of times it has been displayed. Since a message is usually more effective when repeated, impressions often go hand in hand with consideration and engagement. So, if you are not only hoping for your target audience to be aware of your brand, but also that they consider your brand next time they are making a purchase decision, impressions might be a KPI to keep track of.

Engagement Rate

Engagement rate is a measure of how well the people who has taken part of the content resonate with it. Engagement is made up by likes, comments, shares, views etc., and a high engagement rate is an indicator of that you have reached a relevant target audience that liked your content. If your business objective is consideration, engagement rate might be one relevant KPI to measure.

Click-Trough-Tate

If the campaign objective is traffic, CTR, or click-through-rate, is a relevant KPI to track. It is a measure of how many people have clicked a specific link in relation to either number of followers, reach or impressions. 

Cost

Another important aspect to keep in mind is, of course, the cost of the campaign. Sure, your engagement rate might look very good from one perspective, but what did you have to pay for it? In order to find that out you also want to look at the following KPIs related to the four mentioned above: CPR (Cost per reach), CPM (Cost per thousand followers), CPE (Cost per engagement) and CPC (Cost per click). These KPIs will give you a hint of whether or not you have obtained a high ROI (return on invest) in your campaign.

However, it is important to keep in mind that the cheapest click or lowest CPM does not necessarily equal a successful campaign. If a click also generates sales in the end, it might be worth paying a higher price for. Similarly, it is much more valuable to reach a smaller group of people within the desired target audience, than reaching a large group of people with zero interest in the product or service. Hence, cost-related KPIs alone should never determine the success of a campaign.

Sources:

https://blog.octoly.com/what-to-know-about-reach-and-impressions-for-your-next-influencer-campaign/

https://blog.inzpire.me/influencer-marketing-kpis/

https://digitalmarketinginstitute.com/blog/5-essential-kpis-for-your-influencer-marketing-campaign

https://www.taggermedia.com/blog/engagement_reach_impressions_understandinganalytics