It’s easy to say Influencer Marketing, but the real question is: how to measure the effectiveness of a campaign with an Influencer in terms of return on investment (ROI)?
The answer is more complex than it seems because, unlike other strategies, the one that involves influencers for the launch or sponsorship of company products or services, is not based exclusively on certain and univocal data.
In addition to the quantitative measurement of a campaign, there are trends and possible consequences that are difficult to measure. How to take them into consideration?
Let’s see better together.
Influencer Marketing for everyone: why more and more companies invest
From this report created by Traackr for Glossy (2021), it emerges that more and more companies are oriented to allocate a part of the advertising budget to Influencer Marketing activities. Most companies continue to invest between 1 and 20%, while those between 21-40% and 41-60% have increased significantly between 2020 and 2021. The most popular formats remain Instagram Stories (85%), followed by IG and Facebook (78%), Reels (49%) and TikTok (43%). The most used tactics are collaborative posts followed by organic gifting, Ambassador strategies and Affiliates Marketing.
28% of entrepreneurs affirm that Influencer Marketing strategies are “effective in some way”, a sign of the fact that positive trends are perceived without, however, a concrete evaluation of the cost/benefit ratio.
In the current state of digital relations, it is useless to deny the centrality of the figure of influencers as opinion leaders and centralizers of interested communities. Gone are the days when we didn’t believe in the power of influencers. And this is due both to sensational events that have become mainstream (such as the famous + 27% of the Uffizi Gallery after Chiara Ferragni’s visit) and to more or less constant experiments carried out by individual entrepreneurs.
All this served to clear a series of considerations on influencers who are no longer “those with many followers” but Creators who, while addressing smaller audiences, can bring added value to the image of the company.
How to evaluate the ROI of an Influencer Marketing campaign
When we talk about Influencers, the first question is often about who to contact for the campaign. This is also the main issue according to most of the entrepreneurs interviewed by Traackr.
Let’s see what in our opinion is the most logical and effective path to ensure the success of our campaign and its chances of profit.
1. Start from the analysis of your Goals
“Start with Why” always says the guru of Marketing, Simon Sinek.
Before engaging, proposing or paying an Influencer it is necessary to have a clear idea of why we do it.
What goal are we going to achieve? Why do I need that person to reach a certain audience? What is the goal?
- Do we want to increase the brand name or enlarge our audience (Awareness)?
- Revive Engagement?
- Increase Conversions? If yes, what kind?
If we are not clear about the objectives it will be almost impossible to keep track of the data and evaluate the performance of our campaign.
2. Select the right Influencer
We could define Influencers as digital Creators who have managed, over time, to build a solid relationship of trust with their audience. Strong enough to be able to influence his purchasing choices.
The strength of this fiduciary relationship is what distinguishes the Influencer from a photographer, videomaker or other professional specialized in the production of content. His style and his language are essential for the success of the collaboration. And they must marry perfectly with the goal we have set ourselves, with the Tone of Voice and with the valuable asset of our company. So take the right time to evaluate this correspondence of values, style, language and content. This is the only really important factor for the effectiveness of an Influencer Marketing campaign.
3. Choose the right KPIs based on the objectives and evaluate the trends beyond the data
In order to monitor the progress of a campaign and select the related metrics, we must start from the set objectives.
- For an Awareness campaign we could consider Reach and Impression on a daily, weekly and monthly basis;
- If we want to raise Engagement we will prefer the total number of interactions (comments, likes, shares, saves);
- For Conversions, we will measure everything that we have set as a goal for our business (visits to the site, Leads, actual sales, etc.).
The difficulty of working with Influencers is that there is a part of possible “effects” of the campaign that is not scientifically demonstrable or measurable. We are referring to more or less evident trends that undoubtedly deserve a posteriori consideration in the evaluation of the campaign but which are difficult to trace back with certainty to the specific marketing action.
For Example: if after a collaboration with Influencer X, restaurant Y fills up for three months, how can I prove that it is exclusively due to the campaign and not other or possible contributing causes?
Here lies the problem of the uncertainty of calculating ROI with Influencer Marketing.
Our advice is not to refrain from taking into consideration both quantitative (Objectives> KPI) and qualitative (Trend) aspects regardless of whether they are measurable or not. Very important in this sense is to develop a good relationship with the non-digital team to be sure to collect all the possible clues and information about the success or the flop of the campaign.
4. Monitor performance and present clear results to Management
Since they are content collaborations, Influencer Marketing campaigns (especially if the content does not run out immediately like IG Stories) are likely to have their effects even in the long term. So be sure to monitor the situation for a sufficient amount of time.
Once you have collected data and recorded more or less evident trends in the “real” world it is time to present data.
In this sense, a presentation that takes into account both the KPIs and the possible effects connected to the campaign will certainly be the most effective for evaluating the return on investment.
