How To Measure Influencer Marketing Campaigns

Last Updated on September 22, 2022 by Valerie Jennings

Evaluating Your Influencer Marketing Campaigns

Influencer marketing is more prevalent than ever — especially after the COVID-19 pandemic and spending over a year in quarantine. More people were using social media, shopping online and following new influencers that would post about products they like. According to Influencer Marketing Hub, the influencer marketing industry is set to grow to approximately $13.8 billion in 2021. Other findings from the study include:

 

• The majority (59%) admit to having a standalone budget for content marketing and 75% of them now intend to dedicate a budget to influencer marketing in 2021.
• 67% of respondents use Instagram for influencer marketing, but there has been a colossal increase in TikTok influencer marketing.
• 11% of respondents intend to spend at least 40% of their marketing budget on influencer marketing.

 

Valerie Jennings, CEO of Jennings Social Media & MarTech (JSMM), explains that influencer marketing will continue to be an effective avenue for clients who want authentic content and supplemental advertising resources. “Consumers want to see original, inspirational and credible content in their feeds that is native to the platform they are using. Content is about digital storytelling and showing individuality and personality across channels. Give them something they will enjoy and they will engage with it. Give them something self-serving and superficial and they will bypass it.” 

So for those who are new to the process, influencer marketing works similarly to having a sponsored spokesperson — brands leverage well-known figures who have influence over their target markets to promote their brand. 

 

When it comes to influencer marketing campaigns, connecting the campaign goals to a specific measurement strategy is key. Measuring an influencer marketing campaign is important in order to determine the success of a campaign — be it with the number of followers and likes, or other metric tactics that prove to give more information. 

 

The more experience your brand has with influencers, the more insights you’ll be able to carry into your next influencer collaboration. 

 

Continue reading to learn more about the five ways to measure influencer marketing campaigns, why influencers are important to any business and why Jennings Social Media & Martech uses influencers. 

Five Ways to Measure Influencer Marketing Campaigns:

 

There are many different tactics when it comes to measuring influencer marketing campaigns. According to Marketing Dive, here are five ways to measure your next influencer marketing campaign. 

 

1.1:1 Direct Sales Attribution

 

According to this report, 1:1 direct sales attribution is “tracking the individual customers who were exposed to influencer content through to purchase.” It has been proven that influencer content can drive sales and increase basket size. For example, Forbes did a study reflecting loyalty card data. As we know loyalty cards reveal a lot about a shopper, like where they shop and what products they like, but when these loyalty card members are tagged with relevant influencer content, they spend more. According to a study done through Adweek, “when it comes to influencer marketing, over half of the women made purchases due to influencer posts.”

Influencers indeed have a huge influence over people’s buying power, especially when it comes to social media posts. According to Forbes, “influencers are the content production or the 1:1 direct sale because they create native ads that tend to resonate better with consumers, which enhances your advertising performance and overall conversion.”

2. Retail Sales Lift Analysis 

 

Agency Analytics defines a sales lift as “the incremental increase in sales that occurs during a specific promotional time period versus the baseline sales that would have occurred during that same time period had the promotion never been launched.” It also “digests point of sale data and forms test and control groups to uncover sales lift,” according to a recent report.

 

“Lift is calculated to see if a marketing effort or promotion actually generates a measurable lift in sales,” according to Mobile Insight. In this method, sales lift is calculated by using control and test markets. In other words, you run a promotion in one store or market and comparable sales to those generated in a similar store or market that does not run the promotion. 

Using the point-of-scale data, influencer marketing can drive measurable sales lift. A recent report shows that “the key to being able to measure sales lift is by sticking to the duration of an influencer marketing campaign.”

3. Promotional Effectiveness

 

Reports show that promotional effectiveness is “studying an influencer’s impact to drive redemption of promoted offers through their channel.” Chron states that promotional effectiveness, or effective promotion, “results from communications and activities that increase sales in ways that optimize the use of your marketing dollars.” Along with implementing promotional activities, they should also be analyzed using a data-based approach; this is to understand if they have delivered the targeted results. 

 

Measuring promotional effectiveness, according to the Business Review, is a gradual process that includes these major takeaways: 

 

• Studying past promotions: Analyzing campaigns can help determine factors driving success and failures. Developing a plan with a clear goal is vital to analyze and improve promotion effectiveness.
• Defining KPIs: Determine the primary metrics for measuring trade promotion effectiveness. 
• Organizing promotional data: Organizing the data can attribute sales and profits to the right effort. Knowing which efforts to bring helps determine the return on investment.
• Analyzing results: After organizing the promotional data, the data should be studied and analyzed.
• Reporting: Reporting the data is critical to not only understand the reasons for the success or failure of a campaign but also optimize it in the future.

 

When it comes to influencer marketing, 80% of marketers say influencer marketing campaigns are effective. An effective influencer marketing strategy requires you to speak to the right people and use the right tools. Recent reports show that“various factors influence the success of promotions and measuring promotion effectiveness is key to ensure that a business, or in this case an influencer, is getting returns on their promotion spending.” 

 

4. Foot Traffic Analysis 

 

This report continues to state that foot traffic analysis is described as “using mobile geo-facing to study the impact of influencer content on in-store foot traffic.” In this case, the best option to measure and increase foot traffic online is to collaborate with influencers. A recent report shows that “foot traffic data increases engagement in influencer marketing.” There are many ways to increase foot traffic like building your online presence, exploring social media opportunities, and the most efficient way today is working with influencers and brand ambassadors.

 

Collaborating with an influencer can bring your company great success. If the influencer does their job correctly. Since most influencers have over ten-thousand followers on social media platforms, brands tend to reach out to them to create more attention to the products the company wants to promote through their social media. As mentioned above, influencers are great to collaborate with because they brand in front of your ideal customer and the customers trust the influencer promoting the products. 

 

Since last year and the beginning of 2021, influencers have ‘influenced’ many individuals with buying new skincare products, Starbucks drinks or even developing daily life hacks. Influencers do a great job of promoting brands’ products that allow a company’s foot traffic to be higher, whether it’s online or in-store. Foot traffic will continue to rise with the help of influencers and their marketing campaigns with brands.

5. Brand Sentiment Analysis 

 

Brand sentiment analysis determines the general attitude toward your brand, product and service. A recent report states that brand sentiment analysis “analyzes the impact of influencer content as on customer perceptions of a brand.” Monkey Learn also mentions that “brand sentiment analysis can help determine which brand mentions are most urgent.” When it comes to marketing influencer campaigns, brand sentiment can be used when it comes to an influencer, the brand can stay in touch with the influencer to see what should be improved or if there are new ideas that the brand should be using to reach more followers. 

 

According to Cision, you can measure brand sentiment through these three simple takeaways:

 

• Establishing realistic expectations: “An influencer’s goal should always be to increase the positive sentiment, but aiming for small increments of positivity is more realistic at the beginning.”
• Benchmarking for success: “Influencers identify goals and figure out how the goals can be achieved through benchmarking the brand or product.”
• Looking for more positive opportunities: “Working with influencers promotes brands and can increase positive brand sentiment.”
  • According to Inc, a study done by RhythmOne showed that influencer marketing programs that lasted two or more weeks resulted in 8.73% in positive brand sentiment.

 

The Importance of Influencer Campaigns

 

An influencer is described as someone who has a heavy influence over others’ buying decisions. In 2020 and 2021, many influencers have made themselves known, especially through social media networks. According to Keyhole, “Influencers are not just making themselves successful, they are making the company they collaborate with successful too.” When purchasing products online, around 40% of people will buy a product after seeing it used by an influencer on Instagram, Twitter or YouTube. This statistic shows how big of an influence influencers have when they are promoting products to their followers.

 

According to Prohibition, here are four reasons why influencer campaigns are important:

 

1. Can help to amplify brand awareness: Influencers have great power to increase brand exposure to the large amounts of people they follow on social networks. 
2. Can reach your target audience through influencer campaigns: Brands who use influencers have a great chance of reaching their target audience by trusting that the influencer has loyal followers.
3. WIll help increase engagement: Every day, influencers create content that will keep their customers engaged and want more. Collaborating with a brand will continue to be successful due to the engagement of the customers (i.e. the followers.)
4. Helps revamp a brand’s content strategy: When influencers are using a company’s product through social media, they are creating content that attracts new customers. If the content is positive, includes the product and has a good amount of likes and views, the company should be glad they used influencing marketing for their products.

JSMM + Influencers

 

At Jennings Social Media and Martech, influencers have been a great asset to the success of our clients because they help build brand awareness and they can easily increase digital marketing. Influencers help spread the word about our clients’ brands, expanding their outreach to followers who may have otherwise never heard of their products or services

 

Social media marketing and influencer marketing go hand-in-hand with each other. JSMM’s social media marketing experts design customized and scalable programs for large and small clients.

 

These programs are created to:

• Hit tangible revenue goals
• Increase new contacts
• Generate labels

 

To find more information about social media marketing and influencer marketing, check out this article on JSMM’s website!

 

JSMM’s clients that focus on using influencers are usually located in the same area as the clients! For example, a global animal health client wanted to reach a new market of consumers in Australia. This client wanted tactics that would provide new data and immediate analytics to track brand reach and social media and engagement. In January 2020, we launched an influencer marketing program with the client. Find out how successful this influencer marketing campaign turned out by reading this blog!

“Partnering with Jennings Social Media has been the best decision we ever made for our business. We are experiencing significant growth and Val and her team have helped us achieve that. They are professional, responsive and knowledgeable. We highly recommend!” – JSMM Client

All of the influencers we partner with at JSSM and Martech have their own style and niche. The influencers that work with us have helped us tremendously when it comes to our local and global clients. We respect all of the hard work that they do and how much they trust our company when it comes to promoting these products to their followers.

Measuring influencer marketing campaigns is a vital metric needed to represent a successful campaign. Influencers not only raise brand awareness, but they can also reach your target audience through campaigns, customer engagement and can help revamp a brand’s content strategy. The five measures discussed above show you how to have a successful marketing campaign and how each step can lead you in the right direction when it comes to your influencer marketing campaign. 

 

At Jennings Social Media and Martech, we use our knowledge of marketing, advertising, social media and content creation to attract new customers and new influencers that are willing to use our company.