3 Ways to Measure the ROI of Influencer Marketing Campaigns

By 2022, brands are expected to spend up to $15B on influencer marketing.

It's understandable why brands are making such an investment. As social media transforms from simply a place to communicate with friends to a full e-commerce experience, brands are using influencers to connect with their niche audiences. According to a study by The Influencer Marking Hub, brands make $5.20 for every $1 spent on influencer marketing. However, what's not as instinctive is measuring the impact and ROI of an influencer marketing campaign. The ROI of influencer marketing depends greatly on your goals for the campaign — brand awareness, direct sales, lead generation, reaching new target audiences, traffic, or increased reach. But before you jump in searching for influencers, make sure you understand your goals and how you'll measure success. Here are 3 ways to measure the ROI of an influencer marketing campaign, based on your brand’s goals.

3 ways to measure the ROI of influencer marketing:

Goal: Acquisition

Measurement: App downloads/registrations

Influencer campaigns can be central sources of traffic for brands' owned channels, such as mobile apps. For example, take the case of Dunkin brand’ and their influencer partnership up with TikTok star, Charli D’Amelio, to create a special "The Charli” coffee drink. With the campaign, Dunkin’ customers had to download the Dunkin' app to order the specialty drink, creating more downloads for the app and user accounts created. According to Drayton Martin, the VP of brand stewardship for Dunkin’, the campaign triggered a 57% increase in daily app downloads for the Dunkin' app. In addition, Dunkin' also experienced an overall sales boost due to the campaign. The coffee brand saw a 20% sales boost for all cold crew coffees the day The Charli debuted and a 45% surge in cold brew sales the day after the launch. 

Goal: Conversions

Measurement: Promo codes

Many influencer marketing campaigns focus on driving sales of a particular product or service. This is a tactic that you often see on platforms like Instagram, where the influencer shares a unique discount code for a sponsored product that for their followers can use at checkout. When you dig into your analytics, you can tie that campaign's promo code directly to conversions, measuring the sales impact of the campaign. The beauty of promo codes is that it doesn't matter which platforms the influencer shares them on — Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, blogs — they're a simple way to measure attribution for sales. 

Goal: Traffic

Measurement: Referral links

Referral links are used in sponsored content to drive traffic through to your brand. Influencers often add these  dedicated URLS with added UTM parameters as "swipe up" links in Instagram story content, Youtube video descriptions, or linked in blog content. These referral links are convenient for brands because they direct all traffic to your target landing page and are easily tracked using analytic softwares, like Google Analytics. By tying referral links and promo codes together in a campaign, you can directly tie traffic and sales to the influencer you're partnering with.

If done correctly, the ROI of influencer marketing can be huge if the brand first clearly defines its goals of the campaign first.