Measuring an influencer’s activity against marketing goals is already considered by many marketers as challenging, with continued browser privacy updates from the big three, Apple, Facebook and Google, not going to aid this situation.
According to a recent survey conducted by influencer marketing platform Zine, 57% of brand and agency professionals worldwide believe measuring ROI is the biggest challenge in influencer marketing.
Instagram trials removing like count
Instagram recently tested removing the publicly visible ‘likes’ count on posts (billed as an internal prototype to help reduce pressure Instagram).
With Instagram currently being one of the core influencer platforms (followed by YouTube and Facebook), if Instagram were to remove the like count from posts this is going to significantly impact the influencer marketing industry.
In the absence of any other way of measuring an influencer’s engagement rate brands will struggle to gauge whether an influencer’s activity had enough sway to contribute to their marketing efforts.
Advertisers, agencies, and influencers themselves will have to work together to come up with alternative measurement metrics. One metric might not be right for all campaigns. Our view is that the brands should be more selective with their influencer choices, and work in longer partnerships that allow all parties to build measurement frameworks to help substantiate influencer value.
Here are some measurement frameworks that can be put in place to calculate ROI:
1. Engagement Measurement
Look at the number of Clicks driven to advertiser’s website, reactions, comments, shares and lift in social brand mentions. While Facebook products will help you with all of the above metrics except lift in social mentions. Using a tool like Publicis Media’s Social Tools can help you gather all the information in one place.
2. Sales conversion source tracking
This can be easily done by encouraging users to click on an affiliate/UTM tracked link which can help agencies and advertisers look at the source of sale on Google Analytics.
3. Reach the right audience
Take a look at your Google Analytics Demographic data and understand what your target market looks like. This will allow advertisers to make smart influencer collaboration. Agree on % impression delivery towards your key demographics and use Google Analytics to measure this.
Incentives and referrals
Another way brands are currently approaching ROI measurement is by incentivising users via influencer content like referral coupons. Yes, referral coupons do add another step to the path to purchase however allow Advertisers to measure ROI. Coupons that expire also influence time-pressure psychological motivation on consumers, encouraging them to take an action.
Conclusion
Whilst there are multiple ways to measure influencer marketing campaigns and one measurement framework might not work for all campaigns, advertisers, agencies and influencers should focus on creating authentic, lasting relationships that are transparent in results and metrics.
