You can track influencer campaigns through different key performance indicators. These indicators are helpful measures in ensuring successful influencer campaigns. As the creator industry itself, influencer KPIs are also subject to change. They evolve with tracking technologies which are also known to have a major impact on the way companies see returns on influencer strategies.
Some of the most common types of influencer KPIs include immediate sales. Brands may still be interested in other performance indicators which may also be helpful either in the short term or long-term growth.
Social sentiment
Now more relevant than ever, sentiment analysis is here to show the social sentiment or the audience sentiment in an influencer campaign. Brands are not only interested in likes and shares but also in how audiences feel about their product.
This is important for those companies interested in long-term influencer strategies. Once they know audiences positively react to a type of influencer campaign, they are inclined to replicate it or to work with similar audience influencers to ensure influencer marketing success.
Video engagement
How many followers are tuned into what influencers say? Influencer analysis tools now look at video engagement as a true KPI to understand what’s being said or even shown in videos that generate engagement.
Both micro and macro influencers are interested in high engagement. However, up until recently, they weren’t able to understand what specific part of the video, especially the one that’s relevant to companies they work with, generates high engagement.
Reach
An ideal KPI when working with macro influencers, reach is important for getting your company name out there. Simply put, you want as many influencers with a large audience in your campaigns to reach as many people as possible.
Keeping track of reach is easy. Typically calculated as the total number of people that saw an influencer’s content, reach is an essential metric at all business growth stages.
This type of KPI may be associated with a company’s early days. But given customers may need to see a product 5-7 times before taking action, reach-based creator campaigns are a reality for most leading companies today.
Follower growth
Companies looking to build their own social media presence still benefit from influencer strategies for their own page growth. The number of followers is often among the first metrics brands are interested in.
Influencer campaigns represent shortcuts to getting more followers. Influencers can actively encourage audiences to follow key brands. The success of this objective is a KPI that should set the creators with the right engaged audiences which are more likely to follow a company with a similar brand message.
Brand awareness
Almost all influencers have worked with clients who wanted to build brand awareness. Certain audiences are only present on social channels which means this is where companies need to be present for customers to become aware of their existence.
Gen Z-ers are among the most common groups getting their information from social channels and influencers first. Improving brand awareness means targeting the right audiences with influencer campaigns for brands to reach groups that wouldn’t be reachable otherwise.
Influencers like KPIs as well
One of the most common misconceptions about influencer performance is that creators stay away from brands working with key performance indicators. This may not be the case today as creators need to learn about the wider scope of brand objectives and creator content that’s relevant to these scopes.
Finding the right influencers is difficult. But even the best influencers still need to meet certain KPIs. Ideally, these KPIs need to be tuned to the right influencers and audience. By doing this, companies ensure the best chances of a successful influencer campaign.
