Data is the Influencer Marketing Gold Mine.

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Influencer marketing statistics show a robust picture. According to Statista, “the global influencer marketing market size has more than doubled since 2019.” Agencies, companies and anyone in marketing can see the potential for influencer marketing to launch, solidify and elevate brands in the market.

You need data to see the complete picture of how well your influencer marketing strategy works. But the process begins before you even engage with an influencer. Data can inform where, when and why you should be forming a campaign. Data points about consumer behavior allow you to understand where your target audience lives online and the best time and strategy to reach and engage with them. This isn’t data you should necessarily keep to yourself, either. Share this relevant data with your chosen influencer so they understand your customer’s behavior and can be ready to engage with the audience.

When looking at data, it’s important to go beyond engagement rates and click-through-rates. Conversions matter most, as marketers need to determine which influencers drive the most ROI from a campaign. In addition to tracking the effectiveness of a campaign, you should also look at which influencers are targeting the right audience. For example, one influencer could have 100,000 followers and a 2% engagement rate, but another may have 50,000 followers and a 15% engagement rate. Even with fewer followers, the influencer with the higher engagement rate is likely a better investment for the brand.

Keeping Campaigns Honest With KPIs
Think about your next marketing campaign. What’s the end goal? Do you need to drive sales? The brand may be new and looking to grow through awareness. Do you want to boost engagement on one or all of your social media channels?

Answering business strategy questions and identifying goals should be the first steps when you’re beginning a new influencer campaign so you’re tracking the right metrics. Too often, marketing teams jump in head-first to new campaign ideas without establishing the right benchmarks for success. It’s not merely a case of spending the allocated budget and checking the influencer campaign box on your brand’s strategy deck. To that end, influencer marketing takes time, resources and patience. It usually requires starting small, getting to know influencers and their audiences and gradually scaling to more extensive campaigns.

Many brands today are using influencer campaigns to drive sales. In fact, 74% of companies surveyed in a recent Influencer Marketing Hub study said they track sales from their influencer campaigns. The most-tracked methods for showing effectiveness were email addresses and referral links; companies also used coupon codes and product SKUs. You can use additional metrics that show benchmarks, like share of conversation, brand mentions and specific performance on social channels, to help you show the ROI of your campaigns even more.

When you set realistic sales targets and monitor traffic before, during and after the campaign, you’re building a campaign profile that allows you to see where influencer marketing fits into your overall strategy. Tracking daily and weekly will help you identify spikes and dips in traffic and eventually show a comprehensive picture of a campaign’s performance. Understanding the data in the broader context of your marketing programs is worth the time and investment of resources needed to track campaigns.

Plan, Perform And Perfect
Measuring the results of an influencer campaign takes extra planning. But aligning influencer campaigns to strategic business goals and seeing the results through reliable data is well worth it. It’s about more than making attractive slide decks with impressive charts to show the executive board. You should illustrate how your campaigns create solid, measurable business results that can change the trajectory of the business.

As influencer marketing continues to become more prevalent, your company’s effort to set up reliable tracking methods today will mean more efficiency tomorrow.