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Influencer marketing offers marketers vast amounts of different information compared to traditional media channels, for example – expressed in marketing jargon, data. Data is available to support planning, commercial results, and content success verification. In this blog series, we explore what data in influencer marketing is essential and how it can be utilized. In the second part of the blog series, we focus on verifying commercial results.
Verifying the effectiveness of influencer marketing is often perceived as difficult or at least laborious. This is understandable if influencer marketing plays a secondary role in a marketer's toolkit. As the role of influencer marketing grows as part of a company's marketing communications, monitoring influencer marketing and measuring its effectiveness becomes increasingly important. What methods are available for verifying influencer marketing effectiveness?
One possible way to start measuring and verifying influencer marketing is to compare the cost and engagement of influencer marketing in relation to other digital advertising. This also enables comparison at the influencer level. In an influencer marketing campaign, for example, the total of several micro-influencers may be significantly cheaper in terms of click or conversion costs than the final price of a single larger influencer. By understanding which influencers achieve results cost-effectively, it becomes possible to optimize influencer investments more efficiently. Common influencer marketing metrics include:
The hard metrics mentioned above provide insight into only the tip of the iceberg regarding true impact on the brand. For example, brand perceptions do not change overnight, but change requires time and repetition – also in terms of influencer marketing.
The impact of influencer marketing on brand perception development can be verified just like any other brand marketing. Goals can range from increasing awareness to increasing purchase intent or even changing brand perception. Influencer marketing can be measured across the entire target group using surveys or by conducting research in influencers' channels, which allows the effects on the brand to be verified even at the level of individual content creators. The best results are achieved when, for example, as part of longer-term influencer collaborations, the brand's starting point is first determined with a baseline study, and then the study is repeated after the collaboration ends. By extending measurement across multiple influencers to the influencer level, the effectiveness of different influencers and content can be compared. This also naturally enables optimization of influencer activities in the future.
Influencer marketing is at its best an effective way to, for example, increase online store sales or increase app downloads. How can this impact on sales be verified?
One of the most effective ways to verify sales results is to provide the influencer's audience with a campaign code that allows them to purchase the product at a lower price. Discount codes enable both audience activation for purchases and tracking of the resulting sales. If it is a multi-influencer campaign or an ongoing influencer program, each influencer should be offered their own code – this way sales can also be compared at the influencer level. After the campaign, it is also good to analyze the actions taken by each influencer and again optimize influencer marketing based on results. The downside of campaign codes is that the brand must understand the impact on margins and product price perception.
If the campaign's goal is to increase traffic to the online store, a separate tracking link should be created for each influencer. This allows monitoring of the traffic and sales brought by each influencer at both the influencer and channel level. Benefits also include incorporating figures into existing dashboards.
Direct conversion from influencers can often fall short. Reasons may include, for example, that repetition has not been built in, or the product purchase process is long. A good way to enhance influencer marketing is through paid social media advertising. For example, on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok, the campaign can be retargeted to the audience that has seen the influencer's content. The influencer-created content can also be shared further on social media, enabling much more diverse data usage opportunities through tracking pixels.
An effective way to verify sales is to offer the audience free registration for a limited time. This method is used especially with audiobook and VOD services – this way the influencer's audience can be encouraged to try the service at a lower threshold, and we can directly measure how many registrations each influencer generates. After the campaign and free trial period, it is essential to track how many of the registered users remain as service users.
Systematic influencer marketing is still in its early stages, especially in Finland. As investments grow, the importance of measurement also increases and gains more weight. Some initial influencer marketing sales modeling has already been done, but only time will tell what forms measurement will take in the future!
