Measuring Influencer Marketing Success: The Top KPIs All Retailers Should Be Tracking

Gen Zs and millennials continue to make up more and more of the U.S.’s consumer base. As of last year alone, the two generations were on track to account for nearly $350 billion of spending power (approximately $150 billion spent by Gen Z and around $200 billion by millennials). However, as generations that are historically known to not trust traditional advertising strategies, how are retailers and brands breaking through to them?

Two words: influencer marketing. Whether through affiliate links, branded partnerships, or even gifting products, more and more retailers are starting to realize that a successful influencer marketing campaign can really help to drive sales.

Unlike old-school advertisements,  influencer content comes off as organic. For many, they’ve been watching their favorite creators for years and feel more closely connected with them — trusting what they have to say almost as if a friend were to have recommended it. It’s actually been found that 92 percent of consumers trust an influencer more than an advertisement or traditional celebrity endorsement.

In order to understand the full power of an influencer marketing campaign, brand marketers must first understand how to effectively measure them. While vanity metrics such as likes and comments are nice to report on, it’s also important to track additional key performance indicators (KPIs) to get a more holistic look at a campaign's performance and return on investment. Top KPIs to help track an influencer marketing campaign's impact on the customer journey include:

• Clicks: With the mindset that it takes six to eight marketing touches to generate a sales lead, clicks are often a brand's first touchpoint with a potential customer. While they may not have a direct tie to a monetary benefit, it's still a good metric that helps measure the engagement of a post.
• Cost Per Click Per Sale: This will help marketers understand how much ad spend is required to earn a link click. Similarly, cost per sale is another KPI to track that helps uncover the net profit from influencers. These can be determined by dividing profit from affiliate sales by the number of sales or clicks generated.
• Conversion Rate: This metric will help define the quality of website traffic driven by a campaign. If your team of influencers is generating loads of unique visitors with a low conversion rate, the quality of traffic isn't ideal. By determining the conversion rate, your brand can identify which influencers are successful in generating quality leads.
• Influencer Share of Total Sales: Brands will want to track the share of total sales that influencers are responsible for. By calculating how much of the total sales are a result of influencer marketing, brands can determine the efficacy of their program.

Influencer campaigns are a great way to generate sales and reach new audiences. From discovery and campaign management, to cross-platform reporting and data, there are a lot of moving pieces to an effective campaign. Retailers that are looking to scale their efforts should partner with an influencer marketing platform that can handle and automate every aspect of a project. This will help track important metrics, like the above, while giving marketers time back to focus on more value-add initiatives such as coming up with creative activations or a company’s next best product.

Once brands fully understand the data behind a successful influencer marketing campaign and see its direct impact on sales, they’ll need that time back to already begin thinking of their next viral strategy.

Krishna Subramanian co-founded Captiv8 in 2015 and has helped develop the company into the largest AI-powered branded content platform that connects companies to digital influencers to tell authentic, powerful stories.