According to a study by Nielsen (2012) more than 90% of consumers trust in peer-recommendations, whereas only 30% trust in traditional advertising. With influencer marketing, peer-recommendations can be professionally integrated into the marketing mix of any company. Influencers are people who have a special status because of their large reach in social media and therefore, are able to spread recommendations for products and services in an authentic way among their target audience. According to the principle “pictures say more than a thousand words” the social media platform Instagram seems to be the perfect platform to stage branded content through influencers. However, influencer marketing on Instagram is for many agencies and brands still “unknown territory” and poses some challenges. Was my campaign successful? How can the success of campaigns be measured? Which indicators are relevant for successful campaigns? We believe that marketers need an advanced tool-set for influencer marketing analytics to conduct successful campaigns.
Tips for measuring influencer marketing
There are two important steps within a campaign which increase the chances of success of a campaign: (1) Selecting the right influencers as well as (2) the analysis of the campaign thereafter. Unlike other forms of marketing, of which only the historical success of the campaign is measured, the analysis and selection of the right influencers prior to starting the campaign is the most important part.
The following questions must be considered and answered when selecting the right influencers:
1. Which average engagement rate do the influencers have for their posts?
Engagement rate = (likes + comments) / total number of the influencers’ followers.
The analysis of the average engagement rate is important in order to predict a trend of future interactions.
2. Which topic engagement rate does the influencers have?
Topic engagement rate = engagement rate of all posts that are related to the topic of interest.
The topic engagement rate is decisive for the quality of an influencer who should promote a specific product or service. For this purpose, all posts in a topic area must be identified and the engagement rate from these posts needs to be calculated.
3. Analysis of the influencer marketing campaign
Once the campaign has been finished, it is necessary to measure the success of it. The most important KPIs are the following:
- Number of likes and comments per posting and overall
- Engagement rate per posting and overall
- Sentiment score per posting and overall
The sentiment score describes the basic mood state (positive, negative, neutral) of all the followers’ comments on a posting.
Summarized, agencies and brands have several KPIs they should focus on when analyzing a campaign. Specific campaign goals are essential to get valid data from a campaign and should be defined well.