Using an Influencer Marketing Strategy? 3 Tips on How to Measure Your ROI

Recently, I was having a conversation with one of my clients, a real estate agent, about how she measures her ROI, using an influencer marketing strategy.

Her marketing strategy was simple. A barter trade partnership with a locally renowned social media influencer. The influencer would host her podcast and YouTube shows in her fully furnished apartments for free.
During the shoots, the influencer mentions her location as an ad, does a house tour for her followers, and tags my client on all her social media channels.
Through that strategy, on day three of the shoots, ads, and social media content, my client successfully signed two tenants to occupy the apartments; for a six-month tenancy period.

Simple, she got tenants to her apartments. That was her bottom line. She measures and ties her ROI; which is having tenants, to investing in the influencer. Although barter trade, it pays off.

This article will discuss these 3 tips on how to measure your ROI when using an influencer for your marketing strategy. These are through:
Coupon codes
Shoppable posts,
Affiliate links.

How Influencer marketing boosts ROI
To connect and engage with brand users, social media influencers maximize your marketing impact. They improve engagement with your brand with their audiences.

By 2022, the industry was set to grow up to $13.8 Billion, and 75% of companies dedicating an influencer marketing budget. Unfortunately, only 67% of companies measure their ROI from influencer marketing.
Mainstream media is no longer the only advertising option for companies. Adapting to the new marketing trends will see your company grow.

1. Coupon codes to measure marketing impact
These are also known as discount codes or promo codes. These are digital codes that a shopper can use during checkout and get a discount on the product or service.

Using these codes is an excellent motivation for audiences to experience what your brand has to offer. Influencer followers watch and like what their influencers do and try to be like them. If they see their favorite influencer publicize an item at a discount, they are more likely to make a purchase.
For e-commerce, influencers can;
Help drive conversions through Web traffic
Improve social media sales. These are sales that you attribute directly to an influencer marketing campaign either through a specific post or content.

Therefore, you can customize these codes for each influencer so you can measure the impact of the campaign, and the number of direct sales attributed to them.For example, if using Caroline Mutoko as an influencer, her code could read mutoko007 to get a 5% discount for every purchase.

You may also segment the coupon codes by product, season, or offers. This way, you can track metrics based on real-time data. For example, you can be able to know which products or offers incentivize audiences more, to make purchases during certain campaigns.

When measuring metrics of brand exposure or sales, you know how the direct promo code links to the influencer and impacts your business.

2. Using Shoppable posts to drive sales
This is the new way of buying.
A shoppable post is a post on social media, it can be an image, video, or advertisement that one can click through and make a direct purchase.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, there was a tremendous shift from physical buying to social buying. Brands are capitalizing on this trend as more and more people are making social buying decisions on a whim.
TikTok, Instagram, and Facebook allow users to buy products on the app. This is because target consumers want to buy what they see and like instantly.

Shoppable posts improve conversion rates through targeted and personalized ads.
Create compelling ads, videos, or images that resonate with your target audience; will encourage them to make a purchase.

Influencers use creative content to compel their audience to take action. For example, an influencer can do a live stream to demonstrate how your product works and how it has improved their lives.

You can monitor this live stream analytics, by the number of viewers, orders for your product as well and engagement rate for each campaign.

By partnering with small but niched-down influencers, these posts can help your brand earn trust, through social proof. They also drive sales for your products.

For example, Barbour, increased their sales using Instagram shoppable posts to help their consumers find what they were looking for. They used a targeted approach for their adverts, which enabled them to reduce the amount of time a consumer would use online, looking for their products.

The key metrics on these shoppable posts include increased brand engagement on the social media pages, sales, and website traffic.

For more qualitative results, use social tracking tools such as Social mentions or Brandwatch. Influencers can influence your brand mentions and what people say about your brand.

This data is valuable and will help you measure the influencer campaign ROI. To track all your analytics, Sked Social helps organize properly.

Using shoppable posts makes it easy for audiences to make short sales funnel without delay and offers a better brand experience. Your clients can find you wherever you are online.

3. How Affiliate links boost traffic
These are critical for measuring sales attribution and the success of the marketing campaign. These links in most cases, offer discounts and exclusive offers, that help affiliates generate leads and get their commissions.

To track the performance of influencers, customize these links for each influencer. The affiliate links have a unique affiliate ID at the end of the brand’s URL. They drive traffic to your website as they are links in your web pages from your domain.

Using marketing automation software,
You can create landing pages with unique affiliate IDs.
Use tags to analyze visitor traffic and conversion through those links.

You can also use google analytics to monitor consumer behavior on your website. This will give you a clear record of sales. Analytics gives you a clear road map of how many times your content was clicked, where consumers went within the website, and what action they took.

Affiliate programs have a longer life span than promo codes. This is because, once a campaign is over and you pay the influencer, he or she may opt to continue using their affiliate links. They can get paid through cost per sale, cost per click, or cost per lead.

Cost per sale is when you pay the influencer based on the number of sales generated. So if after a campaign period, the influencer continues attracting sales, then, pay them a commission per sale.

An influencer can negotiate on the cost-per-click pay, based on the number of clicks on their link regardless of sales. Similarly, the cost-per-lead option enables you to pay the influencer for the number of leads generated by their affiliate link.

For successful ROI metrics, place tracking links for conversions within the influencer’s content. This will help you analyze the data and make decisions focusing on an authentic connection with your target audience.

Measure key metrics for influencer marketing ROI
Get your brand on social media channels to monitor and evaluate influencers’ impact on your brand effectively. Ensure you have these channels, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube channel, Facebook, website, and any other online platform.

These are the marketing channels that will drive engagement and traffic to your brand.
Every business’s objective is to grow its sales, improve its customer relations and ensure that they remain visible.

Evaluate the metrics and get more from the influencer marketing strategy that will add value to your business.

As a brand, keep exploring influencer options to grow your brand and different audience engagement. Look at the dynamics of the target market, reach, and products you’re trying to promote. Then customize the ROI key metrics and use that to drive traffic to your social media channels that later convert to sales.

So, what’s your business bottom line or goal when looking to work with an influencer? How do you know you have achieved the desired outcome? Also, how do you get the most out of this engagement?

Remember, every influencer marketing strategy has its objective. For example, a contest or giveaway will focus on increasing followers and traffic to their websites and social media channels, while promotional influencing will seek to drive more sales.