How to Track Influencer Marketing ROI to Make Sure You Turn Profit

In marketing, there's one golden rule that pretty much everyone lives by— if you're spending money on it, you need to know what you're getting back in return.

Whether you're presenting to your team, reporting to the higher-ups, or just keeping tabs for your own peace of mind, understanding the return on investment (ROI) is crucial. And when it comes to influencer marketing, ROI is generally not clear.

Unlike traditional ad spend where you can track every penny, or public relations efforts where the focus is more on 'brand awareness', tracking the ROI of influencer marketing is a different beast. It's like trying to nail jelly to the wall 🥵 — challenging but not impossible.

How do we figure out if you're getting benefits from influencer marketing or just pouring money down the drain? That's exactly what we're diving into in this blog.

The goal is to make sure you're always turning a profit and it's showing in your performance report.

📄 Create landing pages, just for influencer marketing campaigns

Create a specific landing page that is exclusively used for traffic coming from influencers. All visitors who come from influencers come to this unique page, rather than going to your standard homepage or a general product page.

By doing this, you segregate the traffic from other sources like direct visits, organic searches, or other advertising channels. You can directly link the performance on this page (like conversions or sign-ups) to your influencer efforts, eliminating guesswork about which marketing channel is driving results.

On the dedicated influencer landing page, you can set up custom metrics and goals in your embedded analytics platform that are specific to influencer campaigns. You can also optimize it to achieve particular conversion goals relevant to these campaigns, such as signing up for a newsletter, registering for an event, or making a purchase.

The landing page can also be customized to reflect the messaging and style of the influencers, making it more relevant and appealing to their followers. This could include personalized greetings, images, or offers that resonate with the specific audience.

This idea works very well in two cases - if there's only one influencer or you just want to know how influencer marketing is contributing to your traffic or revenue rather than being concerned with how each influencer is doing.

You might not know exactly which influencer is driving most of the traffic or conversions. For that, check out the next idea

🔗 Give unique links to each influencer

Give each influencer a unique link that leads to the same landing page. These links should contain specific codes or identifiers, which will allow you to track which influencer is driving traffic and conversions to your website.

You can use URL parameters to append a unique identifier for each influencer. For instance, if your landing page URL is www.yourbrand.com, the unique link could look like www.yourbrand.com/?ref=influencername. Influencers can use these links in various places – their Instagram bio, YouTube video descriptions, blog posts, or even within social media posts.

For example, Athletic Greens has a landing page specific to each influencer. Notice the parameters added to the URL.

Link shortening and tracking services like Bitly or Google's Campaign URL Builder can come handy.

These tools make the links more user-friendly & also provide detailed analytics. You can gather data on various metrics like the number of clicks, & the amount of traffic sent by each influencer to your website.

But not all traffic is equal.

Look beyond just the clicks and traffic. Focus on conversion rates and the quality of traffic. An influencer sending less traffic but with higher conversion rates might be more valuable than one sending lots of traffic with few conversions.

You can also create these links in SARAL and reward your influencers with affiliate commissions, all in one place.

Here are two things to note when you pass on the links to influencers

• Clearly explain to them how these links work and the importance of not modifying them on their own or you'll lose the tracking ability.
• Ensure that influencers disclose the use of these links in their content for legal purposes — transparency and compliance with advertising standards.

🔖 Create influencer-specific codes

Influencer-specific codes are unique discount codes assigned to each influencer you partner with. For example, an influencer named Alex might share a code like “ALEX10” with their audience, offering a 10% discount on your products or services.

Pura Vida sends out unique and meaningful influencer codes to every new creator they onboard.

These codes make it easy to track how many sales are directly generated by each influencer's efforts. You can see how many times each code was used, giving a clear picture of the influencer's impact.

By comparing the performance of different codes, you can assess which influencers are most effective to drive sales.

How to implement influencer-specific codes:

• Easy-to-remember: Create codes that are easy for the audience to remember and associate with the influencer, like using the influencer's name as part of the code.
• Integration with your ecommerce platform: Make sure your ecommerce platform can track the usage of these codes. Most platforms have built-in capabilities or plugins/add-ons for this purpose. You can also create codes directly from SARAL.
• Clear terms and conditions: Define the terms of use for these codes, like validity periods, applicable products or services, and any other restrictions.

Don't forget that influencer codes may not capture the full impact of influencer efforts, like brand awareness, influencer-generated content or long-term customer loyalty. But they can give you an idea of ROI.

🛒 Send post-purchase surveys

Post-purchase surveys are questionnaires shown to customers after they complete a transaction. These surveys typically ask about where they heard about the brand or what factors influenced their purchase decision, including whether an influencer played a role or not.

Here are a few sample questions that can be included in the survey to understand the impact of influencers as well as other marketing avenues:

Primary discovery question: "How did you first hear about our brand?"

Options: Google/Search Engines, Influencers/Bloggers, Online Ads, Social Media (Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, etc.), Friends/Family, Other (please specify).

Influencer-specific question: "Did any influencer or blogger play a role in your decision to purchase our product?

Options: Yes, No

If Yes, follow-up question: "Please mention the influencer(s) or blogger(s) who influenced your decision."

Here's an example from the brand called Doe where they give an incentive to get answers from the customers —

And this is the first question they ask —

To increase response rates, present the survey at an appropriate time post-purchase, such as immediately after the transaction or via a follow-up email. Offer incentives for completing the survey, like a discount on future purchases.

Customers may not always accurately recall or disclose what influenced their purchase. Use the survey data in conjunction with other metrics like sales data, unique link clicks, etc., for a more comprehensive understanding of influencer impact.

💜 Use tools like SARAL

Tools like SARAL give a dashboard view of key performance indicators.

To measure ROI effectively, look at these metrics in combination rather than in isolation.

Understand each metric within the context of your influencer campaigns. For instance, if store traffic increases but revenue is not increasing as much, investigate if the influencers have the same audience as your target audience, or if there are issues with the product pricing or website conversion funnel.

Analyze trends over time rather than snapshots to get a better understanding of campaign performance. Seasonal fluctuations or market trends can influence these metrics.

🤔 Should you really obsess over the exact ROI you're getting from influencer marketing?

“How much ROI do we get from influencer marketing?” — It's a question that brand owners and marketers tend to obsess over.

But that's probably not the right question.

1️⃣ Customers don't just see your brand on an influencer's post and immediately buy. They might see it across ads, stores, and other platforms. So, you can't just attribute a sale to one channel.

2️⃣ Influencers are more than just salespeople. They introduce your product and also convince people to buy from you (not just buy your product from them).

❌ Obsessing over exact 'ROI' makes you miss the broad-picture impact that influencers have on your brand. Your real goal is to see if you're earning more after influencer marketing than before.

Another justification for investing in influencer marketing without being overly fixated on ROI is that since not many companies are doing it, you're likely to see a really good return on your investment due to the lower competition. Plus, by showing up in these spaces, you set yourself apart from others and stand out in the crowd.

Let us know in the chatbox if you need any help! If you need a simple way to start tracking influencer-driven sales, consider getting your free SARAL account.