You're tight on budget for influencer partnerships. How can you measure their effectiveness?

clearly define your goals for influencer partnerships. Are you aiming to boost brand awareness, drive sales, or grow your social media following? Specific objectives will guide you in choosing the right metrics to track. For brand awareness, focus on the reach and engagement rates of the influencer's content. For sales-driven campaigns, track referral traffic and conversion rates.

For starters, it's extremely crucial to know what you want from your influencer partnership. Set goals! Just brand awareness? - analyze the engagement of their followers on their posts - this will tell you how interested they are in consuming the influencer's content Just sales? - focus on conversion rates or the traffic they are gaining through referrals. Don't just blindly follow influencer marketing, smartly adapt it!

At a consumer goods company, we partnered with an influencer to promote a new product. By tracking engagement rates, we noticed a 7% engagement rate on their posts about our product, significantly higher than the industry average of 3-4%. This high engagement rate indicated that the influencer’s followers were genuinely interested in the content, reinforcing our decision to work with them and leading to increased brand awareness and sales.

Engagement rates show how well an influencer's audience is receiving your brand's message. Calculate engagement by dividing total interactions (likes, comments, shares) by the influencer's number of followers, then multiply by 100 for a percentage. This metric reveals not just viewership but active interest. A high engagement rate indicates genuine interest from the influencer's followers in the content and brand

To track sales from an influencer partnership, use conversion tracking. Set up unique tracking codes or affiliate links for the influencer to include in their content. When a follower clicks the link and completes an action, like making a purchase or signing up for a newsletter, it's recorded. This data helps you correlate the influencer's efforts with tangible results, giving a clear picture of return on investment

Influencers are getting more and more expensive these days. A majority of influencers do not want free product and want to be paid for their time and posts along with free product. You need to understand first if the influencer aligns with your vision for marketing and the company. Authenticity is key here. While you may want to onboard macro influencers, these influencers are generally more expensive and their engagement rates are generally pretty bad. Consider looking at micro influencers instead and set up conversion tracking from there. Look at engagement rates, interaction rates (likes, comments, shares), CPM and CPE are also very important when evaluating influencers on a low budget. You want to ensure your maximize your money.

If budget is the factor, then CPE is the first step. More than followers (which could be fake), it is important to see number of likes, shares, views. Another very important point to check is whether the personality fits with your brand personality. Numbers are good to check as hygiene, but end of the day the impact comes if you choose the right person, with right attitude, skills etc.

Consider the long-term impact of influencer partnerships beyond immediate metrics. Building brand loyalty takes time and repeated exposure. Influencers who consistently feature your brand help foster a community around your products or services. Monitor changes in your social media followings or email subscriptions after an influencer campaign to gauge long-term effects. These indicators reveal the sustained value an influencer brings to brand

One factor usually skipped in influencer partnerships is - focusing on maintaining long-term impact and just reaping the benefits of recent results. Creating a long-term impact can be a golden way to build a strong brand presence and loyalty. If an influencer is using your product/service from time-to-time and showcasing it on their social media handle, this makes your brand memorable for longer period of time. -- You end up forming a group/community for your brand -- Consistent increase in the number of potential customers Do include this factor in your upcoming influencer partnership strategies!