In the ever-changing landscape of social media marketing, influencer partnerships and collaborations can be a highly effective way to promote a brand and its products. In recent years, the pool of influencers to choose from has become increasingly oversaturated meaning companies now have more ability to pick and choose the best individual to suit their image, personality, and values. But when it comes to justifying spend and analysing results, it can be challenging to ensure influencer marketing yields the best return on investment (ROI).
Recently, we took part in a conference and networking event hosted by Traackr to explore how to effectively monitor, analyse, and optimise influencer marketing strategies, guaranteeing their engagement and cost-efficiency for our clients. Here’s what we took away from the event…
Performance-driven influencer marketing
First on the agenda was the significance of performance-driven strategies and the pivotal role of data in guiding decision-making within influencer campaigns. This approach allows brands to establish realistic goals, select suitable partners, and report on the impacts. Performance-driven influencer marketing employs an iterative feedback loop, consisting of the following stages: Launch Campaign –> Analyse –> Adjust –> Repeat.
Traackr proposed six steps to successful performance-driven influencer marketing:
- Define Business Objectives: Begin by outlining your business objectives, such as increasing sales, expanding the customer base, or enhancing customer loyalty.
- Set Influencer Program Goals: Set goals based on the brand’s historical performance and market growth relative to competitors, using brand ranking platforms.
- Define Campaign Strategy: Decide on the campaign strategy and allocate resources, whether through paid partnerships, organic seeding, or boosting posts on social platforms.
- Set Campaign Objectives and KPIs: Establish campaign objectives and key performance indicators (KPIs) to measure success.
- Identify and Vet Creators with Data: Utilize data insights to evaluate content quality, audience interests, and past performance of potential creators.
- Analyse and Optimize Performance: Continuously assess and optimize performance by comparing metrics such as audience size, reach per mention, video view rate, cost per impression, cost per mention, cost per view, engagement rate, and conversion rate.
When planning for successful influencer marketing ROI, it’s crucial to consider three key pillars: creator volume (the number of engaged influencers), frequency (how often each influencer promotes the brand), and the size of activated influencers’ follower base. Brands can choose to excel in one specific area, rather than striving to balance all three components.
Making every penny count with spend efficiency
After a quick coffee and networking break, the second session explored maximizing a budget’s effectiveness by utilising spend efficiency metrics. A data-driven approach underpins spend efficiency, focusing on measuring outputs like posts, engagements, and views against inputs to evaluate the success of investments and identify areas for optimization. These metrics can be meticulously analysed and compared across post type, influencer tier, and platform to gain clarity on what truly works. Traackr demonstrated how to record and map these results for easy analysis, simplifying the process of pinpointing the most successful creators, efficient campaigns, and the highest-gaining awareness initiatives.
Photo / Graph credit: Traackr.com
Influencer marketing is not a one-size-fits-all strategy, and ROI can vary significantly from one campaign to the next depending on the overall goals, KPIs and company strategy. By calculating ROI, setting clear objectives, partnering with the right influencers, and continuously optimizing your approach, brands can ensure that influencer marketing efforts yield the best possible returns on investment. But it is important to remember ROI is not just about the initial buzz, it’s also about building a sustainable and profitable advocacy channel for long-term success.
If you’re looking for influencer marketing but don’t know where to start, Honest can help! Get in touch with our team via hello@honestcommunications.co.uk.
