Influencer Marketing ROI of Campaigns: how to calculate it?

In this article we look at how to calculate the influencer marketing ROI (Return on Investment) of your Social Campaigns.

Have you activated influencer marketing campaigns before? If the answer is yes, know that to determine the true success of such actions, you need to know how to calculate ROI.

The return on investment, ROI precisely, is not measured in number of followers arrived as a result of an influencer’s posts: it is about real economic return, based on the predetermined purpose.

Today we are going to explain how to calculate the influencer marketing ROI of your campaign correctly and congegnal to your goals.

Your Company’s Business Can Evolve Through an Influencer Marketing Campaign

Business and Influencer Marketing, how these two interrelated strategies can greatly increase your Company’s Business and Brand Reputation.

Before talking in depth about this technique of Communication and especially Content Dissemination, let us explain what Influencer Marketing, also commonly referred to as Testimonial Marketing, is.

Translated to the Web and also to print media, it is that activity which is carried out by well-known people, not necessarily known to a wide audience, but who have a large body of followers in a particular field and who write specific content, with the purpose of conveying a product and/or service of a Company.

As in American advertisements of the early 50′-60′s, the use of testimonials has a reinforcing, illustrative, and descriptive purpose for a particular product and/or service.

We find the same concept in today’s Italian advertisements.

Just think of George Clooney sponsoring coffee and automatically to us Italians that kind of coffee immediately appears good, chic, famous, beautiful, distinctive, etc… and again “if Clerici says so, believe it!” and we immediately think of the well-known warehouse chain advertised by the hostess.

Influencer marketing campaign: what it is

In short, we can say that Influencer Marketing is the transposition to the web of what has already been happening for several years in print and TV.

Peculiarity of Influencer Marketing is that by using a significantly smaller budget , compared to what we would have to invest to carry out communication campaigns in print media or on television, we are able to reach a targeted audience in a capillary manner .

The advantage of the Web over television is the call-to-action.

While on television we can only invite users to make a phone call, send an email, enter a store, visit a website, etc., on the web we have the opportunity to sell our products and services right away, either through our eCommerce website or through the Shops of social channels such as Instagram, Facebook, Google Shopping and others.

Influencer Marketing ROI: determine your target

Before launching an influencer marketing campaign, you need to decide what you want to achieve.

Establishing an end goal is essential in determining how to measure it.

Below are some of the most common purposes and how to analyze them:

Brand awareness-There are two ways to measure brand awareness, namely the number of content produced by users and the impressions received;
Lead generation – Placing a form to sign up for a newsletter or to request an offer is one way to concretely evaluate contact generation;
Direct sales-Offering unique discount codes can help you track sales for each influencer involved;
Brand lift – The next step to awareness is measured by increasing interactions on social media and visitors to the website.

Remember that you can only measure your ROI if you choose your target before launching your campaign.

Design your long-term marketing campaign with measurement in mind

You will be able to measure your Influencer Marketing ROI correctly not only by choosing the end goal, but also the related measurement technique.

This implies that once you have defined your goal, you will need to ensure that you have the necessary resources for your influencer marketing campaign.

It is essential to monitor results to assess return on investment and provide your influencers with trackable codes or links so they can identify who has generated real results.

It is important to note that some “influencers” on social media resort to buying followers or use methods that do not comply with guidelines, such as BOTs.

Analyze the data and get your ROI Influencer Marketing

To achieve your ROI, as anticipated in the first paragraph, you need to take several factors into consideration. Let’s take some of the most commonly used purposes and give some concrete examples.

Increased sales

Measuring sales is much easier if you have your own e-commerce store. That said, the general principle is the same.

To determine your ROI (i.e., your monetary gain versus spending) you will need to deduct from the gross operating margin of that good and/or service sold through the influencer’s unique code, the total cost of the campaign.

Impression

Impressions are given by the number of people who saw a social media or blog post.

When activating an influencer marketing campaign, it is good to look at actual impressions without stopping at those calculated based on vanity metrics, such as number of followers.

Actual impressions are determined by the actual number of people who saw a post, and to determine this figure you will need to check theactual engagement achieved with each individual post.

In economic value, an average impression can be quantified at 0.01 euros.

To get your Influencer Marketing ROI you will need to multiply that value by actual or potential impressions and then deduct the cost of running the campaign.

Conversions

To measure conversions you will need to focus on the actions taken by a user after viewing the influencer’s branded post.

These actions can be downloading, purchasing, filling out a form, and so on.

To determine your ROI, you need to start by calculating the conversion rate achieved through a unique, trackable link assigned to each participating influencer (the well-known UTMs).

By providing an average value for each conversion, calculating the return on investment becomes simple.

Campaign goals and influencer ROI marketing?

In the age of fake Instagram influencers, the number of followers cannot and should not be the only metric to consider when laying the groundwork for a campaign.

Followers can be bought or acquired through BOTs, but engagement, authority and influence over users cannot.

“People trust people.”

This is why there is a need for healthy digital education to the influencer phenomenon.

Companies investing in such campaigns need to protect themselves and be able to understand where and why to focus their digital investments, which is why ROI is a key factor to consider.

Keep this in mind in your next influencer marketing campaign!

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