Viktoria Kammeyer
What exactly is a KPI?
A KPI (Key Performance Indicator) - or quite simply: a key performance indicator - is like an important yardstick for your marketing strategy. You can use it to track developments and measure whether you are on the right track. These metrics are super important for making adjustments during your campaigns and checking whether you are achieving your goals. In influencer marketing, KPIs take the stage in two categories: quantitative indicators, which provide you with hard numbers on the performance of your campaigns (reach, engagement, conversions...), and qualitative indicators, which allow you to evaluate the perception and real impact of your actions on your target group. This dual strategy ensures that you have the complete picture of your campaign performance in view.
Quantitative KPIs - the foundation on which your success is built
While traditional marketing often only focuses on sales figures, influencer marketing plays on several keyboards at the same time: awareness, engagement, conversion... This complexity requires a more sensitive approach to measuring success.
KPIs need to reflect the full range of interactions between brands, creators and their fans. They're more than just simple sales figures. They allow us to evaluate the overall impact of an influencer campaign. These indicators are directly linked to your marketing goals and provide you with a clear and measurable understanding of how well your influencer strategy is performing. Here comes the top league of your influencer KPIs:
- Brand Awareness/Brand Awareness:
Goal: Your brand and your products should be in the spotlight and be remembered.
Reach: Who has seen all of the influencer's content? This figure tells you how widely your campaign has been distributed.
Impressions: How often was your content viewed in total? Gives you a first impression of how present you were. But beware: it also counts if someone only scrolled over it briefly. Real attention looks different!
Views: Super important, especially for videos! How often was the video really viewed? A clear indicator of genuine interest. - Engagement:
Goal: People should interact with your content and love it!
Overall engagement: Likes, shares, comments, saves, mentions - all this shows you at a glance how active your audience is.
Engagement rate: The queen of engagement KPIs! It puts interactions in relation to reach, views or the number of followers. This shows you how well your content is really being received.
Social media mentions: How often is your brand mentioned on social media? A sign of conversation and popularity! - Traffic generation:
Goal: To drive visitors from social media directly to your website or landing page.
Referral Traffic: Shows you how many visitors or clicks have come to your site directly from your influencers' content. Bull's eye!
New users: How many first-time visitors did you gain through the campaign? Fresh blood for your audience!
Bouncerate: Shows whether the visitors who came via the influencers also stayed on your site or left straight away. The lower the better!
Click Through Rate (CTR): The ratio of clicks to people who have seen the link. Shows how enticing the call to action was! - Follower growth:
Goal: Your social media fan base should grow.
New followers: The pure number of new subscribers during the campaign.
Follower growth rate: How fast is your community growing in relation to time? - Conversions and sales:
Goal: Engagement should turn into tangible actions, such as purchases or registrations.
Conversions : Tracks the desired actions that are directly attributable to the campaign (purchases, registrations, subscriptions). Hard facts for your success!
Attribution: Who did it? This KPI helps you to understand which influencer, which content or which platform contributed significantly to your sales. Detective work for your ROI! - Value generation:
Goal: Measure the return of the campaign in relation to the costs.
Earned Media Value (EMV): Imagine what you would have had to pay to get the same attention through paid advertising. The EMV estimates the value of your unpaid reach (shares, mentions, etc.). The "free" advertising value, so to speak!
Return on investment (ROI): The classic! What did you invest and what more did you get out of it (in the best case)? But ROI can also take into account the value of non-monetary gains such as brand awareness, which can be measured by EMV. - Efficiency:
Goal: Measure the cost and efficiency of actions and interactions generated by campaigns.
CPM (cost per thousand impressions): What does it cost you to achieve 1,000 impressions? Helps you to evaluate the visibility of your campaign and optimize your budget.
CPE (Cost per Engagement): What does each user interaction with your content cost you? Shows the profitability of the campaign in terms of engagement.
CPV (Cost per View): What does each full video view cost you? Important for video campaigns and their ability to hold attention.
CPC (Cost per Click): What do you have to invest to generate a click? Helps to measure the effectiveness of the campaign in generating traffic.
CPA (Cost per Acquisition): What does it cost you to acquire a new customer via the campaign? The ultimate ROI indicator for conversions!
Qualitative KPIs - when numbers suddenly tell stories
Let's be honest, pure numbers are sometimes a bit...sober, aren't they? Sure, reach and engagement are important, but they don't tell you what people really think about your campaign. This is exactly where qualitative KPIs come into play! They are like the emotional compass needle of your campaign and help you understand how your message is really being received.
These indicators not only measure how many people interact with your content, but above all how they perceive it. Are they excited? Curious? Or maybe even a little skeptical?
The qualitative KPIs are based on a few key indicators:
- Comment box: are the reactions more positive, negative or neutral? Here you can see at a glance whether the mood is good or whether there is a sizzle somewhere.
- Recurring keywords: Which words and topics come up again and again in the comments? This tells you what people are really concerned about and what they are talking about. Keyword bingo!
- Expressed emotions: What feelings resonate in the reactions? Enthusiasm, curiosity, skepticism...? Even the use of emojis is put under the microscope here to analyze the emotional range of reactions.
Your advantages at a glance?
- Recognize the strengths and weaknesses of your message immediately
- Understand the real expectations of your target group
- Adapt your content strategy immediately
- Recognize and act on potential crises at an early stage
Measure your influencer marketing KPIs correctly
Defining and tracking KPIs is one thing - but measuring them so that you really get something out of them is a whole other league! The key to success? A clear plan and the right tools.
The be-all and end-all: good monitoring
Before you even start measuring, you need to define tough targets! Every KPI is important, but depending on your strategy, some are simply more relevant than others. Our tip: It's better to focus on a few really crucial KPIs instead of getting lost in too many details. Less is often more!
Promise, you won't need a math degree for this!
- Reach: Counts individual users over a period of time (avoid double counting so as not to confuse the number with impressions). But beware: The various platforms count differently.
- Conversion rate: (number of conversions / visitors from influencers) x 100%
Use individual codes, UTMs & landing pages for concrete results. - EMV: Estimated value of unpaid reach (likes, shares, etc.). The calculation is a bit tricky: Each interaction type is assigned a certain monetary value (based on the Ayzenberg index, which regularly adjusts these values). Then all values are added together. Remember: These values can change depending on the platform!
Your superhero tools: Measurability made easy
To accurately track your KPIs and adjust your strategy during campaigns, influencer marketing software solutions like IROIN® by Stellar Tech are worth their weight in gold! They bundle all your data in real time so that you can react and optimize immediately. From the search for the ideal influencers, the analysis of the respective target groups and the creation of your individual influencer portfolio (CRM) to campaign management and the creation of data-based reports, you have everything clearly and reliably in one place.
Source: https://www.ayzenberg.com/
Which KPIs count where?
Every platform has its own peculiarities - so far, so wild. Here we have checked the most important KPIs for you:
Instagram: Focus on interaction!
- Reach: Individual users who saw your content
- Views: Content ads (from 3 sec.)
- Impressions: Total number of ads
- Engagement: Comments, likes, shares, saves
- Engagement rate: Interactions / reach (top KPI!)
- Account growth: followers, bio clicks, mentions
TikTok: Virality and watchtime at a glance!
- Engagement rate: Interactions / Views
- Engagement: comments, likes, shares, saves
- Visibility: Views, average playback time, completion rate
- Performance: Traffic sources, follower growth, retention rate. Pro Tip: TikTok Creative Center for trending hashtags!
YouTube: Watch time and fans are king!
- Visibility & Interaction: Views, CTR, Impressions, CPC
- Video Performance: Watchtime, Played To Rate, Audience Retention, CPV
- Conversion & Engagement: Conversion Rate, Engagement Rate.
IMPORTANT: Watchtime & Engagement > pure views!
LinkedIn: B2B impact counts!
- Engagement & visibility: Content engagement (likes, clicks, shares...), mentions, impressions, reach
- Audience: Follower growth, demographics, page visits, SSI (Sales Navigator)
- Performance: CTR, conversion rate, cost per conversion
The most important factors for your influencer marketing success!
To really keep your influencer marketing campaigns on track and measure their success, you should focus on some basic KPIs. Keep an eye on reach and awareness by tracking follower numbers, impressions and the overall visibility of your content. Engagement and interaction with your target group is also crucial. Analyze likes, comments, shares, mentions and, above all, the engagement rate to understand how well your content is being received. Don't forget to measure the impact of your influencers on your digital ecosystem by keeping an eye on traffic and lead generation (website visits, social media traffic). What counts in the end, of course, is the concrete return on your campaigns in the form of conversions and sales. Evaluate the actions that your influencers trigger (purchases, registrations, leads). To see the big picture, combine the direct return on investment (ROI) with the earned media value (EMV) to get a comprehensive assessment of your profitability. With these core KPIs, you can navigate the world of influencer marketing with confidence and ensure measurable success!