Wondering which influencer marketing KPIs to track? Key metrics help brands measure the success of their influencer partnerships and content. With tons of different metrics out there, it’s important to focus on the right ones and know how to accurately track them. Let’s dive into which metrics should be on your radar, and why.
Why Track Influencer Marketing KPIs?
Influencer marketing has many moving parts, from finding the right creators to measuring campaign success. With so much to keep track of, it's easy to get overwhelmed. By focusing on key metrics, you can cut through the noise, understand what's really working, and make data-driven decisions.
Here’s how you can use KPIs to guide your influencer marketing strategy and achieve better results:
- Find Your Perfect Match: Metrics help you find the right influencers for your brand and vet potential creators
- Benchmark Performance: Compare different influencers, campaigns, and strategies to identify what works best for your brand
- Prove ROI: Measure the ROI and profitability of your campaigns, justify your influencer marketing spend and demonstrate value to others
By tracking the right metrics, you can get a clear picture of how well your influencer marketing is performing. Now, let’s take a deeper look at the exact metrics you should be tracking.
1. Follower Count
What it is: The total number of followers an influencer has on a platform such as Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube.
Why it's important: Follower count provides a quick gauge of an influencer's potential reach and audience size. It helps you categorize influencers into tiers such as nano, micro, macro, and mega-influencers, each offering different benefits and costs.
Big accounts with millions of followers can offer celebrity-like exposure. Selena Gomez, for example, has 424M followers on Insta. However, stars often come with hefty price tags that can reach six or seven figures. On the other hand, smaller accounts with around 20,000 followers might collaborate for product gifting or more modest fees.
Follower count helps brands figure out their budget and strategy, matching their goals with the right size of influencer. That said, a ton of followers doesn't guarantee that people will actually engage with or buy your stuff. It's smart to look at follower count alongside other metrics to get the full picture.
2. Creator Engagement Rate
What it is: The overall level of interaction an influencer's content receives relative to their follower count. Here’s how to work it out:
(Total Interactions / Total Followers) x 100
Why it's important: It shows how actively an influencer's audience interacts with their content, often indicating the quality of their following and the content itself.
It's normal for larger accounts to have a slightly lower engagement rate, but you should still aim for about 1-2% as a baseline. For example, this US-based beauty influencer with 53k followers has an overall engagement rate of 2.1%, which puts her in the top 20% of her niche.
Here's where it gets interesting: check the engagement rates for both branded and non-branded posts. This comparison tells you how receptive the audience might be to sponsored content and how much effort the influencer puts into brand collaborations.
Remember, a high engagement rate often translates to better campaign results, even if the follower count isn't massive. It's all about quality over quantity.
3. Branded Content Percentage
What it is: The proportion of an influencer's content that includes brand collaborations. Here’s how to work it out:
(Number of Branded Posts / Total Posts) x 100
Why it's important: It indicates how frequently an influencer works with brands. You usually want to see some brand experience - it shows they know how to work with companies and deliver on campaigns. But you don't want this percentage to be too high either.
If an account is full of with #ad posts, it might be oversaturated. When that happens, the audience can get a bit numb to marketing messages, and your brand might not stand out. The goal is to partner with influencers who can seamlessly blend your brand message into their authentic content mix.
For example, this French fashion influencer has a branded content percentage of 21.3%, which suggests she does partner with brands, but her feed isn’t a billboard.
4. Average Estimated Reach
What it is: The average number of unique users expected to see an influencer's content.
Why it's important: Average Estimated Reach gives you a realistic idea of how many people you could potentially connect with through an influencer partnership.
In Joana LeFebvre's case, we can see her Average Estimated Reach is 5k. That’s how many users see her posts on average.
This number is useful for campaign planning. It helps you set realistic expectations for your campaign's visibility and can guide your influencer selection process.
5. Estimated Reach
What it is: The total number of users who are likely to have seen the content.
Sum of views by unique users
Why it's important: Estimated Reach gives you an idea of how far your message has spread.
Let's say UK lifestyle influencer Eva Rankiin posts this ad for your brand. You can see the Estimated Reach is 49.7k. That’s the number of people your brand message potentially reached.
This metric is super helpful for gauging the initial impact of your campaign. It tells you how many eyeballs you've potentially gotten on your product or message. Reach doesn't equal engagement or conversions, but it's a crucial first step. After all, people can't engage with or buy your product if they haven't seen it in the first place.
6. Engagement Rate
What it is: The percentage of people who engaged with the content after seeing it. Here’s how to work it out:
(Total Engagements / Reach) x 100
Why it's important: Engagement rate tells you how well your message is resonating with the audience. It indicates how compelling and relevant the content is to the audience who sees it. Are they just scrolling by, or are they stopping to like and comment?
This metric helps you gauge if you've nailed the content, picked the right influencer, and if the audience is vibing with your brand. It's especially handy when you're comparing different influencers or trying to figure out what type of content works best.
Take this post by a German beauty influencer for the beauty retailer Douglas. The 1.4% engagement rate gives you a quick snapshot of how her followers responded to the ad.
7. Estimated Media Value (EMV)
What it is: Estimated media value helps you understand how much a creator and their content is worth in financial terms. You need to know the CPM, reach factor (percentage of followers who see the post), and follower count.
You can use our free calculator to work it out without doing the math yourself.
Why it's important: EMV is a monetary value. It provides a way to assess the value of influencer content in a similar way to traditional advertising.
For instance, Kim Kardashian's Instagram post about her new SKIMS store in Georgetown has an EMV of €449k.
This metric helps quantify the impact of influencer collaborations. It's particularly useful when evaluating the return on investment of influencer partnerships or when presenting the value of these collaborations to stakeholders.
8. Interactions
What it is: Engagement actions on a post, including likes, comments, shares, and views.
Why it's important: Interactions provide a concrete measure of audience engagement with influencer content.
In a recent post, US-based creator Mikayla Nogueira Hawken shared how e.l.f. Cosmetics had made her CEO for a day and she had decided to reintroduce her favorite lip duo. This approach drove strong engagement, including 106.7k likes and 2.7k comments.
By tracking interactions, brands can gauge which types of content, creators, and campaign strategies resonate best with their target audience.
9. Revenue
What it is: The total amount of money generated from sales attributed to an influencer marketing campaign.
Why it's important: Revenue is a direct indicator of your influencer marketing campaign's financial impact. It helps you understand the actual monetary return from your investment in influencer partnerships.
By tracking revenue, you can identify which influencers and types of content are most effective at driving sales. It also provides concrete evidence of influencer marketing's value.
10. ROAS (Return on Ad Spend)
What it is: The amount of revenue generated for every dollar spent on an influencer marketing campaign. Storyclash has a Shopify integration which calculates this metric for you. To work it out yourself, here is the formula:
(Revenue Generated/Cost of Campaign)x100
Why it's important: ROAS helps you calculate the ROI of your campaigns by directly comparing your spend to the revenue generated. It's a key metric for assessing the profitability of your influencer marketing program.
ROAS also enables you to compare the performance of influencer marketing to other marketing channels, helping you optimize your overall marketing mix.
By focusing on ROAS, you can ensure that your influencer marketing efforts are not just driving engagement, but actively contributing to your bottom line.
Track All These Influencer Marketing Metrics and More
Want a fast, easy way to track these KPIs automatically?
Storyclash provides the insights you need to measure and optimize your influencer marketing strategy. Our platform lets you monitor everything (including hard-to-track content like Instagram stories!)
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