KPI Influencer-Marketing: These Are the Most Important Metrics for Your Influencer Marketing

1. 6 Influencer marketing goals as a starting point
2. Why do we need influencer marketing KPIs in the first place?
3. The influencer marketing revolution & today's most important KPIs
4. ⁠The most important influencer marketing KPIs
5. Keeping an eye on the influencer marketing KPIs
6. With tools to influencer marketing success

More and more companies and agencies are planning to increase their advertising spend for the use of influencers. Statista predicts over 600 million euros in advertising spend in Germany in 2024 based on its own projections. A truly impressive figure when we think back to the beginnings of influencer marketing. To a time when this discipline was still struggling to get started.

Despite all resistance, influencer marketing has not only been able to hold its own, but has long since established itself. The scalability of influencer marketing measures has certainly contributed to this, i.e. the possibility to relate these also with other digital measures. In the beginning, it was likes and comments, today there is a wide range of KPIs that can be used to measure success.

In this article, our guest author and Senior Digital Marketing Consultant in the field of influencer marketing, Marlene Petz, explains which KPIs exist in influencer marketing and the question of why we actually need these.

6 Influencer marketing goals as a starting point

One of the most important questions you should ask yourself at the beginning of an influencer marketing campaign is the question of the goal. Do I want to achieve reach to place my message/brand/product in the mindset of as many potential customers as possible, or do I want to increase my sales figures through a suitable influencer activation in the end? All these goals have an impact on the entire Influencer marketing strategy.

There are a whole host of Influencer marketing goals from which to choose:

Influencer marketing goals as an overview

• Reach: The targeted use of influencers should make the message accessible to as many people as possible. The reach goal is one of the most popular goals in influencer marketing.
• Interaction: A popular goal to increase the engagement with a message is that of interaction or share of voice. Interaction includes classic engagement metrics such as voting, comments, retweets, bookmarks, reactions and direct messages.
• Sales: Also one of the most popular goals of influencer marketing is the sales goal, i.e. the sale of products/services. This includes both online and offline sales figures, although the measurability of the latter is more difficult to capture, and is usually solved via (QR) codes.
• Leads: Leads for the mailing list, or leads for later activations - customer data is highly sought after. The use of influencers can also support this goal of influencer marketing.
• Traffic: Promoting a new campaign page can also be the focus, as can increasing the traffic on any page of the website. The selection of suitable influencers and content formats can support the achievement of this goal.
• Downloads: An increasingly popular influencer marketing goal is that of downloads. Influencer marketing measures can help, for example, to increase app downloads, or downloads of guides.

These influencer marketing goals help later in the selection of suitable KPIs. A campaign should always have only one primary goal, to which the campaign strategy or the concept is aligned. It is not excluded that, for example, a reach campaign, also achieves a good share of voice. The Tips on influencer marketing from OMR Reviews can also help in achieving the goal.

Why do we need influencer marketing KPIs in the first place?

The measurement of success and the justification of the influencer marketing measures are the key reasons to mention. KPIs, Key Performance Indicators or simply called key figures, are the go-to instrument to demonstrate the success of the influencer marketing measures in figures and to make them measurable. This can happen both continuously and at the end of the campaign.

Even though influencer marketing as a discipline has already proven itself, it is a new field for many companies. Here, the desire meets the demand to be able to compare the influencer marketing measures with other digital media measures.
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⁠The question arises whether influencer marketing can actually deliver this comparability? ⁠Basically, a large KPI set allows for this comparability. CPM, ROIs, CPC - are mentioned here as three popular KPIs that are often used.

It is important that a comparison does not neglect the usual factors such as platform, budget and runtime. Nevertheless, there is now the opportunity to scale and make comparisons, especially in the branding area.

Influencer Marketing KPI Calculation

Another reason why it makes sense to define KPIs for one's influencer marketing measures is the possibility to make performance predictions for campaigns based on them. These should be put in relation to the results at the end of the campaign to evaluate the success of the campaign. Agencies are asked here, among other things, to show already before the start of the campaign what results can be expected.

At this point, it should be mentioned that it is more difficult to make predictions for some influencer marketing KPIs and social media platforms - especially when it comes to conversion metrics. Based on experience, it can be estimated which influencers will likely perform strongly - however, it is difficult to foresee how much will be sold in the end.

The influencer marketing revolution & today's most important KPIs

In the field of metrics, influencer marketing has made a truly impressive development. At the beginning, the influencer marketing success criteria were the number of comments and likes, and/or the number of blog readers.

Unlike today, influencer marketing was still limited to Instagram and the blog. There were no real insights yet, even though Blogger and WordPress already had access to analytic data back then, and thus listed KPIs such as Monthly Unique Visitors.

Instagram has also made an impressive development and now provides detailed insights for its different formats, such as Story, Reels and Feedposts. From initial engagement KPIs like likes and comments, through impressions and reach, to profile activities - today you can choose from the full range.

⁠Screenshot IG then vs. now with insights

The same applies to TikTok, YouTube, Twitch and Pinterest - a whole KPI set is available here. The latter platform should be particularly highlighted here.

Pinterest positioned itself very early on as a platform exciting for influencers - for a long time it was considered an insider tip to increase traffic to one's own website and to positively influence the SEO ranking in the long term.

Companies can still benefit from the former today, especially in combination with a paid push. The interesting thing about TikTok marketing is also in the field of insights and KPIs. The platform not only provides detailed insights, but also offers influencers the chance to access insight in real time and, among other things, display metrics such as impressions, interactions and the engaged target group. Due to the lack of planning ability of performance, Pinterest will continue to be traded as an add-on in influencer marketing campaigns.

⁠The most important influencer marketing KPIs

But what are the most important influencer marketing KPIs? As mentioned at the beginning, the goal initially defines which KPIs can be used to measure success. A reach goal should not focus on engagement KPIs. The primary metric here should clearly be reach.

However, engagement figures can still be reported here. Cost metrics in particular are popular KPIs in the area of success measurement, as they allow comparison with other digital media marketing measures. Based on the goals mentioned further up in the article, the following KPIs can be chosen:

• Reach: Reach, Impressions, Performance Impressions, Views, CPM, CPV
• Interaction: Comments, Likes, Shares, Retweets, Bookmarks, Saves, Direct Messages, Reactions, CPE (Cost per Engagement)
• Sales: Orders, CPO (Cost per Order)
• Leads: Leads, CPL (Cost per Lead)
• Traffic: Clicks, CTR, CPC (Cost per Click) Downloads: Downloads, CPD (Cost per Download)

A look at the above-mentioned influencer marketing KPIs already provides a hint that the choice of format, and thus closely linked the platform, influences which key figures are available. Especially with the conversion goals, the ROI should be added, which puts the investment in relation to the profit. Some agencies and influencer marketing tools also have other specific KPIs, which are excluded here.

Keeping an eye on the influencer marketing KPIs

In order to measure influencer marketing KPIs, the insights data from the respective influencers and the content booked for the campaign are required. There are two ways to access this data:
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⁠One way is for influencers to share screenshots of their insights from where the key figures relevant for reporting are extracted. All common social media platforms offer this possibility and have very detailed insights as mentioned above. This manual approach involves, significant extra effort. Especially when continuous success measurement is carried out. Therefore, in the short or long term, especially with very complex or regular influencer activations, tools will be used.

Tools like EQOLOT, CreatorIQ, IROIN® Influencer Marketing Suite or woomio allow direct and regular access to these insights (after previous onboarding of the influencers). In addition, they also offer the possibility to draw very comprehensive reports, which put the most important KPIs for the campaign into focus.

This helps to measure the success of the campaign and compare it with the previously set goals. Based on this, optimizations can be made as necessary. The data can be pulled in Excel format and/or Power-Point format and branded afterwards where necessary.

Screenshot 1 CreatorIQ also allows to pull and represent the most important KPIs for campaign evaluation.

Screenshot 2 Woomio offers extensive campaign reporting and live dashboard.

With tools to influencer marketing success

⁠On OMR Reviews you will find an overview of relevant Influencer Marketing Tools. Many of these tools, in addition to the above mentioned tools, also offer the possibility to draw campaign reports.

Regardless of whether it is done manually or with the help of tools, in the end it is necessary to make decisions based on the previously defined goals and chosen KPIs in regards to the campaign set-up and potential follow-up campaigns. With the combination of goal, KPI and tools, you are well equipped for the success evaluation and the next influencer marketing campaign.

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