7 tips to track influencer marketing campaigns

Today’s brands are well aware of the impact of influencer marketing as a marketing channel. Take your pick — brand awareness, improved sales, pumped-up customer trust. But arguably most enticing is the $1 spend that turns into $5.20 on average — a whopping 520% ROI (according to Influencer Marketing Hub.) 

That’s why 75% of brands dedicate precious budget dollars to influencer marketing.

But you won’t see those campaign results unless you track them.

Which metric is most important? Many say ROI, which is notoriously the hardest to measure. 

Still, the way you track influencer campaigns is just as important as the actual items you track. How do you ensure influencer marketing success? For starters, an influencer marketing platform helps keep things organized, like Tapfiliate (more on that later). 

We’ll walk through a few tips and tricks to help you track influencer campaigns like a pro. 

1. Align your influencer campaigns to your business goals

Take an individual influencer in your entire affiliate marketing program. They might have their own flair and reach that made you pick them. Still, every type of influencer and subsequent campaign should have a clear link to your business goals. 

Let’s say your B2B business goal this year is more leads — comments and engagement won’t be as vital as actual conversions. Of course, comments, likes, and reach are vital to track if you want to improve brand awareness. 

Does that mean you sacrifice one for the other? Not quite. You should still track both sales and vanity metrics to create two unique yet valuable buckets of data to drive decision-making. 

Arguably the most important business goal is improved sales, which you can certainly track in your influencer campaigns. So, how do you pinpoint your affiliate program’s most successful influencer campaigns? You might align them with one of the most common business goal: improving sales. 

Indeed, 71% of brands track influencer campaign sales from coupon codes (promo codes) and referral links, and emails. Tapfiliate can help with influencer tracking on all three fronts, even newsletter signups that turn into sales. Our platform shows you:

 Number of purchases for each influencer discount code

• Average order value for each customer
• Influencer coupon performance month to month 

Still, sales, leads, and awareness feel vague. Underneath those overarching goals are your campaign objectives. 

2. Set your campaign objectives

Aligned your campaign with your business goals? It’s time to get into the nitty-gritty of KPIs and objectives. KPIs are key performance indicators you can assess through influencer marketing metrics. 

Here are some common influencer campaign key metrics and specific examples to measure true impact:  

• Follower count → Reach 10K followers by Q4.
• Reach → Score 10,000 views per post. 
• Engagement → Average 10 DMs each week; 100 comments each giveaway post; 10,000 likes on collab posts
• Website traffic and clicks → Secure 100 web visitors per campaign post (Tapfiliate can help). 

• Downloads → Achieve 15 downloads every time an influencer shares the free ebook.
• Signups → Gather 15 signups and accompanying conversions within one month
• Conversions → Score 10 sales per influencer every day they include coupon codes in new social media posts. 

Measure all your data first — this gives you a baseline to compare your campaign results and influencer marketing performance. 

Once you think of specific objectives, selecting certain influencers for your campaigns becomes easier. If this month’s campaign is to build brand awareness, you might pick the million-dollar-follower reigning Twitter. Just remember to set clear expectations for each influencer.

Remember, you might have different objectives for different influencers. ROI by influencer might shift, but you have to assess other KPIs, too. For example, a peppy lifestyle Instagram influencer might garner tons of conversions with her product how-to videos. Similarly, a more soft-spoken yet high-follower count could seamlessly garner more clicks and traffic. 

Final step? Use a tool like Tapfiliate to keep track of clicks and sales — try it for free for 14 days!

3. Analyze the traffic coming from each influencer campaign

Did you know over 90% of web pages don’t get any organic traffic? Might mean your SEO needs some work. Still, referral traffic from affiliates can help you mitigate your poor Google standing.

How? Influencers mentioning your site brings you precious backlinks, which help your Google rankings. But most importantly? They’re a more direct path for a warm lead to move down the funnel. 

Remember, you won’t score endless sales or signups from every influencer — but they’re valuable traffic sources for your business. 

Still, you need to know how much traffic you’re gaining and where it comes from. You can assess traffic in two ways: 

Google Analytics: Analytic tools like GA can help. You’ll want to focus on referral traffic and note which sites (influencers) are bringing you clicks. We like using Google Analytics to look at demographic info for every web visitor. 

Tapfiliate: With an influencer marketing tracking tool like Tapfiliate you can track your influencer marketing campaign goals easily. Our personalized dashboard and traffic tracking shows you exactly which influencers bring you clicks, sales, and signups. You can compare results for different influencers, assessing performance quickly and seamlessly. We’ll even show you which landing pages your visitors arrive on — figure out your bounce rate and you’ll know whether they need some TLC. Learn how you can leverage co-branded landing pages with your affiliates!

4. Track sales with unique coupon codes

You probably know that Instagram can’t accommodate trackable links in stories or posts — not even comments. So, you might rely on Facebook and Twitter for those referral links instead. 

But you’re missing out on ripe conversions on Instagram — enter the coupon codes. Your foodie TikTok micro-influencers might turn into Gordon Ramsay someday (the second-most followed British TikToker). No matter their reach, customers need to make their way back to you, and you can achieve that with coupon codes. Influencers share a unique code you give them in their campaign, allowing you to track any sales from those codes easily. 

Influencers also attend in-person events like conferences and industry socials. These are great places to share coupon codes as well, allowing for offline tracking. 

Here at Tapfiliate, we call that clickless tracking — the beautiful feature of tracking sales without needing click cookies. 

Now, these codes are public to each influencer’s followers and sometimes the public. Meaning? You might wonder what happens if another person markets that same code on their own profile. Our take? That’s a win-win. Your affiliate still gets the commission, so there’s no need to take care of influencer payments to anyone else. And most importantly?

You still get your conversion and sale.

Getting started with coupon codes in Tapfiliate

To get started, you’ll need to go to your eCommerce platform (for example, Shopify) admin panel to set up the coupon code and then assign it to your chosen influencer in the Tapfiliate dashboard. You can do this in the “Affiliates” section of Tapfiliate.

Your influencers get their own account where they can log in and see their coupon codes and their performance. They can find their coupons in their Assets section, next to their referral link:

Ready to get started? Check out all of Tapfiliate’s features.

5. Provide your influencer with an affiliate tracking link

Coupon codes are only one way to track influencer performance — another common route is affiliate links. Our advice? Leverage both as a catch-all for your target audience.  

Affiliate tracking links are fabulously convenient for web visitors. 

They don’t have to remember a promo code to plug in. Instead, they can access a unique deal just by clicking on a link. Plus, influencers can keep affiliate links in their bio for browsing customers to access your products at any time, not just on days of new influencer posts. Don’t worry — Tapfiliate can track it all. 

How to track using tracking links in Tapfiliate

Using referral links is a great way to track influencer campaigns. These can go to a specific landing page or a product. When someone clicks on the link and goes through to purchase, you’ll be able to see the data in real time.

This way, you will be able to track data, including the sales that your influencers have had a hand in.

You can filter the data and export it to analyze the data from your influencer campaigns in more depth.

Checking the number of clicks can be an indication of how well the campaign resonated with the influencer’s audience and how well a specific influencer post performed. Looking at this in relation to conversions can give you indicators on how to optimize future campaigns. Don’t forget to consider that it could also be an indicator of a problem on your website or a bad user experience.

Analyzing conversion amounts can help you to see the spending power of your influencer’s followers. Look at the average order value for the specific influencer campaign and compare it with your normal average order value. If it was less than usual, it doesn’t mean it was an unsuccessful campaign – it might just mean tweaking your campaign next time to try and increase their spend – you can do this using coupon codes with a minimum spend.

Then, crucially track your return on investment for each campaign and optimize with other campaigns in the future.

6. Track the conversion rates of each individual influencer

You might have hundreds of influencers. Engagement and conversions look good each month, so it’s natural to skim the details. 

But an individual influencer isn’t a minor detail. They represent your brand every day to your audience. If that influencer audience isn’t converting, perhaps the influencer needs more training, or it’s not a great fit.

So, tracking individual influencer clicks and conversions is essential for future campaigns. Compare each influencer’s conversion rate to your campaign as a whole — notice any discrepancies? Do this for all conversions, including newsletter signups, ebook downloads, or transactions. 

Tapfiliate helps you track your conversion of choice — try it for free for 14 days!

If you are a lead-gen business, track leads

Remember how we mentioned how vital new traffic is? Conversions are ideal, but a new web visitor might dip their toes in your pool of products with an email list signup. 

We call that a lead. (In some circles this is called a micro – conversion, aka a secondary action that means that they might buy later.)

Your new email recipient might not purchase a product immediately, but your influencer affiliate puts you on their radar. They can now hear about your latest offerings and get comfortable with your brand. Make sure your content is on point — this is your chance to wine and dine your new lead!

Trial signups for SaaS businesses should also track new leads. At Tapfiliate, we’ll help you track who signs up for free trials (another micro – conversion), which influencers lead them there, and which ones turn into paying customers. You get to choose your conversion events. On top of that, you can use Tapfiliate to compare influencer performance. 

Are some influencers bringing clicks but no signups? 

What about campaigns that bring small traffic but more signups?

These valuable insights help you dissect each campaign and determine what’s working and what isn’t. 

Curious to see for yourself? Start tracking leads with Tapfiliate today!

7. Track vanity metrics

Ready for your closeup? Vanity metrics are the influencer’s mirror facing your brand. Don’t be fooled — engagement and impressions are just as important as leads and sign-ups. 

A closer look, and you’ll calculate engagement and click-through rates.

• Impressions: These are the number of times your social posts make it to a user’s purview, aka reach. Say an Instagrammer scrolls past a post — that’s an impression. Say they share the post with their entire network? That offers even more impressions. 

Pro tip: Calculate the number of impressions a post receives against the number of web visitors you have to find your click-through rate. 

• Engagement rate: A view is great, but actions speak louder. The engagement rate measures how much viewers interact with your content. This might look like a share, like, comment, or even conversion (transactions and signups). 

Pro tip: Compare your number of engagements against your investment to find your cost per engagement. 

Now, what’s a solid engagement or click-through rate? The thing is that each vanity metric looks different for each influencer, even in the same campaign. 

A micro-influencer might receive fewer impressions than a mega-influencer. However, micro-influencers tend to have higher engagement rates (60% higher to be exact) since they have an easier time interacting with followers.

Tip: Create co-branded personalized landing pages 

Special landing pages are the final allure of the sales funnel. Ideally, your influencer affiliates will lead potential customers there through their social posts, stories, or other types of content. 

You might also link to a dedicated landing page from your Google ads or other SEO tactics. We know the drill — clear CTA, impeccable branding, and personalization for your user.

Imagine your usual sales tactics paired with the loyalty and trust a customer might already feel with an influencer? Co-branded landing pages with your top affiliates offer extra charm. Sked Social strategist Marl Ankucic describes co-branded landing pages as a way to extend your top affiliates’ voices into your marketing. 

The result? Improved conversion rates, customer trust, and data collection through Google Ads. Co-branded, special landing pages are a fantastic way to increase conversion rates. Plus, they help you track demographic data in Google Ads.

Pro tip: Squeeze in a testimonial from your affiliate — let them ooh and ahh your product and seal those conversions. 

How to ensure great campaign performance

To ensure a successful influencer marketing campaign there are three key cornerstones to success:

1. Campaign duration and ROI: Having a start and end date for your campaign ensures you can track campaign goals and milestones more easily. It is essential for you to track campaign performance at the end date to work out your influencer marketing ROI to see if it is worth working with this influencer again.

2. Partner with influencers and micro – influencers that fit with your brand: If you work with the wrong influencers it can seem inauthentic when they promote you to their audience – content quality is essential to ensure your influencer program success.

3. Social platforms you will be promoted on: Clarity is your best friend. Having a promotional plan clearly laid out so you understand exactly which social media platforms your influencer will promote you on can ensure a successful influencer marketing campaign for your brand. If there is no clarity things can go south quickly.

Start tracking your influencer marketing campaigns today

We know — influencer campaigns have tons of moving parts. You have vanity metrics to track and the nuances of different influencer strengths and weaknesses. Add in sales, campaign periods, conversions, and influencer relationships — you’ll need an entire team to manage your influencer marketing strategy.

You don’t have time to count every impression and attribute every conversion to each of your affiliates. If you tunnel-vision yourself into the details, you won’t have time to focus on what really matters: scaling your business. 

The solution? A reliable, accurate (real-time)affiliate tracking solution to take care of the data for you. Tapfiliate’s innovative platform helps you streamline social media assets and types of content to visualize performance for each of your social channels and affiliates. You can easily calculate influencer marketing ROI. Plus, your social media influencers will have their own login where they can see their results independently.

Ready to track influencer campaigns and influencer sales like a pro? Try Tapfiliate’s free 14-day trial today!