Leveraging Influencer marketing is a great way to expand your reach and connect with established audiences that frequent social media applications, but many are finding it difficult to attribute website traffic or sales back to their Influencer marketing efforts or how to correlate social metrics to overall marketing strategies. Technologies that can support tracking methods such as click-thru rates (CTR), cost per lead (CPL), conversion rates and more, might be worth evaluating if you’re unsure of Influencer marketing success within your overall marketing campaign goals.

To help bridge the gap between metrics across multiple channels to uncover trends, correlations and overall campaign performance, you should implement the following tracking methods:

Use Tracking Links Where Possible

Most social media platforms have restrictions on where third-party tracking links can be used. However when possible, always use tracking links since they are the most accurate form of tracking different click actions. These actions can be attributed directly to the source of the click, which in this instance would be the Influencer. In addition to attributing the source, tracking links also have the added benefit of retargeting users to the appropriate landing page based on the following: device used (phone, laptop, etc…_, region, language and much more. This provides users with the most customized and targeted experience.

On a few social media platforms such as Instagram, posts cannot contain links within the caption or comments, so Influencers direct their followers back to their main profile page and provide them with a clickable link. This link will direct the user to the product or service mentioned in the Instagram post.

Pro-tip: Always shorten the tracking link using solutions such as Bit.ly or Ow.ly. Doing this allows for more tracking characters within the link and the room to more provide relevant content within the post.

Use Voucher or Coupon Codes

If tracking links are not available, Voucher codes, also known as Coupon or Promo codes, are a great alternative. These codes typically use the Influencer’s name or a shortened version of their name in addition to the discount percentage that will be applied to the purchase. A few examples of Voucher codes are as follows:

Use code: MONA20

Enter promo code: SARA30

Through this method, Advertisers can easily track the number of sales attributed to that code and measure the overall success of the Influencers campaign.

With Voucher codes, the consumer is now responsible for navigating to the product website, which might prove tricky if the consumer is on the go and cannot switch apps to search for the page. Another pitfall to this Influencer tracking method is that consumers may not use the Influencer’s code if there is no value or discount for them. With the use of Voucher codes, metrics such as click-thru rates may be difficult to track at best.

Track Post Engagement Events & Conversions

Though sales or conversions may be an obvious metric to track when it comes to promoting specific goods or services, most social media platforms do not make this measurement attributable for third-party traffic sources such as Influencers. The only way to track these post-social engagement metrics is through an outside tracking technology. When active tracking links are used, events such as a newsletter signup, account creation, purchase or even second purchase become readily available and all attributable back to the referring Influencer.

The performance marketing industry was inspired by demands for transparency into campaign data, thus, third-party performance-based platforms can provide the most accurate cross-channel tracking and insights into your data.

To learn more about how CAKE can track your Influencer marketing efforts across other digital channels, visit our CAKE for Advertisers page or request a demo.