To effectively scale your influencer marketing program, it's crucial to track campaign performance. This data is invaluable for decision-making and budget allocation. Here are some tips on how to monitor performance and ROI:

1. Set Clear Goals and Objectives

Before launching your influencer marketing campaign, define your goals and objectives. These could include conversions, brand awareness, social following, or content generation. This section focuses on conversions to illustrate how to turn your influencer marketing into a performance-driven channel.

There are two main methods for tracking influencer performance:

a). Affiliate Links: UTM links track clicks and conversions, while cookies assign sales to an influencer even if the purchase is made later. This is the most effective way to monitor performance.

b). Discount/Coupon Codes: Personalized discount codes can track performance by measuring usage and linking it to specific orders to determine conversion value.

All of this is automated in our CRM, allowing you to create discount codes and affiliate links with a single click on the deal page. Check the instructions here.

2. Expect Some Unattributed Sales

As with any digital marketing channel, you won’t be able to attribute or track 100% of your sales. A good rule of thumb is that about one-third of your influencer marketing sales may be unattributed.

Understanding how attribution/tracking can be lost is important. Performance can only be tracked if the affiliate link or discount code is used. However, tracking can be lost if influencers tag your social media account instead of using their affiliate link or if they use both. For example, if an influencer tags your Instagram account, traffic may first visit your social media page, then click the link in your bio to access your store. If your website offers a generic coupon code, customers might use that instead of the influencer's code, resulting in lost attribution.

To avoid this, we generally recommend not adding a coupon code to your website. This prevents confusion and maintains trust with influencers, as they rely on their personalized discount code to track referrals. If the same discount is available on your site, it can undermine the affiliate partnership.

When preparing budgets, keep these tips in mind. If you’re working with fixed fees, it's best to use performance data from previous posts and add about 30% to account for unattributed sales. This will help you allocate the right amount to achieve your desired ROAS/CAC.