Reach, engagement, traffic… With the proliferation of KPIs in influencer marketing, it can be difficult to distinguish between essential and superfluous metrics.
While each metric has its importance, some will be more relevant than others depending on your objectives. But how can you find your way through this jungle of metrics and acronyms?
At Stellar Tech, we know that mastering these indicators is essential: they allow you to track, adjust, and optimize your campaigns in real-time to maximize their impact. 📊
In this article, our teams guide you step by step through influencer marketing KPIs: from their definition to practical implementation, including tools like Stellar to measure them effectively – and even predict them. 🎯
Stellar, the #1 platform to measure and optimize your campaigns in real time.
What exactly is a KPI?
A KPI (Key Performance Indicator) is a key metric that allows you to measure and track the evolution of a marketing strategy. These metrics are essential for making adjustments during campaigns and validating the achievement of your objectives.
In influencer marketing, KPIs fall into two complementary categories: quantitative indicators, which measure the numerical performance of your campaigns (reach, engagement, conversions…), and qualitative indicators, which allow you to evaluate the perception and real impact of your actions on your audience – a dual approach that ensures a complete view of your campaign performance.
Quantitative KPIs: The foundation of influence measurement
While traditional marketing relies primarily on direct sales metrics, influencer marketing operates across multiple dimensions simultaneously: awareness, engagement, conversion… This complexity requires a more nuanced approach to performance measurement.
KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) must reflect the full richness of interactions between brands, creators, and audiences.
Beyond simple sales metrics, they allow us to evaluate the overall impact of an influence campaign. These indicators, directly linked to specific marketing objectives, will provide you with a clear and quantified understanding of your influence strategy’s performance.
The main KPIs of influencer marketing
Brand awareness
Objective: Increase brand and product visibility and recognition.
KPIs:
- Impressions: Measures the frequency of content display/total number of times your content has been seen, indicating potential exposure
- Reach: The number of unique individuals who have seen the influencer’s content, providing insight into campaign spread
- Views: Particularly for video content, this KPI measures the number of times the content has been watched, offering a direct indicator of public interest and attention
Engagement
Objective: Stimulate audience interaction and engagement with brand content.
KPIs:
- Interaction metrics – including likes, shares, comments, and mentions: Basic metrics that provide a direct measure of public activity and interest
- Engagement rate: A crucial metric, calculated by dividing total engagement (likes, saves, shares, comments) by the number of followers, reach, or views. It shows how well the content resonates with the audience
- Social media mentions: The frequency at which the brand is mentioned on social media, reflecting brand presence and popularity
Traffic generation
Objective: Direct traffic from social media platforms to a brand’s website or landing page.
KPIs:
- Referral traffic: Tracks the number of visitors or clicks from influencer content to the brand’s site, indicating the campaign’s ability to generate traffic
- New users: Measures the number of first-time visitors, reflecting the campaign’s effectiveness in reaching new audiences
- Bounce rate: Evaluates traffic relevance by measuring the percentage of visitors who leave the site without further engagement
- Click-through rate (CTR): The ratio of users who click on a link compared to the total number of users who saw the content
Follower growth
Objective: Increase the brand’s social media audience size.
KPIs:
- New followers: The number of new followers gained during a campaign, reflecting its effectiveness in expanding the brand’s audience.
- Follower growth rate: The percentage increase in followers over a specific period, providing insight into how quickly the audience is expanding.
Conversions and sales
Objective: Convert audience engagement into concrete actions, such as purchases or sign-ups.
KPIs:
- Conversions: Tracks the desired action (sale, registration, subscription) directly linked to the campaign, offering a clear view of the campaign’s impact on revenue.
- Attribution: Refers to the process of determining which portion of your sales is directly linked to a specific influence campaign. This helps identify which influencer, content, or platform contributed to sales and to what extent.
Value generation
Objective: Measure the return generated by the campaign relative to its cost.
KPIs:
- Earned Media Value (EMV): A metric that estimates the media value obtained through unpaid channels, such as social media shares, mentions, etc. In essence, it quantifies what the brand would have had to spend to obtain the same level of exposure through paid advertising. EMV is calculated by assigning a monetary value to each type of action (likes, shares, comments, views, etc.) and then adding these values to represent the total value of acquired organic exposure.
- Return on Investment (ROI): A key metric used to evaluate the financial effectiveness of a campaign. It is typically calculated by dividing the campaign’s net profit by the total campaign cost. However, ROI can also take into account the value generated by non-monetary gains, such as brand awareness and social engagement, which can be quantified through metrics like Earned Media Value (EMV). In this broader sense, ROI reflects both direct revenue and indirect value generated by the campaign.
Efficiency
Objective: Measure the cost and efficiency of actions and interactions generated by campaigns.
KPIs:
- CPM (Cost Per Thousand impressions): Measures the cost to reach 1,000 impressions, allowing you to evaluate campaign visibility effectiveness and optimize advertising investments.
- CPE (Cost Per Engagement): Calculates the cost of each user interaction with content, offering a clear view of the campaign’s profitability in terms of engagement.
- CPV (Cost Per View): Evaluates the cost of each complete video view, particularly relevant for video-based campaigns and their ability to retain attention.
- CPC (Cost Per Click): Determines the investment needed to generate a click, allowing measurement of the campaign’s effectiveness in generating qualified traffic.
- CPA (Cost Per Acquisition): Measures the total cost needed to acquire a new customer, giving a clear view of the campaign’s return on investment in terms of actual conversions.
Qualitative KPIs: Giving meaning to the numbers
Beyond quantitative metrics, analyzing qualitative KPIs has become essential to truly understand the impact of your influence campaigns. These indicators allow you to measure not just how many people interact with your content, but how they perceive it.
Thanks to advances in natural language processing, tools like Stellar can now instantly analyze thousands of comments to provide you with a clear and actionable view of your brand perception.
Sentiment analysis: the heart of qualitative measurement
Where likes and shares provide a quantitative view of audience engagement, sentiment analysis helps understand the nuances in how your message is received. This analysis relies on several key indicators:
- Comment tone: Evaluates whether reactions are positive, negative, or neutral
- Recurring keywords: Identifies the most frequently appearing terms and themes
- Expressed emotions: Analyzes the emotional spectrum of reactions (enthusiasm, curiosity, skepticism…) through emoji usage
From raw data to actionable insights
The major benefit of sentiment analysis lies in its ability to transform thousands of comments into concrete insights. For each campaign, it allows you to:
- Quickly identify the strengths and weaknesses of your message
- Understand your audience’s real expectations
- Adjust your content strategy in real-time
- Anticipate and manage potential crises
How to effectively measure your influence marketing KPIs?
Defining and tracking your KPIs is one thing – but knowing how to measure them effectively to get the most out of them is another. The key? A methodical approach and the right tools.
The fundamentals of good monitoring
The first step in measuring your KPIs is to clearly define your objectives upfront. While each KPI has its importance, some will be more relevant than others depending on your strategy. A tip: focus first on a few truly essential indicators rather than spreading yourself too thin.
Understanding essential KPI calculations
How to calculate reach in influence marketing?
Reach, or coverage, measures the number of unique people who have seen your content. Not to be confused with impressions, which count the total number of displays. To calculate it:
- Add up the number of unique users exposed over a given period
- Exclude duplicates between different posts
- Take into account variations according to posting times
- Consider platform-specific characteristics
How to measure conversion rate in influence marketing?
This rate is calculated by dividing the number of conversions by the total number of visitors generated by your influencers. For precise tracking, prioritize:
- Unique promo codes per influencer
- Tracked links with UTMs
- Dedicated landing pages
How to calculate EMV (Earned Media Value)?
This metric quantifies the media value of your influence actions based on two key dimensions:
- Engagement (voluntary user actions: likes, shares, comments…)
- Exposure (post reach: impressions, views, generated traffic)
To calculate total EMV, multiply each type of interaction by its corresponding value, then add everything together. The calculation uses the Ayzenberg index, which assigns a standardized monetary value to each type of social media interaction:
- VPL: Value Per Like (value of each “like”)
- VPT: Value Per Thousand impressions (value for each thousand views)
- VPC: Value Per Click (value of each link click)
- VPCO: Value Per Comment (value of each comment)
Note that index values vary by social network and are regularly updated to reflect market changes.
the #1 software for influencer marketing
Essential tools for measuring and predicting KPIs
To precisely track your KPIs and adjust your strategy during campaigns, influence marketing platforms like Stellar centralize your data in real-time, allowing you to optimize your actions as you go.
For example, the Stellar platform allows you to precisely measure data related to:
- Your brand awareness (number of impressions, reach, views)
- Your audience engagement (engagement rate, mentions)
- Traffic generation (referral traffic, new users, bounce rate, click-through rate)
- Follower growth (new followers, growth rate)
- Generated conversions and sales (registrations, subscriptions, attribution)
The real advantage of these tools? Beyond measuring each action or interaction in real-time, some platforms can now even predict the future performance of your campaigns.
By analyzing your campaign data, particularly through AI, the Stellar tool can provide you with predictions on key KPIs (engagement, reach, number of views, EMV…) before launching your campaigns, or even while they’re still running. This predictive capability gives you a considerable advantage in optimizing your actions and preventing performance drops before they occur.
FAQ on influence marketing KPIs
What KPIs should I track on Instagram?
Essential Instagram KPIs for measuring your influence campaign performance are reach, engagement, and account interaction metrics.
In detail, these include:
Reach metrics
- Reach: number of unique users exposed to the content
- Views: number of content displays, counted after 3 seconds of attention (the same person can generate multiple views)
- Impressions: total number of content displays, even without particular attention
Engagement indicators
- Comments: number of written responses generated by your content
- Likes: number of “likes” received
- Shares: number of times your content was reshared by users
- Saves: number of users who saved your content to return to it later – a strong signal of its long-term value
- Engagement rate: ratio between total interactions and content reach
Account interaction metrics
- Follower growth: the rate of follower evolution over time
- Bio link clicks
- Brand mentions
Note: engagement rate remains the most strategic KPI on Instagram, as it directly influences the platform’s algorithm and, consequently, the organic visibility of your content.
What KPIs should I track on TikTok?
Essential TikTok KPIs are divided into three categories: engagement (likes, comments, shares), visibility (views, watch time), and performance (follower growth, retention). These metrics are essential for evaluating and optimizing your influence campaigns on the platform.
Engagement metrics
- Engagement rate: ratio between total interactions and number of views
- Comments: quantity and quality of conversations generated by your content
- Likes: indicator of immediate appreciation of your content
- Shares: measures your audience’s propensity to spread your content
- Saves: indicates the perceived long-term value of your content
Visibility metrics
- Views: number of times a video has been watched (counted from launch or loop playback)
- Average watch time: average duration users watch your video
- Video completion rate: percentage of users who watch your video until the end
Performance metrics
- Traffic sources: where your views come from (For You page, TikTok search, etc.)
- Follower growth rate: evolution of your community over time
- Retention rate: percentage of viewers who continue watching your video at different points
Note: trending hashtags can be consulted in the TikTok Creative Center to identify topics generating the most engagement on the platform.
What KPIs should I track on YouTube?
To optimize your influence campaigns on YouTube, it’s essential to track several KPI categories that will give you a complete view of your content performance.
Visibility and interaction metrics
- Views: direct measurement of how many times a video has been watched
- Click-through rate (CTR): indicates how often people click on your video after seeing the thumbnail
- Impressions: total number of times your ad is displayed
- Cost per click (CPC): measures the average cost for each click on your ad
Video performance metrics
- Watch time: measures the total duration viewers spend watching your content
- Video played to rate: shows what portion of your video is watched on average by the audience
- Audience retention: indicates how your video maintains viewer attention over time
- Cost per view (CPV): measures what you pay on average for a view
Conversion and engagement metrics
- Conversion rate: percentage of clicks that lead to the desired action (purchase, registration, etc.)
- Engagement rate: measures interactions such as likes, comments, and shares
Note: A high number of views doesn’t always equal success. YouTube particularly favors watch time and engagement in its algorithm.
What KPIs should I track on LinkedIn?
LinkedIn has become a major lever for B2B influence marketing, allowing effective targeting of decision-makers. Here are the essential KPIs to track for optimizing your campaigns on the platform.
Engagement and visibility metrics
- Content engagement: measurement of likes, clicks, shares, mentions, and comments to evaluate the resonance of your posts
- Brand mentions: number of times your brand is tagged, reflecting your influence and awareness
- Impressions: total number of times your content is displayed
- Reach (unique impressions): number of unique people who saw your content
Audience metrics
- Follower growth: tracking the evolution of your community over time
- Demographic data: detailed analysis of your followers (job titles, location, gender, interests)
- Page visits: number of views of your profile or company page
- Social Selling Index (SSI): score from 0 to 100 measuring the effectiveness of your sales actions on the platform (if you use Sales Navigator)
Performance metrics
- Click-through rate (CTR): ratio between the number of clicks and ad impressions
- Conversion rate: percentage of visitors who complete the desired action
- Cost per conversion: investment needed to obtain a conversion
Key takeaways: The essential KPIs in influence marketing
To effectively measure your influence campaigns, focus on these fundamental KPIs:
- Reach and awareness: track your overall reach through follower count, generated impressions, and content visibility. These metrics will give you a clear view of your media exposure.
- Engagement and interactions: analyze how your content resonates with your audience. Likes, comments, shares, mentions… All these signals, once consolidated into your engagement rate, reveal the relevance of your strategy.
- Traffic and lead generation: measure the impact of your influencers on your digital ecosystem. Whether it’s visits to your website or social networks, these KPIs translate your creators’ ability to generate interest.
- Conversions and sales: evaluate the concrete return of your campaigns through the number of actions generated by your influencers, whether purchases, registrations, or qualified leads.
- Overall profitability: combine ROI and EMV for a complete view of your returns. While ROI measures your direct return on investment, EMV values your entire media exposure.
