How to Calculate Influencer Marketing ROI – A Complete Guide

Counting likes and shares isn’t enough when it comes to influencer marketing ROI.

Many e-commerce store owners spend a lot on influencer partnerships. However, very few get back the value for their money.

The reason is that they fail to understand that measuring your return on investment from influencer collaborations requires a strategic approach. Hence, it goes beyond just monitoring the surface metrics.

This guide explains in detail every influencer marketing KPI you need to monitor. You can learn the best practices for tracking some top brands’ influencer marketing ROI.

As a result, you can effortlessly optimize your influencer marketing campaign for better results.

What Is Influencer Marketing ROI?

Influencer marketing ROI is the measurement of the value your business receives compared to the money you spend on creator partnerships. Thus, you can know the success of your marketing campaign.

In simple terms, it answers “Is my influencer program making money?”

You can begin by monitoring the number of social media engagements on specific content. However, to fully comprehend influencer marketing success, it is necessary to have more detailed information.

How to Calculate Influencer Marketing ROI?

To calculate influencer marketing ROI, you can use the following formula,

For example, if you spent $1,000 on an influencer campaign that generated $5,500 in sales.

Then, you can calculate influencer marketing ROI as follows,

ROI = ($5,500 – $1,000) ÷ $1,000 × 100 = 450%

You can get a $4.50 profit from each dollar of your initial investment.

How Influencer Marketing Impacts the Customer Journey?

Influencer marketing impacts the whole customer journey and not just first-time sales. The ROI of influencer marketing governs the customer path throughout.

• Awareness: You can build brand awareness through influencers by simply introducing the brand to a new audience.
• Consideration: Through authentic recommendations, your influencers can nudge their followers to consider the brand while shopping.
• Conversion: Using exclusive discount promo codes or affiliate links, customers can complete the purchase.
• Retention: Through continuous engagement, you can sustain customer loyalty and a sense of community
• Advocacy: Finally, you can turn customers into brand advocates through referral marketing.

However, for different customer stages, you should adopt different influencer partnerships. Following that, different steps will be used to assess influencer marketing return on investment.

For example,

• Use unboxing videos – Creates awareness – Measures views
• Detailed reviews – Conversion phases – Measure influencer conversion rates.

Pro Tip: Learn about different word-of-mouth marketing strategies to know what your brand needs.

What are the Top Metrics to Help Measuring Influencer ROI?

The top metrics to help measure influencer ROI are:

• Conversion Rate
• Cost Per Acquisition
• Engagement Rate
• Click-Through Rate
• Content Value
• Customer Lifetime Value
• Earned Media Value (EMV)
• Return on Advertising Spend (ROAS)

Conversion Rate: This shows you how many people purchased after seeing influencer content. However, you will need referral links or codes to track these KPIs in influencer marketing.

Cost Per Acquisition: This tells you how much you are paying to get one new customer. The lower this number, the better your ROI in influencer marketing campaigns.

Engagement Rate: Tracks impressions, views, likes, comments, shares, and saves. Consequently, this shows how actively the audience interacts.

Click-Through Rate: This shows if people are clicking on the influencer’s links. Therefore, low CTR means weak content.

Content Value: Professional photos and videos of influencers are valuable. Therefore, they can be reused for other marketing activities.

Customer Lifetime Value: This measures the long-term revenue potential of customers acquired through influencers. Thus, ensure influencer campaigns are bringing in quality customers.

Earned Media Value (EMV): This tells you how much exposure or “buzz” your influencer generated for your brand. Thus, you can estimate the brand awareness and organic reach.

Return on Advertising Spend (ROAS): This measures how much revenue you earned for every dollar spent on the influencer campaign. Consequently, ROAS over 1 means you made more than you spent.

Benefits of Measuring ROI of Influencer Campaigns

Understanding the benefits of measuring ROI on influencer campaigns helps you make smarter marketing decisions.

Here’s why influencer marketing ROI tracking matters:

Immediate Sales Impact

When set up correctly, influencer partnership ROI can directly contribute to your revenue.

You can analyze this based on the following metrics:

• Sales related to specific influencers
• Ability to calculate the exact return on ad spend on influencers
• Data on which product promotions perform best

The influencer marketing investment can be easily justified and optimized through this direct connection between promotion and purchase.

Enhanced Brand Engagement

Apart from sales, influencer advertising can contribute to building your customer perspective through proper affiliate management.

Thus, look for:

• Comment quality and sentiment
• Save rates (indicate purchase intent)
• Message responses and DMs
• Website traffic after referral marketing

These KPI of influencer marketing provide insights into measuring the long-term ROI of influencer marketing strategies. Though this might not show immediate sales, it will build valuable customer relationships.

Increased Brand Awareness

For sustainable e-commerce success, more people must know about you.

Thus, measuring influencer marketing ROI metrics for awareness should include:

• Reach and impression rate
• New follower acquisition [in brand account]
• Brand mention increases
• Audience expansion

Thus, these metrics will help you understand how influencers contribute to widening brand growth through influencer engagement rates.

As a result, you can dominate your marketing niche.

Value of Influencer-Generated Content

One of the often overlooked benefits of Influencer-generated content ROI is the reuse of content.

With user-generated content [UGC] by influencers, you get,

• Professional-quality photos and videos for your marketing channels
• Authentic testimonials and product demonstrations
• User-generated content that builds trust
• Creative assets for ads, email, and website use

Thus, you can use influencer content performance as a benefit. Otherwise, you will have to pay for similar content creation.

How to Measure Your ROI for Influencer Marketing?

To track your influencer marketing ROI accurately, you need the right tracking method.

Firstly, you need the right influencer marketing tool.

Then, you must do the following steps:

• Set up a unique affiliate link – This helps track individual influencer performance and attribute conversions accurately using UTM parameters. Thus, you can capture traffic source, influencer name, and content type for detailed analytics.
• Custom affiliate landing pages – This helps improve conversion rates by providing an experience to the influencer’s audience. Moreover, you can easily determine the traffic bought by influencers.
• Set up affiliate tracking software – Some tools provide real-time ROI insights for each campaign. As a result, you can automate the data collection needed for the ROI of influencer marketing by using them.

Using automation tools, most of the tracking, monitoring, and calculation can be done without manual intervention. Hence, you will have more time to spend on other areas of business.

Advanced influencer marketing analytics also measure indirect returns like content value.

What’s the Average ROI for Influencer Marketing with Benchmarks?

The average ROI for influencer marketing is around $5 to $6.50 for every $1 you spend. Moreover, more successful businesses can get up to $20 or more per dollar invested (Source).

Thus, to know if your influencer marketing campaign is successful, you can compare the industry benchmark influencer ROI with yours.

These influencer marketing return on investment benchmarks vary based on:

• Your industry and product price point
• Influencer tier (nano, micro, macro)
• Campaign objectives and strategy
• Platform selection

For e-commerce brands, the following influencer marketing platforms deliver the strongest return,

• Instagram
• TikTok
• Facebook

Moreover, for e-commerce stores, you can consider both direct sales and earned media value through influencers with these metrics.

5 Proven Strategies to Improve ROI of Influencer Marketing

Here are the best strategies to improve your influencer marketing ROI:

• Set Clear, Measurable Goals
  • Define desired objectives before launching an influencer campaign
  • Set your budget and timeline to align with your goal
• Choose Influencers Based on Data, Not Just Followers
  • Analyze engagement rates and audience quality
  • Test smaller partnerships before making big investments
  • Focus on authentic brand fit over follower count

Learn how to recruit affiliates for your influencers’ marketing

• Proper Setup of Influrncer Program
  • Use influencer marketing tools to create your referral programs.
  • Set the affiliate commission to rightly compensate influencers
• Implement Strong Tracking Systems
  • Use unique referral codes and links for easy monitoring
  • Set up proper analytics for attribution
  • Track both immediate and delayed conversions
• Optimize Content and Timing
  • Test different content formats and CTAs
  • Schedule posts during peak shopping periods like Black Friday
  • Coordinate influencer efforts with your other marketing tools, like email marketing
• Repurpose High-Performing Content
  • Reuse content that many engage with
  • Amplify organic influencer posts with paid promotion
  • Use influencer content in emails, website, and social media ads

Common Challenges in Measuring Influencer ROI Accurately

Tracking influencer ROI isn’t always easy. Here’s why many e-commerce store owners struggle:

• Attribution Problems: When customers see an influencer’s post but purchase later through another channel, it’s hard to track.
• Delayed Conversions: Sometimes, you can assess the ROI from influencer marketing only weeks or months later.
• Platform Limitations: Each social media platform offers different influencer marketing ROI metrics. Therefore, it’s hard to combine all the data for simple ROI tracker results.
• Inconsistent Pricing Models: Different influencers work on different affiliate commission models. Hence, making comparisons can become difficult for you.

To avoid these common challenges, you can follow the ROI measuring techniques discussed in this blog.

Conclusion

Influencer marketing ROI measurement isn’t the same for all businesses. Even the most successful e-commerce brands approach it as an ongoing process. Hence, it includes testing, learning, and optimizing.

Therefore, start by implementing basic tracking for your next influencer campaign. Following that, gradually add more ROI tracking insights to your program.

Further Reading

• A Beginner’s Guide to Micro and Nano Influencers
• 19 Effective Affiliate Marketing Strategies for Success
• Affiliate Marketing Pros and Cons: Is It Right for You?
• Top Must-Read Books for Affiliate Marketing Success

Frequently Asked Questions