How to Know If Your Micro-Influencer Campaign Is a Success

We’ve been talking lately about partnering up with micro-influencers, and, to wrap up, we’re focused today on the most important part:

How do you know if your campaign was worth running?

Without taking the time to measure the results of a joint video or a paid promotion, it’s impossible to say if it was a good investment of your time or your money. Here are some key metrics to review with your micro-influencer partner, which can tell you both if this was an experiment worth repeating or just a one-time fun time.

Decide what’s most important, first.

Above all, you should be tracking the Number One Metric that makes a difference for your business or organization.

For most people, that’s sales or donations. For others, it could be new members, new sign-ups on your list, or new Instagram followers. What’s the most important thing that needs to happen in order for you to keep running your business?

Knowing the answer to that question is critical. As you run marketing and advertising campaigns with that same goal in mind, you’ll develop a benchmark and know with confidence what works and what doesn’t.

This doesn’t only have to be about money. Let’s say your goal is to gain some high-quality new followers on Instagram, who might eventually buy from you.

• A joint video interview with a micro-influencer might be 10 hours of work to organize and execute, but net you 25 quality new Instagram followers who leave comments, watch your Stories, and click on your website.

• Compare that to paying $50 for an Instagram ad that only nets you 15 new followers, who don’t really engage with you at all.

Which thing should you plan to do again?

That, dear friends, is how you shape an effective marketing plan: test, measure, learn! Buying ads is easy, but spending time and effort on valuable content can be the better long-term choice. But you won’t know unless you measure the results of an actual campaign.

Your micro-influencer partner will also have goals like this in mind (we hope), and once your campaign is over you should plan to discuss what worked, what didn’t, and whether or not this was something worth trying again. Even if neither of you made a single sale or you only got a handful of new followers, it’s worth knowing if you achieved something else that’s valuable.

And, heck, you and your micro-influencer might just really like each other and want to keep working together, and an effective partnership could lead to all sorts of cool things in the future!

Measure how many people actually saw your campaign.

It’s important to know if you got the exposure you were looking for with your micro-influencer’s audience. Ask them to share the number of impressions that their posts about you were able to get, across all channels, and share your numbers, too. If you made a video together, share the views over time. If they posted a link to your website, look at your website traffic and see if there’s a boost.

Give each other a clear sense of how many eyeballs actually saw the content you partnered up on; if it’s more than usual, you know this campaign was a good idea. If not, this micro-influencer might not have the best audience for you, or your content might not be that interesting to their audience.

Measure the right actions.

If you chose the right micro-influencer, their audience is ideally the exact type of people who would love what you’re doing… right? So knowing if they actually went to your website or were interested in you and what you’re offering at all is critical. Critical, we say!

Ask your micro-influencer to tell you how many of their users clicked on any links they posted about you, and if they liked and shared those posts. If their audience posted comments or questions, you should see that too.

This can also show you if your website and your products or your donation pages are really that effective and compelling. If you drive a lot of traffic to your website but no one clicks or purchases or donates… we don’t have to tell you that it’s time for a redesign.

Also consider if the audience is taking the action you want them to take. A photo of your product might have gotten a lot of likes, but if no one actually clicked to buy that product, that’s not a success.

And keep in mind that the micro-influencer you’re working with probably wants to show you that they were worth partnering with, so they’re going to share metrics that make them look great. Don’t be fooled! Know what numbers to ask for, and if they’re not showing you numbers that you want to see, ask why.

Worst case scenario, if they won’t share data that you need to see, you’ll know that this probably isn’t a good partner for your next campaign.

One last note:

Here’s a great article all about return on investment or ROI, with tactics on designing campaigns specifically so that you can measure their success. (Things like offering a product that only your micro-influencer is selling, or using custom promo codes on your website to know if that partner drove sales.) This is for all you marketers out there who already know the basics and want to step it up a notch.

Next time you reach out to propose a campaign to a partner or a micro-influencer, you’ll be sure to impress them with your pro-level marketing skills.

And remember, if you ever have questions about any of this stuff, we’re here for you.