This scenario will sound familiar to a lot of influencer marketers:

You’re emailing a creator while eating a Twix (great multitasking btw) when your marketing director hits you up on Slack. She wants to know how well the channel’s performing and whether it’s justifying the budget.

Next news, you’re scrambling to piece together a report that paints your influencer program in a positive light, while a full finger of Twix goes totally uneaten. What a tragedy.

In an ideal world it wouldn’t go like that, because influencer marketing measurement is a system that’s best set up pre-launch, not a report you build once your campaigns have wrapped. Leaving it late often means…

• Tracking the wrong things (measuring likes when the goal was sales, or sales when the goal was awareness)
• Running into tracking problems (nothing was wired in, so there's nothing to attribute after the fact)

Don’t want that to happen? Read on for a comprehensive guide on how to measure influencer marketing, covering goals, metrics, tracking setup, attribution, and reading results.

Step 1 – Start with the goal you're measuring against

Influencer marketing measurement is most likely to go wrong way before campaign launch. It’s not a tracking problem; it’s a goal-setting problem.

Trouble is, the channel’s greatest strength – its ability to achieve a wide range of positive impacts, often from a single campaign – is also its biggest weakness when it comes to effective measurement. Think of all the potential outcomes you could achieve:

• Awareness
• Consideration and engagement
• Sales and conversion
• Content production

All can be highly desirable. But each implies a different definition of success tracked through different metrics, as demonstrated by this sexy table:

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This matters because you’re never going to get measurement right if you begin without a clearly defined goal. Ideally, one that aligns with your wider business objectives. Oh, and it should include specific numbers and a hard deadline so there’s no doubt about whether or not you’ve actually achieved it.

Here are a few examples of what your goals might look like:

• A goal for brand awareness: “Increase branded search by 10% YoY over the next 12 months.”
• A goal for consideration and engagement: “Hit 20,000 email marketing subscribers by the end of August.”
• A goal for sales and conversion: “Increase the number of sales from [x to x] from [channel] in Q3."
• A goal for increasing content production: “Create [number] of posts and repurpose [number] of posts for [channel(s)] in Q2.”

Once you’ve defined your goal, you can start thinking about how to actually measure influencer marketing performance. 

Step 2 – Choose the metrics that map to your goal

There are a lot – and I mean a lot – of influencer marketing metrics you could be tracking.

But measuring a dozen or more isn’t actually helpful, it just muddies the water. You want to pick those that are most appropriate to your chosen goal and ditch everything else.

Now, I’m not gonna include a comprehensive roundup of every possible thing you could be measuring here. I’ve detailed a bunch of metrics tracked to each top-level goal in the previous section, and if you want more depth, check out Influencer Marketing Metrics: What to Track (and What to Ignore).

Instead, let’s talk about how to choose the most relevant metrics.

Say your ultimate goal is to grow brand awareness, and you’re primarily tracking results through branded search volume, with the aim of increasing brand search by 10% in the next year. 

Next, you’d build a more comprehensive view of performance by picking 2 – 3 complementary metrics. In this scenario, that might include…

• Increase total website traffic by 5% in 12 months, thereby demonstrating that all your extra branded search is translating to website visits.
• Increase direct traffic by 10% in 12 months to show how more branded search = more people tying your URL straight into the address bar.

Whatever you choose to track, make sure to avoid vanity metrics that sound helpful at first, but in practice give you nothing useful. 

For example, tracking follower count doesn’t tell you if all those new followers are relevant to your brand (or if they even exist). Similarly, measuring the volume of “likes” doesn’t help you understand if those likers actually dig your product – or if they just double-tapped by sheer force of habit.

One last word on metrics:

⚠️ Be aware that not all numbers are as watertight as they might appear. On most platforms and tools, reach and impressions on Stories and posts are only estimates, so you probably don’t want to make them your primary metric for success. Whereas views on Reels, TikToks, and YouTube videos are actual counts.

Step 3 – Set up tracking before your campaign goes live

We’ve sorted the theoretical stuff, so now it’s time to set up tracking for your soon-to-launch influencer campaigns. Of course, there’s more than one way to track results, and the most appropriate tracking method(s) will always depend on the goal you’re trying to achieve.

Let’s start with a quick overview of the different tracking methods, then I’ll dig a little deeper into each:

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Per-creator discount and promo codes

Discount codes are (arguably) the most reliable way to attribute sales to individual influencers. Even if a customer uses multiple devices over a span of several days, the right creator will still get the credit as long as the shopper remembers to copy-paste the creator’s code at checkout.

I’m not going to get into the specifics of setting up promo codes, other than to say that there are two options:

• Track codes manually through a spreadsheet
• Automate the process with an influencer marketing platform like Modash

In Modash, it’s quick and easy to assign codes to each individual creator – including customizable criteria like redemption limits and start/finish dates so you can control code usage without constant manual intervention.

 🤓 Further reading: For a deeper dive into promo code tracking, head over to Shopify Affiliate Tracking: 5 Ways to Set It Up (and Where It Breaks).

Tracking links and UTMs

Tracking links measure clicks, traffic, and sales, while UTMs segment traffic in platforms like Google Analytics – just so long as those parameters don’t get stripped out somehow, or the customer doesn’t switch to a different device somewhere along the path to purchase.

Like with promo codes, it’s possible to set up and track link clicks manually, but it’s a whole lot simpler to use a dedicated tool like Modash. With Modash tracking links, you get a unique, shortened URL for each creator, so you’re never in doubt about which influencers are sending traffic to your store.

Each link tracks total and unique clicks, with click breakdowns by device, location, and source/referrer. You can even download a QR code for offline use, such as events, packaging inserts, or print campaigns.

🤓 Pro tip: Because both codes and links miss some conversions, the smart play is to use both (N.B. you can add both in Modash for a single creator). The only trouble is working out what to do if a customer clicks a link and uses a code. That’s why Modash avoids potential disagreements by automatically prioritizing codes (where one was used) over link clicks.

Automatic content capture

If content production is the main goal (or one of the goals) of your influencer program, you’ll need a way to track all the live content your creator partners are sharing.

Sounds simple enough. But, in reality, it’s far from easy because…

• Creators forget to add tags to their content
• Stories expire after 24 hours
• Manual capture doesn’t work at scale

So if you’re working with more than a half-dozen-or-so influencers, you’ll want an influencer tracking tool like Modash to automate the process. 

Modash automatically collects posts, Reels, Stories, and videos by hashtag, mention, or keyword. Or, if you’re worried about creators missing tags, our Event mode captures everything a selected creator posts – even when it's untagged.

As an added bonus, Modash also shares compliance alerts to flag content with missing ad disclosures.

Post-purchase and "how did you hear about us" surveys

Neither codes nor links are perfect when it comes to tracking sales – not even if you use them both together.

Because there are still times when a customer might purchase without clicking a link or using a promo code. Indeed, influencer marketing consultant Andreea Moise (AKA the Hype Maven) says these common tracking methods miss a ton of conversions: 

If you’re just relying on links and codes, roughly 50% – 60% goes untracked, especially if you don’t know how people buy or where and just rely on direct attribution.

Andreea Moise Influencer Marketing Consultant, Hype Maven

That’s where post-purchase surveys come in, giving you the opportunity to ask customers how they found out about you.

Sure, this self-reported layer isn’t perfect either.

Not all customers will bother to complete these surveys, and those that do might misremember where they heard about you. Or they might remember perfectly but check the wrong box by mistake.

Still, it’s a helpful way to track some of the sales that codes and links miss.

Tracking awareness campaigns

It’s notoriously tough to measure the impact of brand awareness campaigns because they’re not designed to generate direct conversions. In our survey, most marketers said they rely on visibility metrics like…

• Engagement
• Reach
• Likes
• Clicks

…while others measure things like branded searches and social media mentions. 

And that’s just for starters. 

Influencer marketing coordinator Fernanda Marques even uses brand sentiment as one part of her toolkit for measuring brand awareness.

I monitor brand sentiment through social listening tools to assess how the audience is reacting to the content, as well as any increase in brand mentions or conversations online. Surveys or polls can also provide insight into changes in brand recognition or perception pre- and post-campaign.

Fernanda Marques Influencer Marketing Coordinator

For many marketers, brand awareness campaigns – and any other type of influencer activity, for that matter – produce a so-called “halo effect” that drives sales across other channels.

Again, it can be tricky to put hard-and-fast numbers to this phenomenon, but you can get some of the way with post-purchase and brand awareness surveys, and by measuring upticks in branded search.

‍🤓 Further reading: Learn more about the halo effect in Affiliate Attribution Models: How to Choose the Right One for Your Program.

Step 4 – Attribute clicks and sales to individual creators

Cha-ching!

That’s the (imaginary) sound of your latest sale. It landed in your Shopify backend as revenue – but unfortunately, nothing on the order tells you which creator caused it 🤦‍♀️

If you’ve only got one influencer posting about your product at the moment, no worries. But if you’re working with a bunch of them, you’ve got a problem that can only be fixed through attribution, AKA assigning clicks and sales to individual creators.

Connecting clicks and sales to each creator

Figuring out which creators drove which clicks and conversions is a serious headache for influencer marketers.

If you’re doing it manually, prepare to spend hours reconciling sales in Shopify with creator-reported numbers to work out what came from where.

Fortunately, Modash solves this problem for Shopify stores by giving a per-creator view of sales and revenue – and you can even see clicks and engagement in the same dashboard.

👉 Check out our tracking and reporting tools when you start your 14-day free trial of Modash!

Why link attribution breaks (and what to do)

There’s another potential issue with matching up sales and creators:

For brands relying solely on links for tracking results, iOS privacy changes and cross-device journeys risk seriously messing up your numbers. In both cases, the all-important tracking cookie gets stripped, and no tracking cookie = no influencer-attributed sale.

(BTW you can learn more about this in How to Track Affiliate Sales: 5 Methods & What Actually Works.)

That’s why it makes sense to assign creators both a link and a discount code, like I discussed earlier. Then, if one tracking method goes kaput, the other will (hopefully) pick up the slack.

Your chosen influencer marketing platform can also help you out here. 

For example, Modash’s Shopify attribution doesn’t rely solely on cookies. For tracking links, we use a mix of…

• Shopify’s native customer journey data
• Cart attributes
• Shopify pixel/storage mechanisms, with a configurable attribution window 

…which means that if the cookie goes AWOL and there’s no promo code, Modash might still be able to track the sale 😎

Step 5 – Read your results honestly (estimates, halo, and what you can't attribute)

I’m gonna let you in on a little secret:

Your numbers don’t have to be 100% perfect to listen to them.

Fact is, good measurement doesn’t necessarily mean having airtight data; it also means knowing what each number represents and accepting where limitations exist. Some are exact and some are estimates, while some impact is real but never fully attributable.

That’s why to read and make sense of your results, you have to:

• Know which numbers are estimates 🤔
• Account for the halo effect 😇
• Turn what you've got into a report you act on 💪

Your influencer partners (and your leadership team) are more likely to trust your attribution if you’re open and honest about this stuff.

Which numbers are exact and which are estimates

I’ve already mentioned how view counts for Reels, TikToks, and YouTube videos are totally legit. Whereas for most tools – Modash included – impressions and reach for posts and Stories are estimates based on follower count and engagement rates.

Unfortunately, this means that if Instagram hides likes, engagement rate dips, and so do reach estimates.

Save for breaking into Meta’s HQ and stealing the actual numbers from Zuckerberg’s hard drive, there’s really nothing you can do about this, so you just need to accept it and explain the limitations to the influencers you work with.

The halo effect and indirect impact

Another thing you need to accept is that influencers will always drive demand that just can’t be directly attributed.

The sooner you make peace with this, the sooner you can find concrete, trackable data demonstrating the impact of your influencer program. Stuff like:

• More direct traffic to your store
• Increased brand/product name search
• Self-reported attribution (like post-purchase surveys)

Or, if you know that one of your influencers recommended you in a TikTok that racked up hundreds of thousands of views, and you’ve seen a spike in sales off the back of it, it’s a pretty clear indication that your influencer partner deserves some of the credit.

Or you can take a leaf from Marit Tiesema’s book and consider the impact of onsite influencer content:

You can see whether adding influencer reviews or content to a product page improves conversion rate or average order value. It’s smaller, but especially when you’re working with recognisable names, this might show the added impact of a partnership.

Marit Tiesema Global Director of Influencer Marketing, Augmentum Media

To be clear, this isn’t about searching for any numbers that are going up and to the right, and desperately trying to claim them as your own. It’s about understanding the shortcomings of measuring influencer marketing and filling in the blanks where you can.

Turning measurement into a report

By this point, you’ve gathered all the numbers you possibly can, so it’s time to turn them into a report.

I’m not gonna walk you through this full process because A) this article’s already 3,000+ words long and B) you can find it all in How to Report on Influencer Marketing (+ Templates). 

Instead, I’ll share a couple real-world examples.

First up, goth clothing brand Killstar 🤘

They keep costs down by mostly running gifting campaigns and track two main things – UTM usage and discount code revenue – along with post-purchase survey data. With these numbers, they produce two reports: 

• A KPI report covering performance metrics, shared weekly and monthly via email.
• A monthly content report (like the one below 👇) including star creators, highest- and lowest-performing content, budget spend, and next objectives.

And then there’s German D2C food brand KoRo, which uses per-creator promo codes to measure CAC, ROAS, and cost per order. Content is tracked manually based on predefined publishing dates, tagging, and self-reporting from their influencer partners.

KoRo’s reporting cadence looks like this:

• Monthly: Provides an overarching view of performance, including combined results achieved from all influencer campaigns.
• Quarterly: Breaks down data per influencer over the past three months to create a more granular view.

From just these two examples, you can see that there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to reporting. 

Rather, it’s a case of tying activity and results to your top-level goal(s) while being open and honest about the data you present.

Remember: Effective measurement starts before launch day

I hope you take lots of things away from this article. Like how great it is to eat a Twix while you’re working.

But if you only take one, let it be this: brands that measure well decide what success means before launch and wire the tracking in from day one. That way, the numbers are trustworthy, so your creator partners and leadership team can believe them.

Getting to this point is a whole lot easier if your influencer marketing solution gives you everything you need – content tracking, Shopify sales analytics, tracking links – in a single dashboard. Which is precisely what you get with Modash.

👉 Sign up for your 14-day free trial of Modash and level up your influencer marketing measurement today!

FAQs:

How do you measure the success of an influencer marketing campaign?

Depends what your goal is! For example, if you’re trying to improve brand awareness, you might measure success through an uplift in brand search or an increase in direct traffic. Or if sales are your goal, you’d measure things like revenue, conversion rate, and AOV. 

How do I track sales from individual creators?

Either by assigning unique tracking links or promo codes to each creator partner. Or, even better, you can use both – that way, if one doesn’t work, you can hopefully still track the sale through the other.

Why don't my reach and impression numbers match what I see on Instagram?

Because Instagram no longer measures impressions – they were replaced with views a couple years ago – and reach is an estimate based on follower count and engagement rates.

How do I measure influencer marketing without paid tools?

You can measure influencer marketing manually using nothing more than promo codes and your Shopify admin. Just assign unique codes to each creator and track orders from those codes in Shopify. Of course, if the customer forgets to use a code at checkout, there’s no way to attribute the sale to the relevant influencer.

How long should my attribution window be?

While there’s no hard-and-fast number, ecommerce brands typically set attribution windows of 7 – 30 days. Stores that drive lots of impulse purchases often favor shorter windows, and vice versa.

How do you measure brand awareness from influencer campaigns?

There are actually lots of metrics you can use to measure brand awareness, including:

• Follower growth
• CPM
• Branded search volume
• Direct traffic
• Impressions/reach
• Views
• Earned media value
• Brand lift
• Share of voice

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