Influencer marketing has become a key strategy for B2C brands looking to grow their audience and connect in a genuine way. But to make the most of these campaigns, it’s crucial to track how customers act after they see influencer ads. This post breaks down how to follow the impact of these ads and fine-tune your approach for better results.
When someone comes across your ad via an influencer, they might take a few different paths:
1. Clicking Direct Links with UTM Tags
A customer clicks a link that takes them straight to your site. These links have special tags (UTM tags) that let you know exactly where this visitor came from. If they buy something immediately, it’s clear the influencer’s shout-out worked. Properly configuring these tags and accurately interpreting your analytics reports are critical for evaluating the success of your influencer partnerships.
2. Visiting Through Social Media
Sometimes, people see an influencer’s content, then head to your social media and make a purchase from there. This isn’t ideal because it’s harder to tell the influencer made them do it. The solution? Work with influencers to make sure they send folks directly to your website.
3. Using Discount Codes
They are great because they do two things at once: give customers a reason to buy and make it easy to track which influencer drove that sale. But sometimes, people forget to use them.
4. When Customers Go Off-Script
The trickiest situation is when someone decides to buy after seeing an influencer’s content but doesn’t click a tagged link and doesn’t use a discount code. It’s tough to link these sales back to the influencer. One workaround is to estimate the influencer’s impact by analyzing patterns of sales spikes following influencer marketing campaigns, then adjusting the numbers slightly to account for these indirect sales. But a better strategy is to make those discount codes even more appealing to ensure fewer people skip using them.
Here’s how to get smarter with your influencer marketing efforts:
- Make Discount Codes Irresistible: Better discounts can mean more sales tied to influencers.
- Educate Influencers: Help them understand why it’s important to send traffic right to your site with those UTM-tagged links.
- Use Smarter Analytics: Adopt advanced custom attribution models that consider all the ways customers might come to you after seeing an influencer’s content.
Understanding the many ways customers might react to influencer ads can get complicated. But with the right tools and strategies, you can get a clear picture of how effective your campaigns are. This not only helps you spend your marketing dollars wisely but also strengthens your partnerships with influencers.
Elly Analytics goes deep into the data to show you exactly how your influencer collaborations are performing, offering the insights you need to boost your strategy and your returns.