Influencer Marketing Metrics: What to Track (and What to Ignore)

Measuring the impact of influencer marketing is notoriously difficult. But often, it’s not because influencer marketing can’t be tracked – it’s because people are simply tracking the wrong metrics. Chances are, there’s plenty of good data at your fingertips; you just need to know what you’re looking for (and what to avoid like the plague).

Why ROI is a terrible influencer marketing metric

Return on investment seems like an obvious metric to track. Maybe even the most important of all. Because it’s all about the stuff that really matters, right?

But when you dig into it, ROI is waaaaaaay more murky than it seems:

How do you define "return"? Is it just revenue? Is it contribution margin? What if marketing only contributes to some sales, but not all? Then is it contribution margin on incremental revenue? If so, how are you going to calculate that? Plus attribution is fundamentally flawed anyway 🤷

How do you define "investment"? At some point, you spent marketing dollars that contributed to a sale. What timeframe do you count? Marketing investments from last quarter or last year could still be driving impact today, while the majority of impact from today's investments hasn't occurred yet. Not to mention, there are usually costs hidden from the calculations (e.g. salaries or a CEO/founder's time contribution).

The term “ROI” also has different implications across different channels, as Modash Head of Marketing Ryan Prior explains:

Typically, when teams look at Meta ads ROI (or ROAS), they’re looking at the cost of reach alone. Costs of ad production, labor/agency fees etc. are often ignored. Whereas in influencer marketing, you look at the amount you pay influencers, which includes everything – content production, reach, plus the trust factor of using their name/face.

Ryan Prior Head of Marketing, Modash

So if ROI is a waste of time, what should you be tracking instead?

The most important influencer marketing metrics by program type

There are obviously tons of potential metrics to track, but that doesn’t mean you have to obsess over all of them. Quite the opposite, in fact – if you focus on too many metrics at once, you’ll come up short on all of them 🤦

Because there are only so many hours in the day, I’ve segmented the most important influencer marketing metrics by campaign type here:

Brand awareness campaign metrics

Metric	What is it?
Views	How often your content was played or displayed on a user’s screen
CPM	Cost per 1,000 impressions
Branded search volume	Volume of searches for brand and product names
EMV	Estimated value of earned media from influencer activities
Engagements	Total number of clicks, likes, saves, etc
Aided & unaided brand awareness	Percentage of consumers who can recall your brand, prompted vs unprompted
Website traffic	Total visits to your website

Conversion and sales metrics

Metric	What is it?
Revenue	Total money earned from sales before deducting costs
Conversions	Volume of actions like clicks, form completions, sales, etc
CPA	Average cost of delivering specific actions or conversions
LTV for influencer-attributed customers	Estimated revenue generated per customer throughout their relationship with your brand
Code redemptions	Volume of codes redeemed
AOV for influencer-attributed orders	Average amount customers spend per influencer-attributed order

Influencer-affiliate metrics

Metric	What is it?
Affiliate link clicks	Volume of clicks on affiliate links
Commissions paid	Total commission paid to influencer-affiliates
Earnings per influencer	Total revenue generated by each influencer-affiliate
Active vs inactive influencer-affiliates	Percentage of enrolled influencer-affiliates who generated 1+ action
Acceptance rate	Percentage of influencers who accept invitations to your program
Total content from affiliates	Volume of influencer content generated per month

Influencer gifting metrics

Metric	What is it?
Gifts offered	Total number of gifts offered to influencers over a given period
Acceptance rate	Percentage of outreached influencers who agree to receive a gifted product
Posting rate	Number of content units generated / total products gifted
Cost per post	Total cost of sending gifted products / number of organic posts
Gifting conversion to paid partnership	Percentage of gifted influencers who enter paid collaborations

Now I’ve got the top-level stuff out the way, let’s take a deeper look at each metric and why it matters…

Brand awareness metrics

Views

🤔 What is it? Simply, views tells you how many times your content was played or displayed on a user’s screen. It’s been a key metric on YouTube for years – and, as of November 2024, it’s become the primary content distribution metric on both Facebook and Instagram.

💪 Why does it matter? Views are a key awareness metric because they demonstrate your content’s reach and visibility, both of which are essential to getting more eyes on your brand. The higher your views, the more people are seeing your content.

CPM

🤔 What is it? The cost paid per 1,000 impressions. In other words, if you pay an influencer $2,000 and get 100,000 impressions, your CPM is $20.

💪 Why does it matter? If your goal is to reach as many people as possible, CPM can be a super helpful metric. Of course, those impressions are only valuable if you’re targeting the right people with the right content. For instance, it might be worth paying a higher CPM to reach a more specific, relevant audience.

🤓 Further reading: Learn more about CPM as a metric in Using CPM in Influencer Marketing: Benchmarks, Limitations, & Tips to Improve.

Branded search volume

🤔 What is it? The number of times people search on Google (or a different search engine) for your brand name, branded products, and/or other specific brand-related terms over a given period.

💪 Why does it matter? Branded search clearly shows that people are looking for information about your brand and the stuff you sell. If you see a spike in branded search following an influencer campaign, it’s a pretty clear signal that the campaign boosted brand awareness.

EMV

🤔 What is it? Earned media value takes the engagement and exposure generated by an influencer campaign and estimates how much it’d cost to get the same results from paid advertising.

💪 Why does it matter? EMV gives a more holistic view of brand awareness by combining a range of metrics – impressions, comments, likes, views, shares, saves – and providing a meaningful way to compare your influencer marketing and paid ad campaigns.

⚡ Pro tip: When you track influencer campaigns in Modash, you can customize your EMV calculation at the campaign level by setting your own values for comments, likes, views, and more. That way, you can paint the most accurate and relevant picture of your campaign’s true value.

Engagements

🤔 What is it? The number of engagements generated by your influencer content. “Engagement” is a broad term incorporating a bunch of brand awareness-related metrics. Depending on platform, engagement metrics can include some or all of the following:

Clicks
Comments
Likes
Saves
Shares

💪 Why does it matter? When a campaign racks up lots of engagement, it’s a clear sign that people aren’t just seeing your content – they’re reading, watching, and interacting with it, too. Which makes them far more likely to remember your brand going forward. Saves are often especially valuable, because if someone saves an influencer’s content, chances are they found it useful.

Aided & unaided brand awareness

🤔 What is it? “Aided” awareness is when consumers can recall your brand after being prompted (such as seeing the name in a list), while “unaided” awareness means they can do so without any external assistance. Measure these metrics via post-campaign surveys.

💪 Why does it matter? These metrics speak to the “stickiness” of your brand awareness campaigns. Because you don’t just want people to see your brand – you want them to remember you when they’re ready to buy.

Website traffic

🤔 What is it? The number of visits to your site over a given period. From an influencer marketing perspective, this is typically tracked via UTMs or in correlation with posting activity (e.g. did traffic spike shortly after a specific post went live?).

💪 Why does it matter? If traffic climbs off the back of an influencer campaign, it’s a good indication that more people are becoming aware of your brand. In particular, look for increases in branded search traffic and direct traffic (AKA people typing your URL into the address bar).

Conversion & sales metrics

Even if conversions and sales aren’t the first thing you look at when evaluating influencer campaign success, your leadership team definitely cares about them 🤑 Bear in mind that not all sales are attributable – the following metrics are only relevant to sales that can be attributed via codes, landing pages, links, or post-purchase surveys.

Revenue

🤔 What is it? Arguably the simplest conversion-related metric, revenue is the total money earned from sales over a set period before deducting costs.

💪 Why does it matter? Tracking influencer-attributed revenue is a quick and easy way to assess the health of your influencer program. If you’re spending more than you’re making, you’re in trouble.

Conversions

🤔 What is it? Conversions are whatever you say they are – a form completion, a newsletter signup, a download, a sale, or something else. In short, they’re the ultimate action you want customers to take after engaging with your influencer content.

💪 Why does it matter? Conversions are the “thing” you need to keep growing your business. So if your influencer program is delivering plenty of them, you’re clearly getting something right.

CPA

🤔 What is it? Cost per action (or cost per acquisition) is exactly what it sounds like – the average amount you spend to deliver specific actions or conversions, such as those described in the previous section. As well as a metric, CPA is a common influencer marketing payment model.

💪 Why does it matter? Tracking your CPA is key to achieving sustainable business growth. Because you’ll run into problems fast if your cost per acquisition outstrips your customer lifetime value. Speaking of which…

LTV for influencer-attributed customers

🤔 What is it? Lifetime value is a forward-looking metric that predicts the total revenue you can expect from a customer throughout their relationship with your business.

💪 Why does it matter? Specifically tracking LTV for influencer-attributed customers helps you understand the loyalty and revenue-generating power of consumers who interact with your influencer content. The higher the lifetime value, the more you can afford to spend per acquisition, boosting your growth potential.

Code redemptions

🤔 What is it? Custom discount codes are a common way to attribute sales to individual influencers. This metric simply tracks the number of codes redeemed in a given period.

💪 Why does it matter? Tracking code redemptions tells you how many sales your influencers are generating and which influencers are performing best. When you know who your top performers are, you can make data-backed decisions about which influencers to retain.

⚡ Pro tip: Modash accelerates campaign setup by letting you create codes and links, then email them to influencers in bulk (including variables).

AOV for influencer-attributed orders

🤔 What is it? The average amount customers spend per influencer-attributed order. Higher AOVs mean they’re buying lots of products in a single transaction or purchasing higher-ticket items (or both).

💪 Why does it matter? Big spenders are obviously more valuable to your business, so you want your influencer program to bring in as many of them as possible.

Influencer-affiliate metrics

Given the performance-driven nature of the influencer-affiliate model, many of the previous conversion-related metrics will also apply here. Instead of repeating myself, I’ve only mentioned specific influencer-affiliate metrics in this section… 👇

Affiliate link clicks

🤔 What is it? The number of clicks through to your website (or some other page) from links in affiliate content.

💪 Why does it matter? In general, customers click links when they find affiliate content engaging and like the look of your product. If you’re seeing lots of clicks, it’s a good sign that you’re working with quality influencer-affiliates and targeting the right audiences.

Commissions paid

🤔 What is it? Like it sounds – the total amount of commission paid to your influencer-affiliates over a given period.

💪 Why does it matter? The more commissions paid, the more sales your influencer-affiliates have generated, which is a strong indication of a healthy influencer-affiliate campaign.

Earnings per influencer

🤔 What is it? The amount of revenue generated by each influencer through their unique affiliate links or codes (or some other form of attribution).

💪 Why does it matter? Tracking earnings per influencer helps you see the proportion of influencer-affiliates who are contributing to your bottom line. You’d probably prefer them all to be generating sales, rather than the bulk of your earnings coming from one or two standout performers.

Active vs inactive influencer-affiliates

🤔 What is it? The percentage of enrolled influencer-affiliates who generated one or more tracked actions – like clicks or conversions – over a set period.

💪 Why does it matter? Similar to earnings per influencer, tracking active vs inactive influencer-affiliates speaks to the health of your influencer program; you don’t want to be over-reliant on a handful of high earners. It also helps you identify lapsed influencer-affiliates for re-engagement or removal.

Acceptance rate

🤔 What is it? The proportion of influencers who accept invitations to join your program from outbound methods like cold emails and DMs.

💪 Why does it matter? A high acceptance rate indicates that you’re targeting relevant influencers who want to work with your brand, and that your influencer offer (commission rate, payment terms, etc) are sufficiently attractive.

Total content from affiliates

🤔 What is it? The volume of content units you’re getting per month from influencer-affiliates.

💪 Why does it matter? If content product is a key focus of your influencer-affiliate program, you’ll want to know whether this figure is growing and how the volume breaks down across different channels and formats.

Influencer gifting metrics

All the brand awareness and conversion metrics I listed in the first two sections can be used to measure the success of your influencer gifting campaigns. So, again, the following section only contains metrics specific to influencer gifting 🎁

Gifts offered

🤔 What is it? The total number of gifts offered to influencers over a given period.

💪 Why does it matter? This metric speaks to the health of your influencer outreach efforts. Lots of volume suggests you’re successfully and efficiently finding, qualifying, and contacting relevant influencers.

Acceptance rate

🤔 What is it? The percentage of outreached influencers who agree to receive a gifted product from your brand.

💪 Why does it matter? A high gift acceptance rate indicates that you’re targeting relevant influencers and that your outreach messaging is on point.

Posting rate

🤔 What is it? The number of pieces of content generated by influencers you’ve gifted, divided by the total number of products gifted.

💪 Why does it matter? Tracking posting rates over time helps you optimize your influencer selection criteria. The higher the rate, the better you are at finding and qualifying relevant influencers ✅

Cost per post

🤔 What is it? The total cost of sending gifted products to influencers – including product cost, shipping, and handling fees – divided by the number of organic posts generated.

💪 Why does it matter? This metric helps you benchmark the performance of your gifting program against paid influencer partnerships.

Gifting conversion to paid partnership

🤔 What is it? The percentage of influencers who go on to enter paid collaborations with you after initially receiving gifted products.

💪 Why does it matter? As well as measuring the efficiency of your talent pipeline, tracking this metric helps you justify budgets for gifting beyond the immediate exposure generated through organic influencer posts.

🤓 Further reading: Discover more about finding and hiring brand-fit influencers in 5 Ways To Recruit Influencers (+ Proven Tips & Methods).

Vanity metrics that matter less than you think

All of the above metrics reveal something valuable about influencer program performance and might be worth tracking for your brand, depending on your specific goals.

But that’s not the case for all metrics. Some might appear useful, but in reality don’t reveal anything that really matters. The following vanity metrics are best avoided 🙅

Follower count: Says nothing about whether followers are real, active, and/or relevant to your desired target audience.
Likes (in isolation): Liking content is low-effort and often habitual. It doesn’t tell you whether the “liker” trusts the influencer’s recommendation, likes your product, or plans to take action.
Engagement rate: has some value in vetting influencers, but comes with limitations too. It combines very different behaviors into a single percentage, with no way to distinguish the proportion of passive “likes” vs higher-quality comments, saves, etc., and also fails to account for “hidden” influence like DMs.

What’s next?

Now you know what to track, the next challenge is figuring out how to track it.

If you’re just starting out on your influencer marketing journey and/or only working with a handful of influencers, you can track everything yourself via spreadsheet. To make your life easier, check out our pre-built influencer tracking spreadsheet (plus guidance on how to use it).

Alternatively, if/when you reach the scale where manual tracking gets painful, you can automate all your content tracking and KPI collection with Modash 😮‍💨

👉 Try Modash for free today!

 
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