How to track your ROI when working with influencer? | Podcast S01E04

Ah, the good ol’ Return of Investment (ROI) – where whatever you invest in needs to be justified and every action in the investment needs to lead to a profitable outcome. It’s the numbers that every marketer needs to show their bosses and what every business owner pays close attention to so they can receive maximum profits for their business.

And in the world of influencer marketing, many of the businesses we’ve met are still asking us – how do we track an ROI when working with an influencer? In episode 4, we discuss this topic with two influencer marketing managers (Tiffany Chng from ClassPass Asia and Su Wei from Wing Tai Clothing) who share their insights on how the companies they work with defines a successful ROI when working with influencers.

“Setting up the right budget”

Just like every investment, determining the right budget for your influencer marketing expenditures requires you looking into your cost of goods. It also requires knowing what additional costs would incur when working with influencers and really depends on the reach you intend on having. So if your target was to reach 1,000,000 people, you could choose to work with one mega (influencers with more than 1 million followers) or two macro influencers (influencers with more than 500,000 followers) but if you don’t have such a large budget, you could opt to work with say a higher volume of micro-influencers (influencers who have between 10,000 – 50,000 followers) to combine a reach of a million people. Ultimately, you’ve got to look at your marketing budget as a whole and be able to have the foresight to know which influencers can yield the best reach and engagement.

“Measuring the right numbers”

Just like any other advertising platform, you should be treating your influencers like an advertising medium – only with the creative freedom to be more authentic. Thus the metrics we choose to measure with influencers should be fairly similar to what you would measure when advertising on social advertising platforms like Facebook. For ClassPass for example, the cost is calculated based on the reach we get per follower. Thus if you invest $500 on an influencer and he/she reaches 10,000 people every time he/she posts, it means that the cost per reach is $0.05. You can then use this as a benchmark to compare with other platforms you advertise on to see if it’s better to reach audiences via the specific influencer or not.

“It’s all about brand awareness”

Furthermore, the digital world has changed the buying decision of a consumer. According to Social Media Today, more than half of consumers are making decisions based on the content they see through social media channels. Yet at the same time, only 8% of them are actually buying a product directly from an influencer. So what gives? Why are businesses like ClassPass and Wing Tai still working with influencers? According to both parties, it’s all about brand awareness. It’s the first step into getting a consumer to learn about the brand and these influencers are engaged to authentically share their lifestyle with the product as opposed to just sharing information about the product. Influencer marketing is not meant for hard sell because that no longer works for consumers.

S01E04 Guest #1: Su Wei

Su Wei is the Assistant Marketing Manager of Wing Tai Clothing Malaysia, a Fashion Retail Company representing a collective of prominent fashion brands like TopShop, Topman, Miss Selfridge, Uniqlo, Karen Millen, Burton, Furla, to name a few.

S01E04 Guest #2: Tiffany Chng

Tiffany is the Regional Community Associate of CLASSPASS Singapore, an American based fitness startup company that recently expanded into Asia, launching more than 20 new countries internationally. It is a fitness platform that offers monthly fitness membership with access to thousands of different studios, gyms, and wellness offerings across ClassPass cities.