This guide will walk you through essential metrics for your Influencer Marketing Campaigns on Instagram and how to track them.

Instagram Feed

Reach: the number of unique views on a post

Example: if 1000 different (individual) users see a piece of content on Feed → Reach = 1000

Impressions: the total number of times a post is seen

Example: if a post is seen 1200 times on Instagram → Impressions = 1200

Likes: how many times your post or reel has been liked by people

Comments: how many comments you got on your post or reel

When working with Instagram influencers, it is vital to ensure the engagement is authentic and not enhanced by using bots, engagement loops, or follow per follow loops.

Check the last 6 Feed posts of an Influencer. If the captions are very short and most of the comments are either emoji or very short spammy sentences - this is usually a sign of fake engagement.

Post Saves: You can see how many users saved a post on Instagram. This is not a crucial metric, but it can show how interested users are in your product. They might convert at a later date.

Instagram Stories

Reach: the number of unique views on a story

Example: if 1000 different (unique) users see a story → Reach = 1000

Impressions: the total number of times a story is seen

Example: if a story is seen on a screen 1200 times → Impressions = 1200

Link Clicks: how many times users clicked on a link sticker from Stories

Cost-per-Click (CPC):

Compare this data from multiple influencers and correlate it with the CPM and the conversion rate to understand which influencer and which audience is performing better for your brand.

Cost per 1000 Impressions (CPM):

Impressions - the average number of Impressions from the last 3 Stories is the most relevant here. Try to avoid dividing by impressions just from one or old stories, as it might not be relevant. What you need is new data.

Get this data from multiple influencers alongside the CPC. Compare them to each other and better understand which influencer (and which audience) is performing better.

Conversions: how many actions (usually sales) do you generate with this campaign

Conversion is defined as any desired action taken by a user: download, sale, booking or more, but for this example, we focus on sales as a conversion.

We strongly recommend tracking this via a discount code. For each influencer or campaign, create a unique discount code and provide it to them.

Track conversions alongside CPC and CPM and understand which influencer is performing better.

Engagement Rate: the engagement rate shows how engaged an influencer is with his audience

See below the engagement rate benchmarks for 2021.

Our software automatically calculates the Engagement rates for the influencers that are looking to work with you via Social Cat on an ongoing basis

Audience Growth

Growing your social media presence is essential as it will pay dividends in the long run—more on that in another guide.

While there is no specific method to measure audience growth, you can have a good idea of this metric when tapping into your insights on Instagram:

Your Instagram Profile → Tap on the three lines - up right corner - Insights - Your Audience

You can filter this data by a specific date when a campaign went live, let's say. Then, when you promote to the right audience, you should see a spike in the number of followers, depending on how many followers the influencer has.

How to track the metrics for your campaign

Now that we know more about the metrics, we need to understand how we track them. By having a tracking system in place, we can better understand which influencers and audiences perform better.

We tested different tracking of Influencer Campaigns, but we recommend tracking via discount codes as this is the easiest and the most accurate one.

Tracking via discount code

Tracking via discount code offers two significant advantages:

Platforms like Shopify, Etsy, or payment providers like Stripe or Square provide this feature to their customers, making it easy to set up.