With social media influencer marketing still developing, the lack of standardized measurement across platforms is challenging for communication strategists.
According to Statista, influencer marketing is a $13.8 billion global industry, with growth projected to reach $25 billion by 2025. Much of this growth will come from younger consumers, a sought after group.
To help advance the industry, The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) has published a resource that offers influencer marketing measurement guidelines and defines standard definitions for awareness, engagement, and reach metrics.
While paid influencer metrics have been available to advertisers for almost a decade, organic influencer marketing is just developing. To create cohesion, the ANA Influencer Marketing Advisory Board has recommended guidelines for organic influencer measurement in order to “start bringing clarity and consistency to campaign-level organic influencer marketing.”
The resource gives recommendations for campaign level metrics on:
Awareness to measure the visibility and consumer recognition of your brand, product, service, or message.
Engagement for getting the consumer to interact directly with the brand messaging through different actions like clicks, likes, comments, and shares as a means of indicating brand interest or affinity.
Conversion in getting the consumer to take the desired action toward a predetermined goal, purchase, or transaction.
The ANA says, “These guidelines are intended to reflect the current state of measurement across platforms and serve as a starting point toward greater platform transparency, standardization efforts by industry partners like the MRC, and increased consistency between paid and organic exposure.”
You can download the guidelines here.