Congratulations, you’ve just wrapped up your influencer marketing campaigns for the quarter or year. Unfortunately, you are not quite done yet. Whether it’s been an okay quarter or a great one in terms of performance, the next task at hand is creating an influencer marketing report for your boss. 

This task, while daunting, is a massive opportunity for your team to highlight the value you’ve added and provide context on your challenges. If you need help figuring out where to start or how to show leadership you’ve contributed to ROI, keep reading to learn how to create a compelling influencer marketing report.

A good report starts by gathering an understanding of the influencer marketing industry and its current trends to use as a lens in reporting on your campaign and influencer marketing efforts. This may not be information included in your report to leadership, but it can help you understand current trends and growth patterns to inform your insights and recommendations. 

We’ll start this blog by taking a look at some notable statistics within the influencer marketing industry, market trends, data, and expectations for the future.

Notable Influencer Marketing Statistics 

  • The influencer marketing industry is expected to grow to approximately $16.4 billion in 2022.
  • The number of businesses offering influencer marketing related services increased by 26% in 2021, indicating significant growth for the industry as a whole.
  • Influencer marketing platforms raised over $800M in 2021, highlighting the substantial investment and interest being allocated toward the industry. (Mavrck raises $135M)
  • 89% of brands say that influencer marketing ROI is better or the same as other channels.

 

Influencer Marketing Growth

As detailed above, the influencer marketing industry continues to grow by hard quantifiable data points. Those within the industry have also seen influencer marketing grow in a number of new and unique ways. New verticals have made their foray into influencer marketing, that previously had not capitalized on its value. B2B brands, financial institutions, and real estate have begun incorporating influencer marketing with notable examples like SoFi on TikTok.

Another unique form of growth for influencer marketing is how brands are leveraging influencer marketing in their marketing funnel. In the past, influencer marketing was used primarily for top-of-funnel activities to drive brand awareness. Now we are seeing brands incorporating influencer marketing to impact their entire marketing funnel. Other thought leaders in the industry believe that influencer marketing will continue to take over the full marketing funnel with the shift toward social commerce. Below are a few verticals that have seen noteworthy changes in their influencer marketing.

Fashion and Apparel

One of the most notable verticals within influencer marketing, the fashion and apparel industry is expected to grow 35.7% annually from $2.02B in 2020 to $17.12B in 2027 as the market continues to mature and expand. With the rise of new social media platforms and shoppable features, the fashion industry maintains a substantial presence in influencer marketing market share.

Beauty & Cosmetics

The beauty and cosmetics industry has seen growth in influencer marketing with millennials 247% more likely to be influenced by social media or blogs. With a majority of beauty brands dedicating a significant portion of their budget toward influencer marketing, it’s no surprise that partnering with beauty influencers is one of the most effective ways to connect with consumers in this vertical.

Gaming

With the rise of streamers and social sites like Twitch, the influencer marketing in the gaming industry has become an important part of the influencer marketing ecosystem. The male 18 – 34 demographic has been traditionally difficult to reach on social. Now gaming influencers have developed as an effective method for brands to connect with this demographic and brands have taken notice. A survey by YouGov found that out of 17 countries, 12 saw gaming influencers most popular, 14 saw them as more popular than sports influencers.

Influencer Marketing Report Examples

Unfortunately, when influencer marketing teams are presenting reports to leadership, the specific statistics pertaining to performance are confidential. That being said, there are generally used KPIs that apply across all influencer programs to quantify success. Outlined below are a few examples of these metrics and why they are critical in understanding the performance of influencer marketing programs.

Impressions, Engagements and Engagement Rate

Impressions highlight the amount of times your content has been displayed, regardless of whether it was clicked or not. Impressions are an important KPI for understanding the reach of content and are often focused on when brands want to effect the top of their marketing funnel. Engagements and engagement rates showcase likes, shares and comments on a piece of content and are analyzed to quantify how relevant or enticing content was to your target audience. Engagement rates are frequently used as a benchmark for the overall performance of content and campaigns.

Clicks or Conversions

When brands are looking to impact the middle or bottom of their marketing funnel, the key metrics they focus on are clicks and conversions. Clicks and click through rates (CTR) help brands understand how content drove consumers to websites or shoppable experiences and is often focused on with promotion themed content. Conversions are actual sales that are attributed to influencer marketing content and we don’t need to tell you why brands care about sales.

Cost per Impression (CPI) and Cost per Engagement (CPE)

So far the KPIs we’ve focused on are based on how effective influencer program performance has been. CPI and CPE are indicators of how efficient influencer program performance is. Based on the total cost of content creation and distribution, CPI and CPE highlight the value of your content as it pertains to your budget. Ideally, your programs become more effective adn efficient over time.

Year-over-Year (YoY) Change

Influencer marketing programs are built to scale and improve. YoY change helps brands understand how their performance compares to previous years and is a key factor for any influencer program. Brands might look at the YoY change in the number of influencers activated, total content created, engagement rate, impressions and more. In your report it is important to show positive YoY change in some capacity.

Influencer Marketing Measurement: How to Create An Effective Report

 

Planning Your Campaign Goals

Assumedly, before any of your campaigns have been launched you have taken the time to establish some goals and KPIs. Regardless of what those goals were, they are critical in the creation stage of your report and will guide the report’s content. Your goals act as guides to highlight the aspects of your presentation that you find most pertinent and persuasive. 

For your report to be received positively, there must be quantifiable evidence of performance, showcasing the value to the reader. The best part of creating your own report is that you have the ability to choose which pieces of evidence you want to highlight and by doing so, control the narrative you want to convey. So unless you had an absolute goose egg of a campaign, there should be more than enough great statistics to cover for the not-so-great ones.

 

5 Key Aspects of a Compelling Report

 A compelling report consists of five key elements: overview, top performers, campaign performance, insights, and recommendations. By structuring your report this way, you can ensure all basics of the report will be covered and depicted in a manner that makes the report impactful and digestible to your audience.  

  • Overview

Your report is not just data; it’s a story. Every great tale starts with a table of contents, or in our case, a program overview. For time-crunched readers, this single slide or section presents value and key metrics upfront at a high level and leaves the audience with fewer questions.

Create a table with each row representing a campaign, with two final rows for totals/averages and industry benchmarks. Include the following metrics as columns — these data points are the KPIs leadership wants insight into: 

  • Costs 
  • Influencer participants 
  • Social posts 
  • Total impressions 
  • Total engagements 
  • Engagement rate 
  • Cost per impression 
  • Cost per engagement 

 

  • Top Performers

A quick highlight of which influencers and what content provided the most value for your program is a critical step in exhibiting your success. Feature a slide with your top five influencers and top five pieces of content based on engagement. This information will allow your team to identify creators and in turn, personas for creators to work with in the future. 

 

  • Campaign Performance 

You’ve just created an easy way for any reader to learn about the progress of your influencer program. Now, at this stage in the report, you can launch into more in-depth information about each campaign by highlighting KPIs that you hit and addressing any gaps in your strategy. Depending on the amount of time you have to present, a slide or two detailing the intricacies of each campaign can be more or less valuable but ultimately adds substance to the “story” of your report. 

 

  • Insights

This is the most important part of your report. Data is great, but it’s vital to create action from the data. In the reporting story, your insights are overarching themes and the drivers that will determine your final chapter — aka, recommendations for future influencer strategy. While each report has its own specific insights that make it valuable, a common method of categorizing insights is by Influencer & Audience and by Content & Campaign. 

Influencer & Audience Insights

  • Geographic – Where are they? 
  • Demographic – Who are they? 
  • Interests – What do they like?

 

Content & Campaign Insights 

  • Changes – How has the content or campaign changed? 
  • Content types – What types of content performed well? 
  • Challenges – What obstacles were faced? 

 

  • Recommendations

So, the reader has followed the journey of your report story through your goal framing, high-level overview, in-depth campaign details, and provocative insights. You’re now ready to provide the real value of your report with recommendations. 

Your recommendations will be specific to your report, but it’s critical to convey tangible further actions in the following three categories: opportunities, challenges, and recommendations. Within the opportunities section, give a broad scope of what is possible for your team in the coming year or quarter. Challenges should give context on what hasn’t worked and why. Last but not least, your recommendations should talk through how to optimize moving forward.

Measuring Success in an Influencer Marketing Report

It’s difficult for your boss to understand the amount of time and effort that you and your team have put into your influencer programs. A compelling report is your time to show leadership just how hard you’ve worked, highlight the successes you’ve had, and provide context for any shortcomings. But remember, none of the work you’ve done matters if you can’t communicate your wins and losses in a persuasive story. 

If you want more budget or a promotion, the way in which you illustrate the goals you’ve crushed, insights you’ve learned, and recommendations you proposed are the best way to get there. Unfortunately, there are times when leadership doesn’t believe in the value of influencer marketing, this blog can provide support if you need help getting your boss to invest in influencer marketing before or after your report.

You can trust Mavrck as we’ve told our influencer report story hundreds of times, and are happy to help you tell yours. To get you started, we’ve created a blank reporting template deck in our Influencer Marketing Measurement: How to Create an Effective Report resource, with all the bones you need to show leadership just how much value your influencer programs provide.

Compelling Reports from Influencer Management Support

For Mavrck and its customers, influencer management support (Mavrck’s services team) often assists brand teams in creating their reports. With years of experience across hundreds of campaigns and verticals, the award-winning Mavrck services team provides insights and strategy in the creation and execution of influencer reports to highlight the value of influencer programs and their teams to leadership. 

What is Influencer Management Support?

Influencer management support is the assistance of influencer programs, teams, and activities provided by  technology partner capabilities, a managed services team, or a combination of both. Influencer management support is a broad term that encompasses any business that helps influencer programs grow and accomplish their goals. 

Why is Influencer Management Support Important?

As influencer programs require many moving parts and time, influencer management support benefits brands by increasing their capacity, efficiency, and effectiveness. Many influencer activities like discovery, communication, management, compensation, and measurement need significant attention and time. This time is costly and limits the capacity of influencer teams to strategize, innovate, and especially, activate at scale. In order to grow and improve, most brands see influencer management support as a prerequisite to succeed.

How do you track Influencer Management Support Success?

The best way to track the success of your influencer management support is to compare past performance without support. Analyze key metrics like number of influencers activated, number of campaigns run, YoY growth, number of impressions, average engagement rates, website traffic, and conversions to quantifiably measure success. From another perspective, note the time previously spent on different influencer activities to understand if your team has become more efficient and if capacity has increased.

Check out Mavrck’s latest Influencer Marketing Benchmark Report for more detail on our experience in the world of influencer marketing reporting.