It will be difficult to succeed in marketing in the new cookie-free and privacy-first future. Influencer marketing has once again experienced a surge as a result of the exorbitant prices of sponsored advertising brought on by iOS privacy upgrades (less than a third of users now permit in-app tracing), the death of third-party cookies, and other privacy-related issues. Brands will need to go back to the drawing board to create contextually relevant media and locations that their customers frequent and like as options for getting in front of customers are becoming more scarce and expensive. First-party data and influencer marketing appear to be a winning formula that will stick around for a while.

How should an influencer campaign be developed?

Set your campaign target in step 1

You won’t be able to extract reliable data on the performance of your influencer campaign without a defined KPI in mind, such as sales growth, loyalty programme memberships, the number of trial accounts, or simply clicks and impressions.

Here is a list of potential KPIs you could monitor:

Engagement (which includes clicks and views) & Impressions
Shares and Likes
Followers\sBacklinks
Sales (conversions)
Referrals

2. Look for substitutes
   List the alternative methods you may use to achieve your campaign’s objectives excluding influencers, and estimate how much they would cost (reverse ROI). At this point, you might not even need influencers.
3. Decide on a budget
   A permanent discount for affiliates can be added to your influencer campaign in addition to the regular commission based on sales volume or other parameters, making it more like a sophisticated ambassador programme. Also keep in mind that the time of year can have a significant impact on influencer prices, which rise around the holidays.Check your funnel again
4. Review your guiding principles for style, voice, message, and vision. While you’re doing it, you should also review the funnel to see if any components could be simplified or improved to raise the likelihood that the campaign will be successful.

determining the ROI

It’s easy to determine the final ROI if you know what your investment and results were. An ROI of 200 percent would be achieved, for instance, if the influencer was paid $5000 and returned an anticipated $10,000 in profit (either from sales linked to the influencer or through earned media value).

The simple equation is (Revenue/Cost) x 100.

For most brands, influencer marketing has a lot of potential. To find a great fit, your goals and brand must first be understood and analysed, as with any marketing campaign. If you have prepared your KPIs and tracking tools in advance, you may experiment and learn from it