• by Joe Mandese  @mp_joemandese, July 19, 2022

The Association of National Advertisers (ANA) this morning released its first-ever guidelines for measuring influencer marketing.

The guidelines, which include metrics covering "awareness," "engagement," and "conversions" generated via "organic" influencer marketing, were described as a "challenge that has thwarted" marketers for several years, the ANA said in a release, adding, "The lack of both consistency and transparency has limited organic influencer marketing’s value to advertisers, hamstrung its growth, and obfuscated its true ROI."

The ANA said the guidelines were developed in collaboration with "agency partners and the major platforms" and have also been endorsed by the Media Rating Council.

“Two years ago, in the ANA’s State of Influence report, we asked its members to identify their single biggest challenge in implementing influencer marketing, and the overwhelming response was measurement,” ANA CEO Bob Liodice stated, adding, “These new guidelines will help all marketers harness the power of this important and growing discipline and help them maximize their ROI.”

The ANA said the lack of standardized measurement across social media platforms and ad agencies has been a key part of the problems for marketers and recommended that marketers:

• Use the guidelines as a starting point to understand the differences across social platforms in measurement definitions and calculations. Communicate with your platform points of contact that you will be using the Guidelines’ definitions and calculations moving forward and express the need for greater data transparency, especially in organic exposure.

• Share them with your internal marketing teams. Consider including not just the leaders executing the influencer campaigns but also communications and PR, data and analytics, social and digital, media, and content marketing teams.

• Share them with your agency partners and align on the use of the guidelines’ definitions and calculations for organic campaign measurement and reporting.