A campaign wraps up. Everyone's in the meeting room, and someone asks: 'So, did it work?' At that moment, none of the numbers in front of you actually answer the question — because answering it would have required planning before the campaign even started.
The most common mistake: brands look at impressions and engagement and call it a win. But impressions don't guarantee anyone actually saw your product. Engagement doesn't correlate with purchase intent. What actually needs to be tracked: link clicks, UTM-tagged traffic, promo code usage, and sales lift in the 72 hours following each post.
The second big mistake is evaluating an entire campaign with a single metric. Impressions make sense for awareness campaigns. Sales numbers belong in conversion campaigns. When you mix these up, nothing looks clearly successful or clearly failed — it just looks murky.
Practical advice: before the campaign launches, write down answers to three questions. 'What do we expect from this campaign?' 'How will we measure it?' and 'What number would tell us it worked?' If you can't answer these in writing before you start, consider pushing the launch until you can.
Mert Doğan
InfluencerPortal — Content Team