Influencer Tracking

Influencer Tracking

Overview

Influencer marketing drives significant revenue but is notoriously difficult to attribute because customers often see a post, leave the platform, and purchase days later through a direct or organic channel. The solution is using both UTM links (for web traffic) and unique discount codes (for purchase attribution) together — these two signals complement each other and provide reliable attribution across devices. Most of this setup requires no custom code.

Note: For full influencer campaign management (discovery, briefs, deliverables), see @influencer-marketplace-integration. This skill focuses purely on attribution and analytics.

When to Use This Skill

• When managing 10+ influencer partnerships and tracking them in a spreadsheet
• When needing to prove ROI of influencer spend to leadership with first-party data
• When running gifting campaigns and needing to separate organic versus paid post attribution
• When comparing performance across platforms (Instagram, TikTok, YouTube) in a single dashboard

Core Instructions

Step 1: Set up UTM links for each creator

Create a unique UTM link for every influencer and campaign combination. Use Google's Campaign URL Builder at ga-dev-tools.google.com/campaign-url-builder:

Example URL: yourstore.com/?utm_source=instagram&utm_medium=influencer&utm_campaign=spring-2026&utm_content=janedoe

Shorten the link for Instagram bio use: use Bitly or a custom short domain. Store the mapping between short URL and UTM parameters in a spreadsheet.

Important: give influencers the shortened link and instruct them to place it in their link-in-bio, not in the post caption (Instagram captions do not have clickable links).

Step 2: Create unique discount codes for each creator

Discount codes capture purchases that happen via direct/organic after the initial influencer visit — the UTM link alone misses these.

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Shopify

1. Go to Shopify Admin → Discounts → Create Discount → Amount off order 2. Configure:

• Discount code: JANEDOE15 (creator handle + percentage)
• Discount type: Percentage — 15%
• Applies to: All products (or specific collections if needed)
• Minimum purchase requirement: $30 (to ensure positive ROI)
• Usage limits: Enable "Limit to one use per customer"
• Active dates: Set campaign start and end date

3. Click Save and send the code to the influencer

Pro tip: Use Shopify Flow (Plus) or an app like Glew to automatically tag orders using a specific discount code with the influencer's name — this makes attribution reporting easier.

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WooCommerce

1. Go to WooCommerce → Marketing → Coupons → Add coupon 2. Configure:

• Coupon code: JANEDOE15
• Discount type: Percentage discount — 15%
• Minimum spend: $30
• Usage limit per user: 1
• Coupon expiry date: Campaign end date

3. Under Restrictions → Allowed emails: optionally limit to new customers only

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BigCommerce

1. Go to BigCommerce Admin → Marketing → Promotions → Create Promotion 2. Set coupon code, discount amount, and usage limits 3. Set an expiry date matching the campaign end date

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Step 3: Track attribution in Google Analytics 4

For all platforms, UTM tracking works through GA4 automatically:

1. In GA4 → Reports → Acquisition → Traffic Acquisition: filter by Session medium = influencer to see all influencer-driven sessions 2. In GA4 → Reports → Acquisition → Traffic Acquisition: add Session campaign as a secondary dimension to compare by campaign 3. In GA4 → Explore → Free Form: build a report with utm_content as a dimension to compare creator performance

See influencer-attributed revenue: 1. Go to GA4 → Reports → Monetization → Ecommerce Purchases 2. Filter by utm_medium = influencer 3. Add utm_content as a dimension to see revenue per creator

Step 4: Track discount code revenue

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Shopify

1. Go to Shopify Admin → Analytics → Reports → Discounts → Discount codes 2. Filter by creator-specific codes to see revenue, order count, and usage per influencer 3. For a comparison view: Analytics → Custom Reports → Orders → group by discount code

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WooCommerce

1. Go to WooCommerce → Analytics → Coupons 2. Filter by influencer-specific coupon codes to see revenue and orders 3. Or install Metorik ($50/mo) for more advanced coupon attribution reporting

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Step 5: Build a creator performance tracker

Combine UTM revenue (from GA4) and discount code revenue (from Shopify/WooCommerce) in a single tracking spreadsheet:

ROAS calculation: Total Revenue ÷ Campaign Cost (flat fee + COGS of gifted product + commission paid)

Normalize by reach for fair comparison between micro and macro influencers:

• Revenue per 1,000 followers = Total Revenue / (Follower Count / 1,000)
• This metric often reveals that micro-influencers outperform macro-influencers significantly

Step 6: For headless stores — capture first-touch attribution

Standard last-click UTM attribution in GA4 misses influencer impact. Capture first-touch UTM data server-side:

// On page load, store the first UTM touch in a session cookie
function captureFirstTouchUTM() {
  const params = new URLSearchParams(window.location.search);
  if (!params.get('utm_source')) return;

  // Only store if no first-touch already captured this session
  if (!sessionStorage.getItem('first_touch_utm')) {
    sessionStorage.setItem('first_touch_utm', JSON.stringify({
      utm_source: params.get('utm_source'),
      utm_medium: params.get('utm_medium'),
      utm_campaign: params.get('utm_campaign'),
      utm_content: params.get('utm_content'),
      landed_at: new Date().toISOString(),
    }));
  }
}

// At checkout, include first-touch UTM in the order metadata
// Store in your order database for reporting

Best Practices

• Always use both UTM links and promo codes — UTM tracks web traffic; codes capture purchases that happen days later via direct or organic
• Use `utm_content` for the influencer handle — this lets you compare performance by creator within a single campaign (e.g., 20 influencers in the same spring campaign)
• For Instagram, links must go in bio — give influencers a link-in-bio URL and tell them to reference "link in bio" in their caption; caption links are not clickable
• Set campaign end dates on promo codes — expires influencer discounts automatically and prevents long-term code sharing on coupon sites
• Track gifting value as campaign cost — gifted products have COGS; include this in your ROAS calculation
• Compare EMV (Earned Media Value) alongside revenue — high-reach posts with lower conversion may still justify spend as brand awareness

Common Pitfalls

Related Skills

• @influencer-marketplace-integration
• @affiliate-program
• @marketing-attribution-dashboard
• @social-commerce
• @ugc-campaign-management

Post-Campaign ROI Report Generator

Problem/Feature Description

A consumer goods brand ran five influencer campaigns over the past quarter — a mix of paid partnerships and gifted product collaborations across micro- and macro-influencers. The head of growth needs a clear picture of which campaigns and influencers actually delivered ROI so she can decide where to invest next season.

The team has exported raw campaign and order data. They need a script that processes this data and produces a structured performance report. The report should go beyond simple revenue totals: it needs metrics that account for the cost of gifted product (not just cash fees), allow fair comparison between an influencer with 800K followers and one with 12K, and include an estimate of the brand-awareness value generated even when direct sales were low. The output should be in a format the growth team can read directly or pass into a spreadsheet.

Output Specification

Produce a Python or TypeScript script roi-report.ts (or roi-report.py) that:

• Reads the input data files below
• Computes per-campaign metrics and outputs campaign-report.json

campaign-report.json should be an array of campaign result objects, one per campaign, each containing at minimum:

• campaignId, influencerHandle, platform, followerCount
• budget, revenue, ordersCount, aov
• roas, cps
• impressions, emv
• rpm (revenue per 1,000 followers)
• attributedRevenue (from both promo code and UTM-attributed orders)

Also produce a summary.md that ranks the campaigns by a metric of your choice and includes a brief (3–5 sentence) narrative interpretation that uses EMV as a secondary consideration for campaigns with low direct conversion.

Input Files

Extract these files before beginning.

=============== FILE: inputs/campaigns.json =============== [ { "id": "camp-001", "name": "Winter Warmth", "influencerId": "inf-A", "influencerHandle": "@naturalnora", "platform": "instagram", "followerCount": 820000, "budget": 8000, "feeStructure": "flat_fee", "impressions": 410000 }, { "id": "camp-002", "name": "Clean Kitchen", "influencerId": "inf-B", "influencerHandle": "@kitchenbyalex", "platform": "tiktok", "followerCount": 95000, "budget": 1200, "feeStructure": "flat_fee", "impressions": 280000 }, { "id": "camp-003", "name": "Morning Ritual", "influencerId": "inf-C", "influencerHandle": "@risewithreena", "platform": "instagram", "followerCount": 14000, "budget": 350, "feeStructure": "gifted", "impressions": 9800 }, { "id": "camp-004", "name": "Eco Everyday", "influencerId": "inf-D", "influencerHandle": "@ecowithjamie", "platform": "youtube", "followerCount": 210000, "budget": 3500, "feeStructure": "flat_fee", "impressions": 67000 }, { "id": "camp-005", "name": "Gifted Glow", "influencerId": "inf-E", "influencerHandle": "@glowingwithgrace", "platform": "instagram", "followerCount": 38000, "budget": 180, "feeStructure": "gifted", "impressions": 22000 } ] =============== FILE: inputs/orders.json =============== [ { "orderId": "ord-001", "campaignId": "camp-001", "subtotalCents": 8900, "attributionType": "utm_first_touch" }, { "orderId": "ord-002", "campaignId": "camp-001", "subtotalCents": 6500, "attributionType": "promo_code" }, { "orderId": "ord-003", "campaignId": "camp-001", "subtotalCents": 11200, "attributionType": "utm_first_touch" }, { "orderId": "ord-004", "campaignId": "camp-002", "subtotalCents": 5400, "attributionType": "promo_code" }, { "orderId": "ord-005", "campaignId": "camp-002", "subtotalCents": 7800, "attributionType": "promo_code" }, { "orderId": "ord-006", "campaignId": "camp-002", "subtotalCents": 4200, "attributionType": "utm_first_touch" }, { "orderId": "ord-007", "campaignId": "camp-002", "subtotalCents": 9100, "attributionType": "promo_code" }, { "orderId": "ord-008", "campaignId": "camp-003", "subtotalCents": 3300, "attributionType": "promo_code" }, { "orderId": "ord-009", "campaignId": "camp-003", "subtotalCents": 2800, "attributionType": "utm_first_touch" }, { "orderId": "ord-010", "campaignId": "camp-004", "subtotalCents": 14500, "attributionType": "utm_first_touch" }, { "orderId": "ord-011", "campaignId": "camp-004", "subtotalCents": 9800, "attributionType": "promo_code" }, { "orderId": "ord-012", "campaignId": "camp-005", "subtotalCents": 4100, "attributionType": "promo_code" } ]

Influencer Attribution — Client & Server Implementation

Problem/Feature Description

A fashion e-commerce startup has been running influencer campaigns but their analytics show nearly zero attributed revenue because they only use last-click attribution. The real purchase path for influencer-driven customers typically looks like this: a user taps an Instagram story link, browses, leaves, and returns two days later directly to buy. By that point, the UTM parameters are gone and the influencer gets no credit.

The engineering team needs two pieces of code: a client-side JavaScript snippet that runs on every page load to reliably capture the initial influencer visit, and a server-side TypeScript function that runs at checkout to attribute the order to the correct influencer campaign. The attribution logic must handle the case where the customer used a promo code (which may have come from a different influencer than the one they clicked) and the case where they never used a code at all.

Output Specification

Produce two files:

1. client-attribution.js — A browser-side script (plain JS, no build step) with a function that should be called on every page load. The function reads URL query parameters and persists UTM data in browser storage so that it remains available at checkout time, even if the customer navigates away and returns later.

2. server-attribution.ts — A TypeScript module exporting an async function captureOrderInfluencerAttribution(orderId, request) that runs at order placement. It should resolve which influencer campaign deserves credit and write an attribution record. Include a db stub object and a type for the request so the file is self-contained and illustrates the logic clearly.

Add a ATTRIBUTION_NOTES.md explaining the attribution strategy — which signals are used, how conflicts between them are resolved, and why this approach handles multi-session purchase journeys correctly.

Influencer Campaign Onboarding — Tracking Artifacts Generator

Problem/Feature Description

A direct-to-consumer skincare brand is scaling its influencer program from ad-hoc spreadsheet management to a structured, code-driven workflow. The marketing ops team has signed three influencers for a "Spring Glow" launch campaign running April 1–30, 2026. Each influencer needs a unique set of campaign tracking artifacts before they can post: a personalized tracking URL to their product page and a unique discount code to share with their audience.

The team needs a TypeScript module that takes an influencer roster and campaign configuration and produces the tracking link and promo code for each influencer. The module should follow the brand's internal conventions for UTM parameter naming and promo code formatting so that downstream analytics pipelines can parse them correctly.

Output Specification

Produce a TypeScript file influencer-onboarding.ts that:

• Defines the necessary data types/interfaces for influencers, campaigns, and UTM parameters
• Implements a function to build a UTM-tracked URL for a given influencer and campaign
• Implements a function to generate (and optionally "create") a promo code for a given influencer and campaign
• Exports a main function or script that processes the three influencers below and writes a JSON summary to output.json with each influencer's handle, tracking link, and promo code

The output.json file should be an array of objects, one per influencer, with at minimum the fields: handle, trackingLink, promoCode.

Also produce a promo-details.json file listing the full promo code configuration for each influencer (all fields that would be passed to the database/promotions system).

Input Files

The following data describes the campaign and influencer roster. Extract it before beginning.

=============== FILE: inputs/campaign.json =============== { "id": "camp-spring-2026", "name": "Spring Glow", "platform": "instagram", "startDate": "2026-04-01", "endDate": "2026-04-30", "budget": 4500, "discountPct": 15, "deliverables": ["1 feed post", "2 stories"], "destination": "/collections/spring" } =============== FILE: inputs/influencers.json =============== [ { "id": "inf-001", "handle": "@glowwithsophie", "platform": "instagram", "followerCount": 85000, "niche": ["skincare", "wellness"], "email": "sophie@example.com", "feeStructure": "flat_fee" }, { "id": "inf-002", "handle": "@thetaradiaries", "platform": "instagram", "followerCount": 210000, "niche": ["beauty", "lifestyle"], "email": "tara@example.com", "feeStructure": "flat_fee" }, { "id": "inf-003", "handle": "@skincarebypriya", "platform": "instagram", "followerCount": 42000, "niche": ["skincare", "sustainability"], "email": "priya@example.com", "feeStructure": "gifted" } ]