Monitoring KPIs and Determining Success in Gaming Influencer Campaigns

Now that you know why brands are getting into gaming-centric campaigns (more on that here) let’s discuss how you can track campaign performance and find success in the space.

Gaming influencer campaigns are often geared towards brand awareness and brand affinity among an increasingly valuable audience; however, they are now also being leveraged for product purchases, launches, and user acquisition.

The Key Performance Indicators to Track for Gaming Campaigns

• Average Concurrent Viewers (Avg. CCV): The average viewership at a given moment throughout the stream

• Peak Concurrent Viewers (Peak CCV): The highest level of concurrent viewership reached during the stream

• Unique Viewers: How many unique viewers engaged with the stream

• Views: Impressions of the stream

The best way to guarantee your influencer campaign in the gaming space is a success is by partnering with influencers who are passionate about the brand partnership and enthusiastic with their audience. That energy will translate to higher audience engagement.

How Brands Can Engage & Find Success

Brands have the opportunity to activate alongside creators in a depth of ways, including sponsored streams and live-streamed events, VODS and long-form series, and short-form videos on TikTok and Instagram. The brands prioritizing these areas are finding more ways to creatively own the gaming scene alongside creators. 

A big trend has been the creativity and ownership of esports content by the creators themselves. From creator tournaments like Ludwig’s Fortnite Mondays, live-streamed series like OTK’s series Schooled, and big stunts and challenge videos with influencers like Mr. Beast and PrestonPlayz, gaming creators are often at the heart of today’s innovations.

It’s worth noting that while production quality is an important factor to consider, the true keys to success in content include showcasing personalities, bringing creators together, and telling entertaining, organic-first stories.

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Have questions about launching a gaming campaign? We can walk you through the whole process. Get in touch. 

TikTok Analytics, Explained

Brands can no longer ignore TikTok when it comes to influencer marketing. The platform’s unmatched algorithm presents a unique opportunity for content to go viral and reach millions of potential consumers, and TikTok creators are savvy about developing engaging video content that converts viewership to patronage.

Whether you’re launching a TikTok account for your brand or simply working with influencers on the platform to create branded content, you’ll want to understand TikTok’s available analytics and how to interpret them in order to perfect your TikTok marketing strategy. So let’s break down everything TikTok analytics!

How To Access TikTok Analytics

First thing’s first: how do you access TikTok analytics?

You’ll need a Creator or Business Account on TikTok (don’t worry, it’s free) to view analytics. Head’s up: you’ll only be able to access analytics for content after you sign up for a professional account, so go ahead, visit your settings, and switch ASAP so you’ll have access to metrics.

Now that you have your Creator or Business Account set up, go to Settings > Creator/Business Tools > Analytics, and you’ll be greeted with your Analytics overview.

Understanding Your Analytics Dashboard

There are 4 main tabs under your analytics: Overview, Content, Followers, and LIVE. Each tab provides important data for you to understand your account performance. Let’s take a deeper dive:

Overview

Overview shows the overarching trends of your account analytics over a given period of time (the default is “Last 7 Days”, but you can also view “Last 28 Days”, “Last 60 Days”, or enter a custom date range), including:

Engagement: how many times audiences are viewing and interacting with your account’s content *click the arrow to view this data represented in graph format*

1. Video Views: the total number of times all videos on your account were viewed

2. Profile Views: the number of times your profile was viewed

3. Likes: how many likes videos on your account have received

4. Comments: how many comments have been left on your videos

5. Shares: how many times your videos have been shared

Followers: how many followers your account has, including net gains

Content: how many TikToks you have published during the set time frame 

Live: how many Live sessions you have hosted over the set time frame

Content

This is where you can see view numbers for recent posts and also find your Trending Videos.

The Video Posts section is pretty self-explanatory; it shows you all the videos you’ve posted in the past 7 days, their view numbers, and compares your number of posts to the previous 7 day period.

Below you’ll find the Trending Videos section, which is really valuable for you to understand what content of yours is performing best. This section shows the top 9 videos with the fastest growth in view numbers over the past 7 days.

How to use this data: Take a look at these videos and try to identify any trends or commonalities: maybe a certain topic you’re posting about is performing really well, or perhaps you started a trend that’s garnering a lot of engagement. Look at your popular videos and lean into that content!

Followers

This tab is where you can access demographics on your followers, as well as how your followers interact with other TikTok content.

First, you’ll see your follower count and growth rate over the past week. You can use this and the Followers information from the Overview tab to track increases in following.

Below, you’ll see a pie chart illustrating the gender of your followers.

Below that, you’ll see a percentage breakdown of where your followers are from, by country. Pro tip: Depending on where your followers are from, you may want to consider ensuring your content is accessible and relatable to international audiences (for example, adding translated captions if you have a large international following).

Further down, you’ll see Follower Activity that shows when your followers are most active on the platform, both by hour and by day.

Pro tip: this data is all recorded in UTC, so adjust for your time zone to understand when the best posting times are for your audience. (And if we’re being honest, we wouldn’t worry too much about posting at specific optimized times, as TikTok’s algorithm boosts content old and new alike to the “For You Page”).

LIVE

This tab specifically shares analytics regarding live stream content on TikTok. You have the option to view data for LIVE sessions either over the past 7 days or the past 28 days.

First, you’ll be provided with an overview of LIVE video data, including the number of LIVE videos hosted, the total number of views, new followers, total time of LIVE videos, and top viewer count.

Below that, you’ll also see how many unique viewers have watched your LIVE videos at least once.

Last, you’ll see how many “diamonds” (aka digital gifts viewers can send you during LIVE videos that can be redeemed for money) you’ve earned during LIVE videos.

Viewing Individual Video Analytics

Now that you have a better understanding of your account analytics, let’s talk analytics for specific videos!

To view your video’s analytics, click on your video and click the 3 dots on the lower right corner. One of your options will be “Analytics”, so go ahead and click that. You’ll now be able to see your video’s performance.

At the top, you’ll see 4 icons with numbers below each: a play button, a heart, a comment bubble, and an arrow:

The play button represents the total number of views the video has received.

The heart represents how many likes the video has received.

The comment bubble represents how many comments have been made under your video.

The arrow represents how many times the video has been shared (which includes link copies and DM shares).

The next section displays total play time (in hours), total views, the percentage of viewers who watched the full video, reached audience, and average watch time.

Pro tip: Average watch time is one of the most important metrics on TikTok and can make or break a video’s frequency on the FYP. A short average watch time means that viewers aren’t interested enough in the video’s content to watch through to the end, while a high one means your video is doing a great job keeping people engaged. Make note of your videos with high average watch times vs. low ones, and strategize different ways of getting information across if you’re seeing consistently low watch times.

The next section showcases traffic source types, meaning where your content is being seen on the app. Your viewers can find your videos from the following sources:

For You

Personal Profile

Following

Sound

Search

Hashtag

The last section shows audience territories for your specific video; in other words, where your viewers are from. 

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Now that you have a better understanding of TikTok’s analytics, you can now interpret content performance both from your brand’s account and from influencer partners and create a successful future TikTok strategy.

Have more questions about TikTok or interested in running a TikTok influencer campaign? Lytehouse can answer your questions.

YouTube Analytics, Explained

If you’re interested in video content, there’s no better platform than YouTube. For both individual creators and brand channels, video is a powerful way to connect with your audience and build a loyal fanbase.

As with all social media platforms, understanding your analytics will help you perfect your YouTube video strategy so that you can create resonant content and grow your following.

Here are the key stats you should understand when looking at your YouTube analytics:

Channel Analytics To Watch

To access your channel analytics, open up your account’s YouTube Studio page and click the graph icon on the left hand side. You can customize the time period, but the default shows analytics for the past 28 days.

Channel Views: How many overall views your channel received across all videos (note: a “view” on YouTube means someone has watched at least 30 seconds of a video) in a given time period. This is a good overview of how many viewers your channel is currently receiving in a month.

Subscriber Growth: This statistic shows you the positive or negative change in subscribers over a given time period. A large increase in subscribers indicates that your channel is growing in popularity, always a positive sign!

Top Videos: This one is pretty straightforward, as you will see your top 10 best performing videos over the time period you are viewing.

Take a look at your top videos and look for any trends or points of similarity between them. Is there a common theme or format that is performing the best? Identifying these commonalities will help you determine what viewers are best responding to so you can shape your future content strategy to share similar content.

Impressions: The number of times your videos’ thumbnails appear across YouTube, as well as external websites and apps that link to YouTube videos.

Impression Click-Through Rate: This is the percentage of users who click through to watch one of your videos from an impression. According to YouTube, average impression click-through rates range from 2% to 10%. 

YouTube also recommends waiting at least a week to get a video’s true click-through rate and compare against older videos to get an accurate comparison of your average click-through rate.

Unique Viewers: Because a single viewer can watch and rewatch videos over and over again, or watch several videos on your channel in a row, it’s also important to see how many unique viewers are tuning into your channel.

Traffic Source Types

YouTube breaks down traffic sources into several categories, including YouTube search, Channel pages, Suggested videos, Playlists, and External. This overview will show you the percentage breakdown of each type of traffic source, and below, you’ll be able to see more detailed analytics on each traffic type. 

External: traffic sources from outside of YouTube. This can include Google searches, your website, other social media channels, and external websites that your videos may be embedded on. 

Playlists: You can create different playlists on your channel to group similar videos or entries in a series together and organize your content. Other users can also add your videos to playlists of their own. This section will show you the best-performing playlists, which can help you see the types of content that people are looking at the most, and also channels that are similar to yours that are helping to boost your content. 

Suggested Videos: one of the reasons why YouTube can become such a time-suck is their algorithm that suggests related videos once you are finished watching your current video. You can see the videos that direct viewers to your content and understand the topics and styles of videos your viewers are interested in based on the videos that led them to you.

YouTube Search: These are the top search terms that lead viewers to discover your videos. This is why it is super important to optimize your video titles and descriptions with searchable terms. The best titles succinctly explain what the video is about and utilize trending buzzwords when applicable.

Video Analytics To Watch

Along with channel analytics, you can view statistics on individual videos to further understand how your audience engages with your content and if certain videos are successful or not. As with Channel Analytics, you can change the time period for video analytics, but the default provides analytics since the video was published.

Views: How many total views a video has received. This is a great top line measure of success, but be sure to look at the other numbers for a complete picture of a video’s success, as YouTube counts just 30 seconds of watch time as 1 view.

Subscribers: How many new subscribers you gained from a video. If this number is high, that’s a great sign, as it means your video was engaging and valuable in content, so much so that users have subscribed to see more of your content!

Audience Retention: How much of your video are viewers actually watching? Viewers click on videos that aren’t what they're looking for, or get bored and click away, all the time, so this graphs out the average drop off of viewership over the length of your video. There will almost always be drop off, but the higher percentage you keep throughout the video, the more your video is doing a good job at retaining an audience.

Top Traffic Sources: How people found your video. As with channel analytics, this is broken down into different categories like YouTube Search, Suggested Videos, Playlists, and more, but the analytics here refer to the specific video you are monitoring. In addition, you can also see how many of your subscribers received a “New Video” notification and clicked through to watch (according to YouTube, the average notification click-through rate is between 0.5% and 2.5%).

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With video content more popular than ever, understanding how your YouTube videos perform will enable you to create effective and strong-performing content. Knowing the key analytics to track will also help you when working with YouTube influencers so you can set goals for your partnership. Need help finding the right YouTube creators? We can help!

Want to learn more about analytics on other social media platforms? Discover our guides to Instagram Insights and Instagram Story Insights.

Instagram Story Insights, Explained

Last month, we broke down everything you need to know about Instagram post insights. Now, we are taking a deeper dive into Instagram Story insights. 

*Disclaimer: you will need an Instagram Business or Creator account to access full insights. 

How To Access Instagram Story Insights

You can access insights for Instagram Stories several different ways:

From The Story Post: If your story is still live, you can view up-to-date story insights by clicking on the bottom left corner of each slide. This will bring up the total story views, as well as a list of accounts who have viewed the story. You can click on the bar graph icon to access insights for each individual story slide.

From Insights: From your profile, click the 3 horizontal bars in the top right corner, then click “Insights”. From there, scroll down to the “Stories” section and click “See All”. You’ll be able to see analytics for all stories posted in the past 14 days, including Reach, Link Clicks, Replies, Follows, and more. This is helpful for when you are interested in understanding overall account analytics and story insights.

From Archive: You can access detailed insights for stories posted more than 14 days ago through the archive. To access, again click the 3 horizontal bars in the top right corner, then click “Archive”. Toggle to “Stories” and from there you will see past story posts. Click on the story you wish to receive insights for, then click on the “Eye” icon in the lower left corner to access detailed insights.

Understanding Story Insight Definitions

Pulling up the detailed analytics for each story post reveals a wealth of information about how each story has performed. Here is what each insight means:

Interactions:

These numbers break down the different ways that viewers can interact with an Instagram story. 

Link Clicks:

What is it? How many times viewers have “swiped up” on a link.

Why is it important to you? Link clicks are a great way to know if viewers are responding to the story content and compelled to learn more or buy the feature product. If the goal of your influencer campaign is to drive conversions, high link click numbers are a sign of campaign success. Note: only Instagram Business or Creator accounts with over 10,000 followers can currently include links in their stories. 

Shares:

What is it? The number of times a story was shared, either as a direct message or onto another account’s story.

Why is it important to you? Shares are a form of user approval, as viewers not only like the content but are sending it to friends for approval, too. Shares are an important way for stories to reach new audiences, and drive up impression numbers. 

Replies: 

What is it? The number of times viewers send a direct message reply or share a “Quick Reaction” in response to a story.

Why is it important to you? A high number of replies suggests that the story content is highly engaging and stimulates conversation, as it warrants responses from viewers. Note: Replies can be turned off, but we usually only see this with celebrity accounts.

Website Clicks:

What is it? The number of times viewers clicked the website link in the account’s profile. Note that this is separate from “Link Clicks” which refers to the specific link added to the story.

Why is it important to you? Viewers clicking the link in an account’s bio are interested in learning more about the account, indicating that the story content is driving them to get to know more. 

Sticker Taps:

What is it? The number of total taps on location, hashtag, mention, or product stickers on a story.

Why is it important to you? This number shows that the viewer is eager to learn more about the location, tagged accounts, shoppable products, or hashtags included in the story slide. For brands, a high number of “Sticker Taps” to their handle is a positive sign that viewers are responding well to the brand and its offerings. 

Profile Visits:

What is it? The number of times an account’s profile was viewed.

Why is it important to you? This is another indication that viewers, particularly new viewers who aren’t following the account already, are attracted to learn more. 

Discovery:

These numbers detail how many people view a story and how they are finding it. 

Reach:

What is it? The number of unique accounts that saw a story. 

Why is it important to you? Story views are an important metric for marketers, as it shows how many eyeballs are viewing the story content. 

Impressions:

What is it? The amount of times a piece of content has been viewed. Impression numbers will (in most cases) be higher than the reach number, since people can view a post multiple times.

Why is it important to you? If your impression numbers are much higher than your reach numbers, this is a great sign that your content warrants multiple views and has created a lasting impression. 

Follows:

What is it? The number of accounts that started following an account after viewing a story.

Why is it important to you? A high number next to “Follows” suggests that the content is attracting new audiences to learn more about the account. 

Navigation:

What is it? How viewers are looking through an account’s story. There are few different ways viewers can navigate through the story, including: 

Back: The number of taps to view the previous story slide on an account. 

Forward: The number of taps to see the next story slide on an account.

Next Story: The number of taps to the next account’s story.

Exited: The number of taps to leave an account’s story. 

Why is it important to you? Other than “Back” you want these numbers to be as low as possible relative to the account holder's benchmarks, as it means that viewers are clicking through your story rapidly, or even deciding to move on to a new account’s story. If viewers are hitting the “Back” button on a story, however, that means they wanted to look at the slide again in order to take in the information presented. This is a good sign, as it means that the story slide content warrants repeat viewing (and will help increase the “Impressions” number).

Instagram Insights, Explained

Understanding the definitions behind Instagram analytics is integral to know how your content is performing and the types of content to which audiences are responding. Whether monitoring the success of your brand’s own Instagram account or that of an influencer program, understanding different insight numbers will help you create content that resonates and set informed KPIs. 

Here is everything you need to know about Instagram post analytics. 

*Disclaimer: you will need an Instagram Business or Creator account to access full insights

The Instagram Engagement Icons & How Each Is Important To You

When you click the “View Insights” button on a specific Instagram post, a page will appear with 4 icons and numbers beneath each one, like below:

An example of top-line Instagram post insights

Likes (Indicated by the “Heart” Icon):

What is it? A like is a user’s stamp of approval on a post and is one of the biggest measures of “engagement” i.e. how much users are responding to the content.

Why is it important to you? Because clicking the “heart” button takes little effort, likes aren’t as valued as other types of engagement (see below).

With Instagram considering doing away with publicly-viewable likes, the value of like numbers will only continue to decrease. However, agencies like Socialyte that have first- and third-party access to analytics will still be able to see like numbers, so don’t count their value out completely.  

Comments (Indicated by the “Speech Bubble” Icon):

What is it? The number of comments a post receives is listed under the “thought bubble” icon.

Why is it important to you? Posts with a lot of comments are often not only aesthetically pleasing or enjoyable, but many have asked viewers to engage and share their thoughts and feedback. Because commenting takes more effort than just clicking the “heart” button and liking something, comments are typically seen as more valuable than likes. They indicate a meaningful connection between you and your audience.

It should be noted that quantity of comments doesn’t always equate to quality. 10 thought-out responses to a prompt in your post, for example, can be more valuable than 100 comments that are simply the “heart” emoji, as it demonstrates your audience is commenting thoughtfully and truly engaged with the post. 

Shares (Indicated by the “Paper Airplane” Icon):

What is it? Users can share a post by clicking the “paper plane” icon, either through direct messages with friends, or to their Instagram Story. A shareable post can be anything posted to Instagram, including your own, from a hilarious meme to a news update to a cute pair of boots that someone wants to share with their friend.

Why is it important to you? Shares are another form of user approval. Not only does the user like the content, but they are sending it to friends for approval as well. When a user shares content in this way, it reaches new audiences and allows for the content creator to gain potential followers, ultimately driving post impressions (more on that later). 

Saves (Indicated by the “Bookmark” Icon): 

What is it? Users can bookmark content for future reference using the save button. Recipes, tutorials, and inspirational posts are saved most often.

Why is it important to you? If you are hoping to educate or inspire others through your content, high save numbers signal that your content is working and are an indication that similar content should be created and shared in the future. 

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Together, likes, comments, saves, and shares make up a post’s engagement number. Engagement is a valuable metric for marketers because it means that viewers are responding to the content. If engagement numbers are low relative to the corresponding following (we call this “engagement rate,” or total number of engagements [industry standard is likes + comments] divided by an account’s total following), it may signal that followers are not interested or do not see the value in the content that is being presented to them. Conversely, if the engagement rate is on the higher end, followers are interested in the content that is being consistently shared.

Understanding Post Insights

If you swipe up on the “Post Insights” overview, more detailed insights will appear. It will look something like this:

An example of what full Instagram post insights look like

Profile Visits:

What is it? How many people clicked through to your profile from your post.

Why is it important to you? The higher the number the better, as it indicates your post was intriguing enough to explore your page more. It is also a good indicator as to what content is attracting new viewers to learn more about you. 

Reach: 

What is it? The number of unique accounts that saw a post, either in the home feed, Discover tab, hashtag or location search, or tagged posts

Why is it important to you? Reach is the best indicator of content performance, and a higher reach usually leads to higher engagement metrics. 

Impressions:

What is it? The amount of times a piece of content has been viewed. Impression numbers will (in most cases) be higher than the reach number, since people can view a post multiple times. 

Why is it important to you? If your impression numbers are much higher than your reach numbers, this is a great sign that your content warrants multiple views and has created a lasting impression. 

Instagram breaks down the source of impressions even further, as seen below:

From Hashtags: This indicates that people discovered your content via hashtags. Adding a few strategic hashtags increases your post’s visibility and searchability. Tag relevant search terms that are applicable to your post so that people who aren’t following you can discover your content (for example: tagging a breakfast recipe with #breakfastrecipe so users searching for new meal ideas find your post). 

From Home: This means that your post appeared on your followers’  home feeds. In an ideal world, 100% of your followers would see everything you post, but this isn’t typically the case, as Instagram’s algorithm prioritizes the posts a user sees first by a number of factors, including recency, interest, and user relationships.

If this number is high (i.e. close to your follower number), that means a large percentage of the people who follow you are viewing your content directly on their home feeds. This is a great sign, as it indicates you are doing a good job activating your audience on a consistent basis.

From Profile: This number comes from the amount of times a user clicked on your post directly from your profile. 

Other: Impressions under the “Other” category can come from a variety of sources, including post shares, saves, photo and video tags, mentions, and post notifications.

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Now that you have better insight on the meanings behind different Instagram post analytics, you’ll be able to recognize what content performs well and how your channel is acquiring new followers. Use these insights to develop a strong Instagram marketing strategy moving forward.