How do businesses measure the ROI of influencer marketing?

Put a value on the goal first. You cannot calculate a return until you have decided what a result is worth to the business.

Separate awareness ROI from sales ROI. They are measured differently and mixing them is how reports turn into mush nobody trusts.

ROI needs a number on both sides: what you spent and what you got back. The spend is easy. The return depends on the goal. For a sales goal, ROI is concrete: attribute orders to each creator with unique codes and tracked links, total the revenue, compare to cost. For an awareness goal it is softer, so businesses use reach and engagement, expressed as an equivalent media value, as a proxy.

The honest version separates the two. Do not claim a hard revenue ROI off an awareness campaign or dismiss an awareness campaign for lacking direct sales. Decide which you are running, measure it on its own terms and say which is which when you report up.

Either way, attribution per creator is the foundation and that starts with knowing who you worked with and how their audience performed. Flinque keeps the creator and audience data in one place so the return side of the equation has real numbers behind it rather than estimates.

Total spend means total spend. Include product, fees and your team time, not just the cash paid to the creator or the ROI is flattering fiction.