How to Track the Performance of Your Growth Campaigns

Tracking the performance of your Growth campaigns is the key to actionable insights.

When you run a Growth campaign, you unlock the potential to rapidly expand your audience. Most creators see dramatic increases in Instagram followers, Spotify followers, YouTube fans—the list goes on and on. While seeing those numbers soar is definitely a great feeling, analyzing those numbers is the way to gain valuable insights into your audience and your marketing investment. In this article, we’ll examine two critical performance metrics: cost-per-click (CPC) and cost-per-follower (CPF). We’ll look at how they’re calculated and why they matter; plus, we’ll preempt common questions.

CPF and CPC: What They Are, How They’re Calculated, Why They Matter

Cost Per Follower (CPF)

Cost Per Follower is calculated based on the spend at the end of the previous day and your follower count on a daily basis. Spotify and Instagram usually update their follower count every 24-hours, whereas YouTube tends to update every 1k followers once you reach a certain number of followers.

Your Cost Per Follower metric is a good indicator that the end-users know what to do when they land on your Spotify, Instagram, or Youtube page. If they aren’t sure they’re supposed to follow you, likely they won’t.

Cost Per Follower insights located within your campaign analytics.

Cost Per Click (CPC)

Cost Per Click is measured when an ad leads a user to click. You can track performance by looking at your overall performance data to make sure users are being reached with your ad and that they are clicking on it. Your ad creative should prompt action. CPC is a good indicator if your ad prompts the end-users to ‘swipe up’. A good CPC to aim for is around .20 cents per click.

In other words: CPF measures followers; CPC measures basic engagement.

Cost Per Click located within your campaign analytics under Overall Performance.

Common CPC and CPF Questions

Do I know which of my new followers came directly from this campaign?

No. There is no direct attribution (someone who swipes up on your Growth campaign and that person following you) since you can’t place a pixel on Spotify, Youtube, or your Instagram profile directly.

How does CPC affect the Overall Performance section of my dashboard?

If you are running your campaign globally, it’s normal to see spend vary amongst the 3 Tiers within the Overall Performance section, as the spend is proportional to the cost of advertising within each Tier. As such, Tiers 1 and 2 typically see a higher CPC than Tier 3. As long as the CPC across all Tiers is under 0.20 cents, you’re in a good spot.

For all other campaign types ("Recommended," "English Speaking," and "Custom") you'd still want to aim for being under 0.20 cents CPC, and above 0.20% CTR

Does custom geo-targeting impact CPF or CPC?

For users who are running "Recommended" or "Custom" location-based targeting, metrics like CPF and CPC are subject to increase, as the total pool of individuals decreases (from a global campaign) and the areas being served may be generally more expensive to advertise in. However, these areas are more likely to have interested fans (instead of hitting a broad, global objective) thus increasing the likelihood that you'll see better CTRs and follows from your campaign.

Custom Targeting will likely result in a significantly higher CPF.

My CPC is low, but my CPF is high. What does that mean?

If the CPC is below 0.20 cents but your CPF is skewing higher than you’d like, it could be that people find your creative intriguing but aren’t following when they land on the Spotify/IG/Youtube profile. In this scenario, adjusting the targeting can help you reach people who like your creative and your music/content. Or, check and see if your creative has made it clear the end-goal is to follow or subscribe to the account by utilizing a call to action (include link to creative / targeting best practices)

I’m running multiple campaigns. Can we aggregate my CPF results?

As the CPF per campaign is pulled from the profile’s overall follower count, running multiple playbooks simultaneously that lead to the same profile should be understood in aggregate. In this event, you would divide your total spend across all playbooks by the number of total followers gained since launching the first campaign in order to understand your aggregate CPF.

My CPF is jumping all over the place. What causes the CPF to vary?

If you notice a great deal of changes in CPF on a day-to-day basis, understand that this is normal and can be due to harmless factors, such as a delay in reporting. Other times it can be seasonal, such as during the holidays, when advertising costs tend to go up. Ultimately, it’s more valuable to keep an eye on the overall CPF instead of fixating on day-to-day stats.

Only scale up your daily spend once you’ve validated your CPF and CPC/CTR are in a good spot. If you start spending more without ensuring your strategy is working, you will see a spike in CPF.

I’m nervous about my CPF. When should I go back to the drawing board and launch a new campaign?

First, take a look at your ad creative and the targeting in your current campaign. Typically, a high CPC / low CTR suggests the creative could use work. Check out our creative best practices to cook up a revised creative asset. If you're using the best possible creative or have already tried multiple creatives, look into the targeting to be sure it follows our targeting guidelines. If the CPF is still too high, it might be time to launch a new campaign with adjustments.