In 2024, successful advertising campaigns' median profit-based return on investment (ROI) worldwide reached *** U.S. dollars, meaning global advertisers profited, on average, *** dollars for every dollar they spent on those strategies. Successful ad campaigns' median revenue-based ROI stood at **** dollars that year. ROI: expectation and reality Within the realm of advertising and marketing, ROI measurement is often crucial to justify budget adjustments – not only to lower or raise it but also to determine in which channels to invest. A common formula entails subtracting organic sales growth and marketing costs from revenue growth and dividing it by the marketing costs. Still, multiple campaigns may require different approaches. During a 2024 survey, nearly ********* of global marketing decision-makers listed ROI measurement among the challenges for a data-driven strategy. Reliable ROI measurement rules A late 2022 worldwide study investigated marketers' confidence level in their ROI measurement across multiple ad channels. Social media emerged as number one: Over ** percent of respondents said they felt either extremely or very confident calculating their ROI. In the last quarter of 2024, another survey asked which social media platforms had the highest ROI according to global marketers. Facebook and Instagram – both controlled by Meta – led that ranking, named by ** and ** percent of the interviewees, respectively.

This dataset tracks influencer marketing campaigns across major social media platforms, providing a robust foundation for analyzing campaign effectiveness, engagement, reach, and sales outcomes. Each record represents a unique campaign and includes details such as the campaign’s platform (Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Twitter), influencer category (e.g., Fashion, Tech, Fitness), campaign type (Product Launch, Brand Awareness, Giveaway, etc.), start and end dates, total user engagements, estimated reach, product sales, and campaign duration. The dataset structure supports diverse analyses, including ROI calculation, campaign benchmarking, and influencer performance comparison.

Columns: - campaign_id: Unique identifier for each campaign
- platform: Social media platform where the campaign ran
- influencer_category: Niche or industry focus of the influencer
- campaign_type: Objective or style of the campaign
- start_date, end_date: Campaign time frame
- engagements: Total user interactions (likes, comments, shares, etc.)
- estimated_reach: Estimated number of unique users exposed to the campaign
- product_sales: Number of products sold as a result of the campaign
- campaign_duration_days: Duration of the campaign in days

Getting Started with the Data

1. Load and Inspect the Dataset

import pandas as pd

df = pd.read_csv('influencer_marketing_roi_dataset.csv', parse_dates=['start_date', 'end_date'])
print(df.head())
print(df.info())

2. Basic Exploration

# Overview of campaign types and platforms
print(df['campaign_type'].value_counts())
print(df['platform'].value_counts())

# Summary statistics
print(df[['engagements', 'estimated_reach', 'product_sales']].describe())

3. Engagement and Sales Analysis

# Average engagements and sales by platform
platform_stats = df.groupby('platform')[['engagements', 'product_sales']].mean()
print(platform_stats)

# Top influencer categories by product sales
top_categories = df.groupby('influencer_category')['product_sales'].sum().sort_values(ascending=False)
print(top_categories)

4. ROI Calculation Example

# Assume a fixed campaign cost for demonstration
df['campaign_cost'] = 500 + df['estimated_reach'] * 0.01 # Example formula

# Calculate ROI: (Revenue - Cost) / Cost
# Assume each product sold yields $40 revenue
df['revenue'] = df['product_sales'] * 40
df['roi'] = (df['revenue'] - df['campaign_cost']) / df['campaign_cost']

# View campaigns with highest ROI
top_roi = df.sort_values('roi', ascending=False).head(10)
print(top_roi[['campaign_id', 'platform', 'roi']])

5. Visualizing Campaign Performance

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import seaborn as sns

# Engagements vs. Product Sales scatter plot
plt.figure(figsize=(8,6))
sns.scatterplot(data=df, x='engagements', y='product_sales', hue='platform', alpha=0.6)
plt.title('Engagements vs. Product Sales by Platform')
plt.xlabel('Engagements')
plt.ylabel('Product Sales')
plt.legend()
plt.show()

# Average ROI by Influencer Category
category_roi = df.groupby('influencer_category')['roi'].mean().sort_values()
category_roi.plot(kind='barh', color='teal')
plt.title('Average ROI by Influencer Category')
plt.xlabel('Average ROI')
plt.show()

6. Time-Based Analysis

# Campaigns over time
df['month'] = df['start_date'].dt.to_period('M')
monthly_sales = df.groupby('month')['product_sales'].sum()
monthly_sales.plot(figsize=(10,4), marker='o', title='Monthly Product Sales from Influencer Campaigns')
plt.ylabel('Product Sales')
plt.show()

Use Cases

• ROI Analysis: Quantify the return on investment for influencer campaigns across platforms and categories.
• Campaign Benchmarking: Compare campaign performance by type, influencer niche, or platform.
• Trend Analysis: Track engagement, reach, and sales trends over time.
• Influencer Selection: Identify high-performing influencer categories and campaign types for future partnerships.

In 2023, direct mail's return on investment (ROI) outperformed all other presented channels with an average of *** percent. Email and paid search advertising rounded up the top three with ROIs of ** and ** percent, respectively.

Picture this: a midsize apparel brand once dependent on seasonal trends and hit-or-miss campaigns now predicts customer preferences before items even reach shelves. This isn’t a futuristic fantasy; it’s AI in action, reshaping how marketing works in 2025. With tools getting sharper and machine learning models growing more intuitive, AI...

 An analysis conducted by Prometeia about the advertising and market research industry in Italy, reveals that in 2017, the average return on investment of companies operating in this sector was of *** percent. However, the forecasted figures for the following years also show that the ROI was expected to decrease to *** percent in 2018, before gradually increasing until 2021. Among the leading firms of the sector, Radiomediaset S.p.A. was the one generating the highest average return on investment – **** percent - between 2015 and 2017.
  Return on investment (ROI) and return on equity (ROE) The return on investment (ROI) is one of the indicators used to measure the financial performance of a company. More specifically, it is a ratio between the net income and the cost of investment, and as such it provides information about the effectiveness of an investment in terms of tangible results on the income. Another key financial indicator is the return on equity, which, instead, is a good measure of how the equity of a company is used to generate profit. Amnet Italia S.r.l. and GroupM Plus S.r.l. were the firms in the advertising and market research sector generating the greatest return on equity in Italy between 2015 and 2017. The average ROE of the two companies was equal to **** and **** percent , respectively.
    ROE of the advertising and market research industry: forecastsPertaining to the entire advertising and market research sector, 2017 was a good year in terms of profits generated from equity by the companies, given that the ROE of a significant sample of them reached **** percent . The forecasts for the following years show a decline of the ROE in 2018, a new increase in 2019 and thereafter steady values until 2021.

Editor’s Choice

• Influencer marketing is expected to become a $16.4 billion industry by 2022.
• 92% of consumers trust recommendations from influencers more than traditional advertisements or celebrity endorsements.
• Instagram is the most popular platform for influencer marketing, with 89% of marketers using it for their campaigns.
• The average return on investment (ROI) for influencer marketing is $5.78 for every $1 spent.
• Micro-influencers, who have between 1,000 and 100,000 followers, have the highest engagement rates, with an average engagement rate of 7.2% compared to 2.4% for macro-influencers.
• 57% of marketers plan to increase their influencer marketing budgets in the next year.
• Authenticity is a crucial factor for successful influencer marketing campaigns, with 92% of consumers saying they would consider following a brand that the influencer they follow recommends.

In 2023, marketing e-mails in Canada had a click-through rate of 8.68 percent, highest among the selected countries presented in the data set. In Germany, the rate stood at 2.37 percent.

During a survey carried out in 2024, 62 percent of responding marketers who were looking to decrease spend on cookie-based activations said they were planning to shirt spending towards social media. Nearly half were planning to invest in first-party data.

The cost-per-mille of advertising on social media was **** U.S. dollars in the fourth quarter of 2024. In other words, advertisers had to pay this much to have their ads viewed by a thousand potential customers. Social media CPM is usually higher in the final quarters of each year. The surge in costs is prompted by increased demand for advertising space during pre-Christmas time, as brands compete for a share of the typically high consumer spending. Is social media advertising profitable? According to recent calculations, social media impression numbers have improved year-on-year by close to ** percent, which means that more and more advertising is viewed by social network users. However, this is mainly true for more passive types of ads such as video or stories. When it comes to traditional forms of advertising on social media the situation is reversed – clicks and clickthrough rates are decreasing. It might be because of this ever-changing environment that global marketers are divided on whether or not they are able to measure social media marketing ROI.