Chapter 11: Decide how measurement and payout will work

With the creator journey and tracking links in place, the next decisions are how you'll measure success and how partners get paid. Read on for guidance, plus your influencer impact scorecard.

Separate attribution, discounting, and payout

Before you can measure impact and pay your influencers accordingly, you need to define what events a creator influences, how they’re paid for each one, and how you track them. After all, it doesn’t make sense to reward ‘clicked a link’ with the same payout as ‘downloaded the app and subscribed’. Not to mention, conflating different user actions can make attribution messy.

Decide your approach to:

• Tracking links: these identify a visit and funnel session — but a customer can click it and never use a discount code or visit the app store, so link activity alone isn’t proof of a download
• Discount codes: codes apply an offer, but may be shared far beyond the creator’s own content (or even audience) — meaning code use can’t necessarily prove a specific creator drove the sale
• Payout rules: determine when a partner actually earns a commission and how you prove it

RevenueCat has no visibility into payouts, so you need to define this rule yourself (and before the creator’s post goes live!). It’s worth thinking about:

• Payable event: does a trial start earn commission, or only a converted paid subscription?
• Attribution window: how long after the click does a purchase still count toward that creator?
• Exceptions: what happens with refunds, self-referrals, or a code that's leaked outside the intended audience?

Evaluate partners on mature revenue and acquisition cost against this rule — not on click or code-redemption volume alone. A link with heavy traffic and a code with lots of redemptions can still lose money if the payout doesn't hold up against what actually stays subscribed.

Using an MMP with creator-driven installs

Not every creator campaign routes through your funnel first; a creator's link-in-bio or video description sometimes points straight to an app store. That split matters for measurement. Without an MMP, you can’t (generally) tell:

• Whether a direct app store install came from a specific creator or post, or from organic traffic that arrived the same week
• Whether that installer reached the personalized screen their creator promised — this is deferred deep linking, and it needs an MMP either way
• Which creator to credit when a customer clicks more than one partner's link before converting

So while basic URL parameters (the identity and redemption approach from chapter three in core setup) tell you what happens once a visitor reaches your funnel and makes a web purchase, it doesn’t tell you where those direct app installs come from.

To connect your MMP:

1. Follow the steps in chapter four of core setup (the RevenueCat setup is identical regardless of channel)
2. Assign each creator or placement its own tracking link (an AppsFlyer OneLink, an Adjust tracker URL, or a Branch link)
3. Verify the setup using a specific creator's actual link, not a generic test link, to check that installs and payout resolve to the right partner

Influencer impact scorecard for web campaigns

Before your creator posts go live, you need to decide what success looks like. You can create a ‘scorecard’ to serve as a repeatable framework to quickly answer:

1. Does the funnel convert visitors efficiently?
2. Do those conversions become valuable customers?

Use the following metrics to measure influencer success:

• Purchase redemption rate: eligible web purchases redeemed in the app ÷ eligible web purchases
• Trial-to-paid rate: paid trial conversions ÷ trials whose outcome is known
• Cost per acquisition by commission: total commission or fee paid to a creator ÷ new paying customers attributed to their link or code
• Earnings per click (EPC): revenue generated ÷ total clicks on the creator's link — the standard way affiliate programs compare partners of different sizes
• Revenue at a fixed maturity window: for example, revenue through day 7 or day 30

It’s also worth documenting guardrails — warning signs of leakage or misuse of discounts etc. These metrics can help you monitor the stability and benefits of your collaboration:

• Number of refunds or chargebacks
• Support tickets that reference the promotion
• Discount code usage that outpaces the creator’s plausible reach

Finally, make sure you’re specific: define what ‘customer’ or ‘visitor’ means, and whether the revenue you’re measuring is gross, net of estimated taxes, net of refunds etc. The scorecard only works if the metrics are clearly defined.