TL;DR - Social Media Managers can use the final price of what they sell and multiply it by the probability that a given action will lead to a conversion to attribute monetary values to non-monetary metrics.

As a Social Media Manager, it can be challenging to attribute monetary values to non-monetary metrics like impressions, link clicks, and engagement. However, this is crucial in determining the effectiveness of social media campaigns and justifying their ROI. One way to overcome this challenge is to use the final price of what you sell and multiply it by the probability that a given action will lead to a conversion.

Prerequisite: you don't have to sell anything online to use this framework, but you will need access to conversion data. It could be number of closed deals over the phone by a sales person, or a number of signed agreement forms for a real estate property sale.

Let's dive in!

Let's say you sell a product for $100, and you know that, on average, one out of every ten link clicks leads to a sale. In this scenario, the value of a link click would be $10 (i.e., $100 * 1/10). Similarly, if you know that one out of every 100 impressions leads to a sale, the value of an impression would be $1 (i.e., $100 * 1/100).

Here's another example, if you know that one out of every five comments leads to a sale, the value of a comment would be $20 (i.e., $100 * 1/5). Similarly, if one out of every thirty likes leads to a sale, the value of a like would be $3.33 (i.e., $100 * 1/30).

Using this framework, you can calculate the value of different types of engagements and use this information to optimize your social media campaigns. For example, if you find that comments have a higher value than likes, you may want to focus on generating more comments on your posts.

It's worth noting that these calculations are based on assumptions and averages, so they may not be entirely accurate. However, they provide a starting point for determining the value of non-monetary metrics and can be refined over time as you gather more data.

If the transaction is far removed from the websites you redirect to or from your Social activities, you can use proxies to assess conversion probabilities. If you know that a link click will convert 5% of the time into a form submission; and you know that a form submission will convert 20% of the time into a sales call; and you know that this sales call converts 50% of the time into a sale; your conversion probability will be 0.5% (i.e., 1/20 * 1/5 * 1/2). If a sale is worth on average $150, the average value of a link click would be $7.5 (i.e., $150 * 0.05).

Additionally, this framework can be applied in different situations. For example, if you're using Google Analytics 4, you can use this framework to assess conversion event values way more accurately (formerly called goals inside Universal Analytics). Because conversion events are happening on a website, they tend to be much closer to the actual monetary conversion; making them easier to predict accurately.

With conversion event value setup, you can also start to benefit from more advanced ROI measurements across the board. Here's how you can get started with Social ROI measurements directly from within Agorapulse.

You can also head directly to the Social ROI section of the Agorapulse web app: https://app.agorapulse.com/roi and connect your GA account to get started.

In conclusion, as a Social Media Manager, it can be very beneficial to determine the value of non-monetary metrics like impressions, link clicks, and engagement to measure the effectiveness of your social media campaigns. By using the final price of what you sell and multiplying it by the probability that a given action will lead to a conversion, you can calculate the value of different types of engagements and optimize your social media strategy accordingly.