The promo code that stole the influencer's credit

Short answer: the influencer posts, people buy, and most of them never use the discount code. So the credit goes to another channel or to nobody. The fix is not to rely on the code alone. It is to match on two things, the link the customer arrived from and the code they used, with either one being enough.

Why a code alone loses the credit

A code depends on the customer remembering it and typing it. That only happens some of the time.

• They forget the code. They saw the content, were convinced, and came back to buy two days later without returning to the post. The influencer caused the sale and the code was never used.
• They use a different code. They found a better one elsewhere, so the sale is credited to that code, and the influencer who actually persuaded them gets nothing.
• They buy straight from the link. They tapped the link in the bio and bought immediately, never opening the code field at all.

The result is that you always judge the influencer on a number lower than the truth, and end a partnership that was working because the code did not show up often enough.

The right approach

Match on two sources rather than one:

• The link. Each influencer gets their own, so a customer who arrives through it is recognised even if no code is ever used.
• The code. If they do use it, it is read from the order itself and credited to its owner, regardless of capitalisation.

The important part is that a single order is not credited twice when both conditions are true. The sale is attributed once, and re-running the matching never multiplies anything.

Where MIQAS comes in

MIQAS holds influencer codes and links in one place and matches every purchase against them both ways: by the source of the link, or by the discount code found inside the order data.

The matching is idempotent, so it can run once or ten times and the result is identical. There is no risk of an influencer being credited twice for one sale.

Influencer and promo-code tracking is available from Pro and above, and it appears in the same dashboard as your other channels, so you can compare an influencer to your paid campaigns on the same measure: how many orders, and at what cost.

What to do before your next influencer campaign

• Give every influencer their own link, not just a code. The link works even when the customer forgets everything else.
• Make the code easy to say and easy to type. A complicated code gets used less, and every unused code is lost credit.
• Judge the influencer on orders rather than views. Views tell you how many saw; orders tell you how many were convinced.
• Do not judge from a single week. Part of an influencer’s effect arrives late, and impatience ends partnerships that were profitable.

Measure an influencer by the code alone and you are measuring half their work while holding them responsible for the other half.