In 2020, Dunkin’ collaborated with then-16-year-old TikTok sensation Charli D’Amelio to introduce “The Charli,” a limited-edition beverage reflecting her go-to Dunkin’ order. To measure the campaign’s success, Dunkin’ incentivized customers by offering 100 bonus points to those who ordered the drink through the mobile app. This partnership led to a significant 57% surge in Dunkin’s mobile app downloads. Dunkin’ also reported a 20% sales boost for all cold brew coffees on the day “The Charli” debuted — including variations not based on her signature order — and a 45% surge in cold brew sales the day after its launch, highlighting the power of influencer collaborations.
While the partnership clearly contributed to the increase in app downloads and cold brew sales, we wanted to understand the direct effect of Charli’s influence on Dunkin’ sales. Marketers often rely on cause-and-effect metrics to gauge success (e.g., social engagement, sales, app downloads), given the path to purchase isn’t always linear. By examining the Dunkin’ and Charli D’Amelio partnership, we explore how marketers can attribute a portion of sales to a creator’s influence — without making educated guesses.
A quick note to our readers: StatSocial did not work directly with Dunkin’ for this case study. Sales metrics and statistics referenced were taken from publicly available third-party datasets. The purpose of this blog is to show how marketers can directly attribute sales to influencer partnerships using StatSocial’s audience data combined with first- or third-party purchase data.
StatSocial’s approach to influencer attribution
With access to a social audience insights platform like StatSocial’s, you can identify the impact of your influencer marketing campaigns in just a few simple steps. To determine the sales impact of the Dunkin’ and Charli D’Amelio partnership, we used the following data:
- Dunkin’ U.S. sales data before and during the campaign
- Social audience data
With this data, we identified sales lift in three simple steps:
Step 1: Create two separate social audiences in StatSocial’s platform:
- Individuals organically exposed to Charli’s social content (her followers)
- A control audience based on the general population
Step 2: Overlay both audiences with Dunkin’s U.S. sales data for September 2020 and for the period of October 2019 through September 2020.
Step 3: Compare purchase behavior between the exposed and control audiences to determine the resulting sales lift from the partnership.
Our findings from the Dunkin’ and Charli D’Amelio campaign
When we compared sales data between Charli’s exposed social audience and the control group, her fans exhibited a significant increase in spending at Dunkin’ during September 2020.
Before the partnership, Charli’s followers spent 7% more than the average U.S. consumer. During the campaign, that number jumped to 44% more than the average U.S. consumer — showcasing the immense impact influencer partnerships can have on actual sales.
Conclusion: Social audience data is key to influencer measurement
Dunkin’s collaboration with Charli D’Amelio exemplifies the effectiveness of leveraging influencer partnerships to drive measurable sales outcomes. But without social audience data, it’s nearly impossible to understand the true sales impact of such partnerships. StatSocial makes it easy to identify the audiences exposed to your influencer campaign and map that to first- or third-party sales data — just like you would with paid media efforts.
We invite you to check out this case study where we worked directly with Nestlé to measure the sales lift of their influencer campaign.
If you’re ready to measure the true impact of your influencer campaigns, book a brief call with our team or learn more about our influencer attribution solution.
This blog post has since been updated from its original publish date.