Having the right data can answer all of these unknowns, and give you the information you need to make smart, agile decisions.
Below we discuss the types of data you need to improve your influencer selection, influencer fee budgets, and campaign reporting. We’ll also walk through some exercises and examples to bring it all to life.
“Your ideas can fall flat if you have the wrong messenger.”
It all starts with finding the best people to partner with. The best influencers for your brand might not be the people you already know or the folks who post the most beautiful photos. Looks can be deceiving! It’s important to utilize objective methods for finding and selecting influencers.
Here are a few ways in which data can help you evaluate if an influencer is the right fit for your brand:
Pro Tip: If you have access to Traackr, use these tips to find high-performing influencers.
Now let’s put what we just learned to the test. Imagine you are a beauty brand creating an Instagram influencer gifting campaign for your lipstick product in the US. Which influencer would you pick to partner with?
Based on the bit of data provided, you might be inclined to chose Influencer A. However, when you dig into the data, you would actually be better off to partner with Influencer B. Below is some data that you might miss if you don’t have an influencer marketing tool with the right vetting capabilities.
Here are the key takeaways that this data is telling us:
Using a data-based approach can allow you to scale your programs and replicate success again and again.
Now that you’ve found your ideal influencer partner, let’s figure out how much to budget.
It’s risky to go into a conversation with a budget that is not backed by data. Bias or vanity metrics (like follower count) can lead you to over or undervalue an influencer. Instead use data to analyze an influencer’s past performance and answer these questions:
This allows you to establish goals and baselines based on spend efficiency metrics like cost per impression (CPI), cost per engagement (CPE), and cost per view (CPV). Knowing how much an influencer is going to cost per impression, engagement or video view gives you the ability to allocate the appropriate budget and negotiate proper compensation.
Pro Tip: Spend efficiency metrics are only one piece of the puzzle. Use these other 4 metrics to help calculate influencer rates.
Influencer marketing platforms, like Traackr, provide budget calculators based on a combination of followers, engagement, past performance and more to recommend compensation for sponsored and organic content. Having this type of tool can help save you time (and many headaches).
For example, based on first glance, how much do you think you should pay each influencer for a post?
You might be catching on now that it takes data to get to the bottom of this. Using Traackr’s platform, you can calculate the estimated fees you would need for a photo and video.
Now, you might want to go with Influencer B because her rates are lower, but that’s not necessarily the right decision. It’s important to take the lessons learned above and see which influencer will have the higher likelihood of reaching your target audience.
Every time you run a campaign you have the opportunity to (hopefully!) celebrate and improve.
Three key categories of measurement that you should track are:
Performance Metrics
Spend Efficiency Metrics
Cost Equivalency Metrics
Unsure of the differences between VIT and EMV? Learn more about these metrics and which one marketers can use to improve their influencer marketing programs.
Utilizing all of these metrics gives you the opportunity to tell a bigger story about how influencer marketing is impacting awareness, engagements, and sales.
Gathering this data also allows you to compare your different influencer investment strategies, and determine how you should allocate budget in the future. The exciting work comes into play when you are able to look back at the data and answer these questions:
Pro Tip: Use Traackr’s Influencer Marketing ROI calculator to calculate your influencer marketing ROI.
You probably already know this in your gut, but cookie cutter influencer strategies aren't what's going to get you to the top. You need strategies that are specific to your goals, specific to your brand, and based on a deep understanding of what's working now.
Data can give you all of this! Here is an example of how a Traackr customer used data to find their path. They looked at:
By looking at these three segments of data together they found that:
So how did this inform their strategy? They found that if they had leaned even harder into top tier influencers (re-allocated budget from micros and nanos who weren't as efficient), they would have earned more video views and awareness.
Please note that this may not be the same for all brands! Some certainly find that smaller tier influencers drive more efficient results. Analyzing multiple layers of data across tier, platform, and content types gives you the ability to easily see gaps and identify key opportunities for your brand.
If you’re going to walk away with one main takeaway, it should be to lead with data at every step of your influencer marketing process.
You can also watch the full workshop on this topic here!