Using Influencers to deliver marketing campaign performance

One of the fastest-growing performance marketing tactics over the last few years has been influencer marketing.

The dream of every marketer is to have a friend, family member or colleague recommend their product or service – word of mouth marketing – which historically has been very effective. Influencer marketing is the next best alternative.

According to research from the Influencer Marketing Hub, 72% of surveyed marketers believe that the quality of customers generated via influencer marketing campaigns is better than from other types of marketing, while two-thirds of marketers measure the ROI from their influencer marketing campaigns.

The Creator Economy

One of the reasons for the growth of influencer marketing is the increase in the number of influencers and creators. According to research from venture firm SignalFire, there are now more than 50 million people who consider themselves creators around the world.

Mobile game Clawee, which enables users to control a real claw machine to win prizes shipped to the user’s doorstep, turned to creators to market the company’s game. Their agency contracted creators in the targeted countries, and the resulting campaigns reduced the Cost Per Install (CPI) by 40% while the Installs Per Thousand (IPM) were 152% higher than with Clawee’s previous video campaign. The creator-based campaign also generated a 36% increase in Day 7 Return on Ad Spend.

The success of influencer and creator marketing campaigns comes from hiring the right influencers. They can communicate their interest and excitement on the product or service in an authentic voice, which encourages prospective customers to first engage and then try and buy what’s being offered. Though it’s important to provide influencers with clear recommended guidelines, marketers need to trust their selected influencers to do the job and deliver marketing that moves the needle.

Focus on influencers and platforms

Each platform has different unique attributes which make marketing campaigns successful, and the same goes for influencer campaigns. Furthermore, good influencers know how to take advantage of the platforms to generate the best results for your campaigns. That’s why using videos created for Instagram won’t perform as well on TikTok, and vice versa.

Even if you run most of your campaigns on one or two platforms, it’s worth considering all relevant platforms for your influencer campaigns. Despite the buzz, many marketers are concerned that TikTok, with its younger audience, doesn’t deliver strong performance metrics. But Berlin-based agency REPLUG was pleasantly surprised with the results generated on TikTok. Though the Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) was 37% lower on TikTok vs. Facebook, the effective Cost Per Action (eCPA) was 37% lower and the Cost Per Install (CPI) was 72% lower resulting in an ROI on TikTok that was on average 46% higher than on Facebook.

Influencer marketing best practices

To improve influencer marketing campaign performance, here are some campaign best practices to keep in mind:

• The more niche the content vertical is, the higher the conversion rate

• Set only one metric (KPI) to measure success (e.g. installs)

• Provide influencers with a clear brief that includes a strong Call To Action (CTA)

Influencer marketing for the holidays

The influencer platform ‘Influencer Intelligence’ has the following suggestion for holiday influencer campaigns. One way is to work with influencers on ‘unboxing’ videos, even if your product or service is digital. Another idea is to create a digital holiday gift guide around the products or services being marketed by influencers. Finally, with the growth in AR lenses and filters, why not use or create some holiday-themed filters and/or lenses, and integrate them into influencer marketing campaigns. A smart influencer will know how to utilize these filters, and will create a better, more engaging video with it.

Looking for some support for your first or next performance-driven influencer marketing campaign?  Reach out to Creative Clicks and let our account team help launch a successful influencer marketing campaign that achieves your KPIs.