Measuring success in influencer marketing is part art and part science. That’s according to industry insider Isaac Simpson. For data-obsessed marketing researchers, this is hard to take. But, according to Simpson, this dilemma speaks to the immaturity and underdevelopment of influencer marketing as a whole.
In this blog, we compare measuring influencer marketing with other types of marketing and ask whether a type of marketing can be overdeveloped. Plus, we predict what the next big marketing channel will be.
If you missed Part One, you can find it here.
Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
Finding Certainty in Underdevelopment
We started this series on influencer marketing by stating how underdeveloped or undeveloped this marketing channel still is. This state has left influencer marketing highly adaptable but has also forced marketers to adopt a strategy of trial and error rather than being able to predict campaign success.
In traditional advertising, on the other hand, campaign performance is far more quantifiable. When it comes to influencer marketing, the science still needs to catch up. One way of measuring more traditional forms of marketing has been to compare campaigns to their predecessors. If one advert is converting more than its predecessor, it’s working better by definition.
Another way of making campaigns more measurable is by introducing some kind of action that moves respondents along the funnel toward revenue generation. Once you start being able to quantify campaigns, you can tweak them to improve their performance.
(You can listen to the full episode of the podcast below.)
The Role of Data
We started this series of blogs by considering the importance of data in influencer marketing. Despite the channel’s immaturity, there are areas in which data is irreplaceable. One of those areas is the selection of influencers.
Finding the right influencer completely relies on data. Making sure they are not phony and are a great match for the brand is essential. With all that said, there will never be a 100% answer to the question of how to measure and ensure success in influencer marketing. Even with the benefit of experience and data, we are likely to be chasing some degree of certainty.
As with all other forms of marketing, the goal of influencer marketing is to produce a return that is greater than the cost of the activity.
The Future of Influencer Marketing
All marketers would love to have a crystal ball that allows them to predict the most profitable channels of the future. Influencer marketing guru Isaac Simpson believes that curated content will play a huge role in successful influencer campaigns.
As people are overwhelmed with more information, Simpson believes that newsletters will become the new podcasts when it comes to creating marketing success stories. Newsletters are the perfect curation tool because they can help digest the news for their readers, allowing them to digest information in a quicker, snappier way. Their goal is not to make the audience read more. Instead, it is to help them access information more easily, needing to digest less information that is more interesting. Content curation at its best.
Isaac Simpson is a freelance copywriter and creative director at Gold Front. He has appeared as a marketing expert in The Boston Globe, Morning Consult, and DigiDay. To learn more about Isaac, visit his LinkedIn page.
Additional Resources
FOR EXPERIENTIAL MARKETERS
- Experiential Measurement Blueprint
- Event Impression Calculator
- Experiential ROI Benchmarking Reports
- Event Measurement Video Tutorials