Ambassador marketing is one of the most explosive forms of media today.

The worldwide estimated spend on sponsored content in the influencer space was at $3B just five years ago. The influencer market for branded and platform deals is estimated at $14B in 2021 and projected to skyrocket to $28 billion by 2026.

It’s taken some brands a while to catch up. Still, according to Business Insider, an estimated 68% of US marketers from companies with 100 or more employees used influencer marketing in 2021, up from 62.3% in 2020. In 2022, that figure will rise to 72.5%. And according to the Drum, 17% of companies spent over half their marketing budget on working with content creators in 2020.

You see a lot of research about the steady growth of influencer marketing. You’ve allocated a portion of your marketing budget to influencer campaigns — but what now? Before your campaign takes off, what are the necessary steps to scaling up your influencer marketing efforts?

First, Define Success for Your Brand

A tale as old as time for our Fohr campaigns team is that they approach brands with the following questions:

• Are you looking for brand awareness opportunities or a shift in brand perception?
• Economy and efficiency, or premium assets and great storytelling?
• Are you looking for web traffic, email acquisitions, or sales and conversions?

To which the answer is usually: Yes. All of the above.

Unfortunately, as our campaigns team likes to say, you can’t shoot three targets with one arrow.

It isn’t easy to define success in the influencer marketing space because it varies from brand to brand. It's important to not jeopardize long-term success in pursuit of short-term high performance or with misinformed goals. For brands to build toward an imminent future where influencer and ambassador marketing is the most dominant form of marketing, a consistent plan must be to learn, improve and evolve.

It would be best if you made sure to set your goals and define what success is for your brand before commencing influencer identification to ensure you are selecting the right partners.

Bonus content: We hosted a webinar on How to Measure Influencer Performance. Download the key takeaways here.

“There is a tendency to get excited and jump directly into the partnership without a strong campaign foundation.  Start by defining the output of your campaign, then use this understanding to inform the platforms you activate against, the types of influencers you partner with, and how the campaign runs.” — Crystal Duncan, WIIM.

Second, Set Your Campaign Goals and Key Metrics

Once you decide what success looks like, we can narrow down which area of the funnel we want to focus on and establish our key metrics.

Advertising theory tells us that a consumer needs to see a product 6-7 times before pulling the trigger. Use this funnel to help guide you through which metrics to optimize for and focus on then mapping back to your goals.

Key Metrics

• Awareness: Impressions, Viewership, Reach, EMV
• Interest + Education: Likes, Comments, Shares, and Sends
• Consideration: Clicks, Sticker Taps, Saves
• Intent to Purchase: Clicks, Sticker Taps, Saves
• Conversion or Purchase: Promo Code Redemptions, Affiliate Sales, Paid Media Results

Persuasion Over Performance

Other key metrics to help you evaluate the qualitative data are overall positive sentiment. Sometimes one great comment can tell a more impactful success story than a whole slide of stats. The zoom-out is essential, but so is the zoom-in. Remember that one like for the right reason is better than receiving five likes for the wrong one.

Then, Set Fair Benchmarks for Your Brand

At Fohr, we’ve coined the 4 C’s of Benchmarking:

1. Category: setting benchmarks based on players within your vertical.
2. Company: setting benchmarks based on your brand’s past performance.
3. Creator: setting benchmarks based on your chosen partners’ averages.
4. Chapter: Benchmarking performance by each phase of a long-term campaign.

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To learn more about benchmarking, download the key takeaways from ‘How to Measure Influencer Performance.’

Every brand varies in experience, vertical, campaign goals, brand love, and price point. We would love to develop a more tailored measurement strategy or answer any of your questions. Sign up for a brand trial here.