Marketers increasingly rely on data to improve the performance of influencer marketing campaigns.

As the field of influencer marketing matures, brands are taking a more sophisticated approach to choosing influencers, using data to assess both an influencer’s audience engagement and audience profile.

Engagement.

Until recently, one of the biggest considerations for brands when selecting an influencer was the number of followers. It’s increasingly recognised that far more important is the number of engagements - likes, clicks, shares and so on.

This emphasis on audience engagement has contributed to the rise of micro-influencers. These influencers have organically built a small but dedicated audience by sharing good-quality, authentic content, which translates into a high level of audience engagement. In fact, influencers with between 2,000 and 5,000 followers achieve an average engagement rate of 6%; for influencers with over 1 million followers, the average rate drops to 1.5%.*

And the best news? Micro-influencers cost much less than big-name endorsements.

Audience profile.

But audience engagement isn’t the full story either. What’s the point engaging with an audience if they’re not the right audience for your brand?

Audience analytics is the key to matching your target audience with an influencer's audience. For 59% of marketing professionals, audience data is the most important information when identifying potential influencers, and for 41% it is the deciding factor when making a final choice.** Within the beauty industry, 93% of marketers agree that a relevant audience is more important than the number of followers.^

Lucky for us, social listening tools can now reveal more - and more specific - information about social followings. Age, location and gender are a great starting point. But you can also discover brand affinities, interests, the most popular hashtags and the most mentioned brands among a group of followers.

Using data, research and insight to create more effective marketing campaigns is what we're all about. So if you need a little help getting your campaign started - whether it's influencer, experiential, shopper or a mix of all three - get in touch today!

Sources:

*‘Influencer Rate and Engagement Report', influencer.co, April 2017

**‘The Age of Social Influence’, Celebrity Intelligence, November 2017

^‘Influencing Beauty’, Celebrity Intelligence/Fashion and Beauty Monitor, 2018

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