Here's the Tea on Influencer Marketing Measurement

You’re reading Billion Dollar Influence, a new biweekly installment where we dive deep into social trends and phenomena bubbling under in the creator economy. Brought to you by BDB’s team of creator marketing experts, read all about the stories and news making waves in the industry.

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over, yet expecting a different result.  

In a recent study by WARC , 72% of marketers cited measurement as the biggest challenge they face with influencer marketing. Yet the industry response tends to be focused on solely pursuing the same headline vanity metrics that social media has always been obsessed by.

Measures like EMV (earned media value) and VIT (visibility, impact, trust) provide a useful benchmark against past performance and the competition.  

But when used in isolation, they risk creating a false sense of security, keeping us firmly moored to the surface of reflective measurement, never moving beyond the ‘what’ into understanding the ‘why’ and the ‘how’.  We also need to determine the impact on the metrics that really matter - your communication and marketing goals.  

The industry needs to start holding influencer marketing accountable to the same standards as the rest of the media mix. Rather than seek a unifying silver bullet, we’re going to have to do the work, using robust and accepted methodologies to understand the full impact of influencer activity.

In layman’s terms, this means finding out if we’ve made people think, feel or do anything differently.  

At BDB, we’ve been using advanced Brand Lift studies and creative diagnostic models to get a real-world read on creative, platform and creator performance. We’re also determining the commercial payback on incremental sales - a true Return on Investment dollar value - through econometric modeling.

The aim is to provide a more rounded, three-dimensional answer that reveals what type of content drives scalable and repeatable performance. 

Marketers demand more from their measurement solutions. The industry should rise to meet the challenge so we can all learn more from the work that works.

Insights by: Simon Harwood, Global Effectiveness Director, Billion Dollar Boy

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Billion Dollar Boy is a global creator company that builds brands at scale. Curious for more insights into the creator economy? Connect with us here on LinkedIn.