There are limitless benefits surrounding the use of influencer marketing. Influencer marketing represents clear advantages for many brand advertisers, and for good reason: on average, businesses earn $5.20 for every dollar spent on influencer advertising, with some of the best campaigns generating $20 for every dollar. In fact, 66% of brands are expected to increase their influencer marketing budgets in 2022. What’s not to love?

“A total of 89% of marketeers say that influencer marketing offers ROI that is comparable or better than other marketing channels.”

— MediaKix

Well, there are a number of significant challenges when curating a marketing campaign using influencer marketing, and maintaining and building brand image through a carefully chosen influencer network is not trivial. Achieving maximum impact is certainly not just a case of finding influencers with the largest following; in 2021 alone, an estimated $1.3 billion was spent on influencers with fake followers and 50% of influencer marketers cite finding fakes as the biggest challenge to influencer marketing campaigns. There has also been a litany of poorly implemented influencer ads: from Kim Kardashian breaking prescription drug advertising laws to Cristiano Ronaldo promoting a facial fitness mouthpiece with propellers (check it out, it’s as weird as it sounds).

Approach

Clearly, then, achieving the goals of an influencer marketing campaign requires more than just statistics. A curated, nuanced approach that utilises both quantitative (reach, engagement, audience insight) and qualitative (content quality, relevance, authenticity) data will generally produce better results. There is no one-size-fits-all approach! Every brand campaign will have different goals and different desired outcomes, but through a well-planned, targeted, and focussed strategy, these aims can be achieved. This should always be kept in mind when developing an influencer marketing campaign – whilst some influencer platforms can offer a wealth of data and a large pool of influencers to choose from, an influencer agency with specialised knowledge of your market can often offer both insight and expertise for maximal impact.