The rise of data-driven influencer marketing, Marketing & Advertising News, ET BrandEquity

By Aditya AimaInfluencer marketing continues to grow massively in India, and this demand is being fuelled by large as well as local, homegrown brands. Currently, the market is valued at upwards of 12 billion Indian rupees, as per Statista, and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 25% over the next five years. Brands have understood the value an influencer brings to them, and the core challenge now remains how to target and use them strategically.
With micro and macro influencers, both building the right amount of traction and ROI, the landscape of influencer marketing has transformed significantly over the past few years.
Brands have shifted from gut-feel and vanity-driven decisions to data-driven strategies. In India, today, leveraging data has become the key to executing successful campaigns. This evolution ensures brands not only reach the right audience but also maximize ROI, making influencer marketing more effective, measurable, and accountable.
The Role of Data Insights
In the era of data-driven marketing, the traditional practice of selecting influencers based solely on follower counts or perceived popularity is obsolete. Brands now rely on deep data insights to evaluate and select influencers.
Here’s how brands can use data to evaluate influencers:
1. Audience Demographics: Brands can analyse the influencer’s follower bases to ensure alignment with their target market. Marketers should focus on age, gender, geographic location, and even the interests of an influencer’s followers. For instance, if a beauty brand is targeting women aged 18-30 in metro cities, it can quickly identify influencers who cater to that demographic.
2. Engagement Rates and Authenticity: Beyond follower count, engagement rate—the percentage of followers actively interacting with the content – is a crucial metric. Verifying authenticity by detecting fake followers or bot-driven engagement is crucial. This ensures that brands work with influencers who have genuine, active followings, crucial for achieving real impact.
3. Content Relevance: Data insights enable brands to review past content performance to assess how well an influencer’s style and messaging align with the brand’s ethos. This prevents mismatches between the influencer’s tone and the brand’s communication style, ensuring better resonance with the audience.
Monitoring Campaign Performance: Real-Time Analytics
Once influencers are selected and campaigns are launched, data continues to play an essential role in ensuring campaign effectiveness. The power of real-time monitoring gives brands the ability to track how well their campaigns are performing, down to granular details.
1. Key Performance Indicators (KPIs): Metrics like reach, impressions, click-through rates (CTR), and engagement rates are tracked throughout the campaign.
By comparing these KPIs against pre-set benchmarks, brands can determine if the content is resonating with the audience.
2. Campaign Optimization: Real-time data allows for on-the-fly adjustments. For example, if a post is underperforming in terms of engagement, the brand can quickly pivot the messaging or modify future posts in the campaign series. Similarly, if a content piece is working well, they can choose to add a paid media push to it or do
more content pieces with the same creator and style. Brands can even adjust posting times based on insights about when the influencer’s audience is most active, ensuring optimal visibility and engagement.
Influencer Marketing campaigns should have a high focus on post-campaign evaluation. This helps in learning and charting out the next steps. The post-campaign evaluation phase is where data-driven insights truly show their worth. Brands need to thoroughly assess the overall effectiveness of their campaigns. This process provides invaluable learnings for future campaigns and helps in refining influencer marketing strategies over time. Companies should invest in such features for better campaigns as this demand is going to rise.
As influencer marketing continues to evolve, data will remain at the core of successful strategies. Brands can no longer rely on vanity metrics; instead, they must adopt a holistic, data-driven approach that considers audience insights, real-time optimization, and comprehensive reporting.
(The author is Managing Director, Growth Markets, AnyMind Group. Opinions are personal. The article is for general information purposes only.
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