How to Build a Winning Influencer Strategy & Avoid Fake Influencers
By: Amanda Gaid
Tags: Online Marketing, Influencers, Social Media Marketing, Social Media, Influencer Marketing

On the surface, it might seem like influencer marketing is just about having an influencer make a post or two and you’re done.

But brands with this mentality will feel the sting afterward.

Just like pretty much any marketing endeavor (or any life endeavor in general, when you think about it), your odds of getting good results are slim if you don’t have clear intentions and goals to guide your efforts. In addition to having those goals, you’ll need to set up a reliable system to track them.

A lack of strong influencer campaign strategy is a key pitfall when it comes to influencer marketing.

But here’s the kicker: it’s notoriously tough to attribute ROI back to specific influencer marketing strategies and tactics. So unfortunately, even businesses that have an excellent influencer strategy in place will still fall victim to foggy results and tracking difficulties.

That’s why you have to hit the ground running with a well-defined influencer strategy, comprehensive tracking, and careful analysis.

Take it from Gil Eyal, founder and CEO of HYPR and influencer analytics expert. He believes that a brand’s approach to influencer marketing should be just as strategic and carefully-orchestrated as any other marketing effort, while still taking into account all the special considerations and changes in the industry.

“There has to be a method to the madness, and brands that select influencers by skimming over their social profiles and trying to guess if they would be a good fit are leaving money on the table.”

In this article, I’ll cover some fundamentals for how to build an influencer strategy that kills, including steps to:

Choose a compensation model

Set specific goals and KPIs before launch

Make everything as trackable as possible

Avoid getting tricked by fake influencers

Choose a Compensation Model

While your individual influencer program agreements might involve some negotiation for exact terms, it’s good to have a handle on your finances. This includes knowing how you can compensate your influencers.

There are four main ways that you can ‘fund’ your influencer strategy:

1. Pay Per Post

This influencer pricing strategy is a classic and simple model. You offer the influencer a set amount of money in exchange for making an agreed-upon post, whether that’s a shoutout on Instagram, a YouTube review, or a contest posted on their blog.

You can use this handy earnings calculator to see how much money an Instagram influencer might charge per post.

Just type in an influencer’s username or the URL of a specific post, and it will show an estimate that you can use to set your own budget.

You can see in this example that life and style blogger Andrea Pion is estimated to make about $500 to $835 per post.

2. Gifting, aka Free Product or Service

Here, you give the influencer your product or access to your service for free, in exchange for promotion. This is typically seen in review-style posts or shoutouts, often accompanied by photos of the brand’s products in action.

Lithuanian dropshipping entrepreneur Karolis Rimkus used this influencer strategy to grow and evolve his brand’s Instagram page.

In the beginning, I did a lot of outreach. I offered micro-influencers, Instagrammers with 8,000 to 10,000 followers, a product they could use for a giveaway, or just mail them a sample in exchange for a mention. The strategy worked, and my brand and sales started to grow. When my page hit 15,000 followers, I was able to switch up my strategy. I had a powerful audience of my own, so I offered up-and-coming influencers the opportunity to be profiled on my brand’s Instagram. They would buy something from my store and take a photo of themselves wearing it. Then I’d feature them on my page. It was a win-win.

3. Pay Per Sale

This is also called affiliate marketing. In this influencer pricing strategy, you pay the influencer a percentage of every sale from their efforts. This is a great incentive to get results, but you’ll need a good tracking strategy to ensure you know which sales are theirs.

Usually, this involves unique checkout codes, UTM parameters, or help from a special tool or app. We’ll get into this more later in this chapter.

4. Pay Per Engagement

In this influencer pricing strategy, you can pay them for each like, share, comment, mention, and/or other engagement on their content. You might also choose this model to compensate for other results, like sign-ups for a contest.

New businesses, especially ecommerce or dropshipping businesses, opt for gifting because it’s generally the most affordable and budget-friendly option. I recommend giving this influencer campaign strategy a shot until you have a solid understanding of how your overall influencer strategy is working for your brand, then upgrade to paid partnerships.

Set Specific Goals and KPIs Before Launch

The more specific you can get with your goals and key performance indicators (KPIs), the easier your path to tracking them and evaluating your influencer program’s performance.

According to Linquia’s The State of Influencer Marketing 2018 report, 90% of respondents measure their influencer program’s success by engagement, followed by 59% measuring clicks, 55% measuring impressions, and 54% measuring conversions.

Let’s break down what each of these means for your influencer program:

Engagement : Likes, comments, shares, mentions, etc. — any user activity that directly interacts with the post

: Likes, comments, shares, mentions, etc. — any user activity that directly interacts with the post Clicks : The number of times a link inside the post was clicked, which could lead to your website or a special landing page, for example

: The number of times a link inside the post was clicked, which could lead to your website or a special landing page, for example Impressions : The number of times your brand post showed up in a user’s feed — whether or not they read or engaged with it

: The number of times your brand post showed up in a user’s feed — whether or not they read or engaged with it Reach : The number of people who see your post — it’s similar to impressions, except reach counts the number of users, while impressions count the number of times a post was displayed in a user’s feed (this means that the same user can rack up multiple impressions if the post showed up in their feed several times)

: The number of people who see your post — it’s similar to impressions, except reach counts the number of users, while impressions count the number of times a post was displayed in a user’s feed (this means that the same user can rack up multiple impressions if the post showed up in their feed several times) Conversions : A certain user activity that you’ve set up in advance, like filling out a form or completing a purchase

: A certain user activity that you’ve set up in advance, like filling out a form or completing a purchase Product sales : This is technically a type of conversion, since you got the user to perform the activity of buying your product

: This is technically a type of conversion, since you got the user to perform the activity of buying your product Audience alignment: Looking at user data to confirm that your influencer content was seen by people who really fit with your brand, thus building positive brand awareness and exposure

Pro tip: Avoid measuring success based purely on reach or impressions. These metrics just mean that your post showed up in someone’s feed — they don’t mean that the user engaged with it… or even read it!

Whatever you decide to focus on, it’s critical that your benchmarks align with your influencer program goals.

Common influencer program goals include:

Product/service sales

Sales leads, especially if the sales process is longer or your offering is expensive

General brand awareness

More followers on social media channels

Increasing website traffic

Email newsletter subscribers

Customer retention and building brand loyalty

Reputation management

While some of these are tangible goals, like sales, other goals like brand awareness can be practically impossible to track.

Which brings me to the importance of setting good goals.

You’ve likely heard about setting SMART business goals, which stands for:

S pecific

pecific M easurable

easurable A greed-upon

greed-upon R ealistic

ealistic Time-based

No exceptions for your influencer strategy.

So instead of just saying, “I want more sales,” try saying: “I want 5 new customer sales from this month’s influencer strategy.”

Instead of saying, “I want more people to see my brand,” say: “I want 200 total engagements on each influencer post.”

When you can set clear, attainable goals, you’re better equipped to measure the true value of your campaigns. You’ll also find it much easier to tweak and change certain things that aren’t working, while doubling-down on the things that do.

Make Everything as Trackable as Possible

Your goals are useless if you can’t actually see if you’ve accomplished them.

But the thing is, even the best influencer marketing strategy can face trouble.

Linquia’s survey shows that 76% of respondents see their biggest challenge to be determining ROI for their influencer marketing program.

So how can you avoid this pitfall in your influencer strategy process?

Let’s go over a few ways to keep your campaigns trackable and accountable for your brand’s ROI.

Set Up Google Analytics

Google Analytics is truly a blessing. If you don’t have it set up for your website yet, do it today!

It’s critical that you have this set up if your influencer strategy will lead any users back to your website or a special landing page (which we’ll get into shortly).

Google Analytics shows great influencer program metrics, like: