This month I joined Traackr as the Influencer Marketing Manager. I’m coming into this role from a few unique angles; long-time blogger and micro-influencer, marketer, and someone fully engrossed in internet culture. Obviously I was excited to join the company but during my onboarding experience, I experienced the depth of Traackr’s value, and quickly realized that while I wasn’t a client before, I definitely should have been.
Before joining Traackr, I ran the influencer marketing program for a gourmet food company. Despite being a globally recognized luxury brand; we had a modest influencer budget and big goals to hit. Without an influencer marketing software like Traackr to help me decide where to allocate my funds, I had to do my best to measure engagement rates and effectiveness on my own.
After becoming “Traackr Certified”, I decided to explore a bit and looked up a few influencers I had contracted in the past. What I found was quite surprising.
Hot News Alert: My advice to fellow marketers is that meaningful partnerships cannot be sourced with basic measurements like influencer’s like-to-follower ratio.
Traackr provides key insights into an influencer’s audience, including basic demographic data such as gender breakdown, age ranges and location of their following. But then the app goes even further to provide essential audience data on marital status, occupation, and insight into their following’s interests and brand allegiances. Our software even allows you to discover influencers who are already advocating for your brand! Because as we’ve seen time and time again, partnerships with organic origin usually lead to high return on investment.
All of the influencers I worked with had been chosen for the same simple reason. They posted beautiful pictures of food that received high engagement rates. Like many influencer marketers, I was guided exclusively by my own intuition. What I didn’t realize before joining Traackr, was just how much more data I needed to make informed decisions.
One influencer, who I had worked with on a regular basis, had a large following and a high engagement rate. Using Traackr, I was able to confirm that her audience was authentic. However, I also discovered that 75% of her following was under the age of 21; a group incompatible with the luxury market. For us, this was simply an unfortunate misallocation of budget. If we were a liquor company, this could lead to legal repercussions.
Unfortunately, this wasn’t the only instance where my budget was misplaced. A handful of influencers we partnered with didn’t have a strong following in the United States, despite living here. In the worse case, only 17% of a particular influencer’s following was based in the US. This was someone I worked with on a routine basis, who charged premium rates.
It wasn’t all bad news. I also verified when my instincts were right. Several of my favorite influencers proved to have an authentic audience, with a high concentration of followers in their 30’s and 40’s; who were overwhelmingly interested in fine dining and luxury goods. Though my investment in them proved to be beneficial, if I had had Traackr, I could have made more informed decisions on all my influencer outreach.
There are a lot of reasons to love Traackr. It simplifies influencer marketing campaigns and allows you to focus on other aspects of your job like building awesome relationships with top notch influencers who genuinely love your product and will perform for your brand. I should have used Traackr in the past, and I’m excited to build our very own influencer marketing program with it now!
Curious to learn more about how Traackr can support your selection process? Check out this post for 8 key influencer vetting criteria to consider.