Appinions: The science of influence marketing

Get Started

Get started with Appinions

How Influence Marketing Can Improve Your Advertising Efforts

August 29, 2012

By

How Influence Marketing Can Improve Your Advertising Efforts

Leveraging paid media has long been the playground of traditional media channels and power ad buyers. Though the onset of online advertising has changed many aspects of the discipline, one fact remains true:

Measuring the true impact (not just reach) of advertising has always been challenging.

While online advertising is largely measurable at the awareness stage in the purchasing process, the metrics we use to benchmark performance and response don’t always tell us enough about the shifts happening as a result of our advertising campaigns (brand consideration is one example).

Initiatives to improve the visibility of actionable metrics (see Google’s Brand Activate) are moving the universe of online advertising beyond reliance on click-through rates and conversions to a deeper measurements of how ad impressions might directly impact a buying decision.

Even better would be creating highly targeted, cost-effective ad placements using real-time insights from actual human beings – and the conversations that influence action online and off.

Discovering Where the Most Relevant Action Is

This is where a true macro view of influence – across both social and traditional channels – can help advertising agencies listen, learn and respond with smarter ad buying decisions.

Topical relevance could be an advertising agency’s secret weapon. By gaining contextual insight into the topics (and content) that is directly impacting the market you’re advertising in, ideally you can stop guessing and start building a more targeted ad approach.

Here’s a few ways that influence marketing can help improve advertising ROI:

  • Build a targeted list for higher ROI ad placements based on topical relevance AND which publications/blogs/sites are influencing targeted demographics or segments of your market.
  • Build better ads by listening and learning from influencers interacting with your audience.
  • Expand keyword focus for organic and paid search efforts (based on topics that are moving the dial in your market).
  • Engage influencers around a product launch or event to help amplify your message and increase awareness, anticipation and buzz.
  • Monitor reactions from influencers in real-time and refine ad campaigns based on this feedback.
One of the more compelling aspects of integrating influence marketing into your advertising campaigns is determining the effectiveness of campaigns based on your brand’s share of influence, which is an analysis of the conversations (and influencers that are driving action around them) that are happening on relevant topics to your brand that you are not contributing to.
By analyzing these gaps and determining how to use insights from influence measurement to create more targeted campaigns and increase brand visibility in these areas, you’re advertising budget can be extended to achieve maximum ROI.

What are your insights on using influence marketing to improve advertising ROI? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

Image credit: Adam Bowie