Performance-Driven Influencer Marketing Mastery: Generating Revenue at Scale through TikTok and Instagram → Nadia Bubennikova

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[00:00:00] Unlocking Sales with Influencer Marketing: Strategies for Immediate Impact

[00:00:00] Nadia: But if we’re talking about this user acquisition or performance campaign, sales campaigns, our job is to bring sales ASAP. We have a very strict deadline. Usually it differs from one month to three months that we have to get enough sales and to drive enough interested users to the website to make an order

[00:00:22] mhm.

[00:00:24] Nadia: if the influencer drives and creates a lot of. Posts for the same brand in terms of six months or three months, then we’re not talking about the views guarantee, but we’re actually looking at a nice influencer with loyal audience that creates good content that actually brings users. And it makes sense for the brands to be rehiring the influencer for the promotion of the product because.

[00:00:47] The ad works.

[00:00:47] Mhm.

[00:00:50] Nadia: Obviously the number one thing would be that the influencer must post some content before posting our stories about the brand, about the product to heat up the [00:01:00] algorithm to actually bring the audience to the influencer. And then once the influencer will be posting out our stories

[00:01:07] mhm.

[00:01:09] Diving Deep into Influencer Marketing with Famesters

[00:01:09] Kunle: So on today’s episode of the two X e commerce podcast, we dive into the secrets of leveraging influencers for powerful brand awareness and performance driven campaigns. It’s a great episode. You don’t want to miss it to stay tuned.

[00:01:20] This is the 2x e commerce podcast hosted by Kunle Campbell.

[00:01:31] Kunle: Hey, Nadia, welcome to the 2X eCommerce podcast.

[00:01:35] Nadia: Hi, thank you for having me. Really glad to be a part of it.

[00:01:39] Kunle: Amazing. Amazing. Amazing. Amazing.

[00:01:41] Nadia’s Journey: From Novice to Influencer Marketing Expert

[00:01:41] Kunle: Influencer marketing. I’ve been involved in influencer marketing largely performance very recently. And I know it is a very complex space can be challenging. And that’s one of the reasons I was really super excited to, to speak to you, today, other than what you [00:02:00] guys are doing at Famesters, I want to know who you are, Nadia.

[00:02:04] Do you want to give us your background and link it to why you are into influencer marketing in the first place?

[00:02:11] Nadia: Sure, no problem. I would say that I started off in influencer marketing with Famesters almost two years ago. I think not almost, actually five years ago as an influencer marketing manager with no experience whatsoever. And I just worked my way into the position I am in right now.

[00:02:32] And why influencer marketing interested me in the first place was because being a teenager I spent a lot of time playing video games and watching YouTube. And I was always interested in how you can make a business out of it. Other than like being a, an influencer and having all those brand deals.

[00:02:52] So I was really interested in how this really works behind the scenes. When I was getting my business degree it was actually the first time that I [00:03:00] actually heard of influencer marketing being an actual real job that you can get, and this kind of sparked this interest in me because it basically combined the two things I liked the most back then, which is Video games and YouTube and YouTubers and influencers.

[00:03:17] So I was really intrigued by how you can combine all of that and not get a boring, as I thought back then, job in an office being like an economist or something, but you could actually be combining the two things that you love the most as a teenager and building a career out of it.

[00:03:35] The Evolution and Impact of Influencer Marketing

[00:03:35] Nadia: So just as back then, I was really enthusiastic about Influencers and the world of influencer marketing nothing changed, I would say, because everything changed in influencer marketing during this five years.

[00:03:50] You have to always be up to date with the current trends, something that worked a couple of months ago is not going to work just as [00:04:00] good, just as effortlessly As back then, so you have to really study everything you have to incorporate all of your knowledge about pop culture, about basically everything.

[00:04:11] You should always look out for the new platforms. So this is definitely not the field and not the job where you can get bored really easily. That’s probably one of the biggest things I love about influencer marketing.

[00:04:24] Kunle: Yeah, good stuff. Good stuff. I read economics and I didn’t want to ever be an economist. I don’t want it to, I don’t want any of my university mates to hear this, but I just didn’t want to ever be an economist, a good one. Okay. So you’re the head of agency at FameStar, if I’m not mistaken.

[00:04:41] And you started from the trenches, you walked your way up over the years. Tell us. About FameStar, exactly what the agency looks like. And also your journey, I really like to understand your journey from when you started in the agency to where you are now, being the head of agency.[00:05:00]

[00:05:00] Nadia: sure.

[00:05:00] Famesters’ Approach to Influencer Marketing Campaigns

[00:05:00] Nadia: Famesters, what we do is we provide Different brands of different verticals with influencer marketing campaigns from A to Z. So our job is to understand what the brand is interested in, what the goals are what the requirements for the whole campaign and the strategy are. And what we do next is we build this platform.

[00:05:20] Whole strategy across different social platforms showcasing everything basically from starting with the portrait of the influencers that we’re going to be onboarding to the creative ideas, to the briefs, to all of the materials and obviously the performance prognosis or forecasts. So our job is to, first of all, come up with an idea and a strategy that is It’s backed up by some proof, some previous cases or by some previous results and build a real strategy out of it, showing all the creative concepts, all the ideas and basically everything that will help us go [00:06:00] from this thing being just a strategy to the actual campaign that takes place, that has all the publications, all the contents published and so on.

[00:06:10] Kunle: And to end

[00:06:11] Nadia: Yeah,

[00:06:13] Kunle: like the fact that your sort of cross industry. So you work in FinTech. You spoke to video games, the gaming industry is huge. And then you work with consumer brands which are obviously e commerce first. What’s what’s the.

[00:06:29] Navigating Industry Nuances in Influencer Marketing

[00:06:29] Kunle: Before we jump into the e comm, which is what this show is all about. What’s a nuance listeners should be, be aware of in, in terms of the difference in industry is influencer markets and execute at the same way, across some various industries or does it, is there a nuance there?

[00:06:44] Nadia: Obviously, there always are going to be some differences across the verticals across the all the types of the products that we’re working with, because if we’re talking about Ecom, it always Includes the delivery of the logistics of the [00:07:00] product being delivered to the influencer. And this totally changes the whole scene because if we’re talking about just launching a campaign for a digital product being an app or a video game we don’t have to wait for anything to be delivered.

[00:07:15] We don’t have to control the process of the product being showcased. So we just create the creative guidelines, the briefs, and the influencers follow in their own way. And we don’t have to worry about that, about like changing the deadlines, the timeline of the whole delivery and logistics process. So if we’re talking about e com difference, that would probably be the number one.

[00:07:38] And there are actually a lot of this moments. So we could go on for hours, talk about all the differences between different verticals.

[00:07:47] Kunle: No but that’s like super important. It’s a very good point. That delay of shipping the product to, and then them confirming, sometimes it gets lost in the post and then them also getting acquainted with the [00:08:00] product, I’ve also found situations in which the, you’ve booked a deal with the influencer. The influencer has it on the influencer says, look, I’ve, Sorry, I just need some more time to to get used to it. And sometimes they just, ghost you and other times they’re super excited and it shows. Okay.

[00:08:19] E-commerce and Influencer Marketing: A Synergistic Relationship

[00:08:19] Kunle: So let’s jump into e commerce, e commerce as a vertical. What key categories or when brands come over to you what are their objectives what should they try and get out of, and what were they looking to get out of influencer, marketing?

[00:08:34] Nadia: I would say this question actually correlates a lot with the types of the campaign requests that we get from brands, I would say that the number one thing, the most popular thing among e com brands is the brand awareness campaigns. If we’re talking about bigger. These are the types of campaigns when we on board, a lot of influencers will build the strategy across different platforms.

[00:08:55] Sometimes we even incorporate different regions in this campaign. So the [00:09:00] target is Is broader because we don’t have to target some specific niches of people of ions or of regions But we can actually be very creative and we can think of basically anything that does provide this type of campaign results the number Two would actually be the I don’t know, how should I put it?

[00:09:23] Look like the general performance or user acquisition campaigns where our main goal is to drive sales to the product. We calculate the costs. And we actually start building the strategy from there. It differs a lot because if we’re talking about the brand awareness campaigns in here, our goal is to tell about the product, to shout about the product, to make people.

[00:09:51] Really know the product and want to buy it over time. But if we’re talking about this user acquisition or performance campaign, sales campaigns, [00:10:00] our job is to bring sales ASAP. We have a very strict deadline. Usually it differs from one month to three months that we have to get enough sales and to drive enough interested users to the website to make an order, for example.

[00:10:18] And obviously the third one, the third type would be those kinds of special campaigns with the influencers when the brands don’t. They don’t only try to integrate their product into the influencers content, but they try to make a joint project with the influencer. So these are like bigger collabs between the product brand and the influencers brand.

[00:10:42] Where the brand would be interested in using the influencers likeness, their image, and to actually make something together instead of just sending a product for the influencers review.

[00:10:56] Kunle: Interesting brand awareness, more performance [00:11:00] marketing, and then a collaboration of sorts which really amplifies a story and just shows, yeah, social proof very interesting stuff.

[00:11:09] Exploring Brand Awareness and Performance Campaigns

[00:11:09] Kunle: Should we delve deep into brand awareness? Why would brands want to. Essentially use an influencer for brand awareness campaign and how do you measure success?

[00:11:21] What are the KPIs for brand awareness?

[00:11:24] Nadia: Obviously in brand awareness campaigns, our job is to drive awareness. So what we do is we create and set the KPIs based on the number of views that we have to gather from the target audience on the ads that we do for this brand. To measure success in these types of campaigns is simple.

[00:11:44] It’s pretty easy, I would say, because we have a specific metric that we can count on. Usually if not the number of views the CPM can also be one of the biggest KPIs in brand awareness campaigns. [00:12:00] That is to say, when we agree on the specific CPM for the whole budget of the campaign. We named the region, we named the requirements for the influencers, what kind of influencers this should be, and our job is to fulfill the specific actual CPM to make eCPM estimated CPM and the actual CPM after the campaign equal.

[00:12:24] Measuring and measuring success and actually setting those KPIs in brand awareness campaigns is pretty easy. But answering your question about why brands should be paying attention to influencers when they’re interested in this brand campaigns. This was actually a very popular question about five years back, I would say, when no one really heard about influencer marketing.

[00:12:45] And we actually had to visit different events and scout for the clients who would be interested in influencer campaigns because no one really understood what influencer marketing is and how you can leverage it for meeting your business goals, for [00:13:00] driving sales, for actually making some kind of profit out of it.

[00:13:03] Thankfully over the past, I don’t know, I would say three years, the situation changed and it’s not us who are scouting the clients, but it’s vice versa because everyone knows about influencer marketing and everyone’s, everyone wants a piece of it in their brand strategy. So I would say that the first thing that the first biggest advantage that influence marketing has in terms of like this brand awareness campaigns is the audience loyalty, because.

[00:13:32] Influencers do have this strong, loyal relationships with their followers. Their followers trust their opinions. They are interested in the content that the influencer is creating. They will be paying attention. They will be engaging with the content that the influencer provides. This trust between the influencer and their audience, is key.

[00:13:54] Usually transfers to the brand itself, because if the followers trust that the influ trust the [00:14:00] influencer, they will always also trust that the influencer won’t be recommending some shitty brands to them. This kind of loyal relationship is pretty important. What actually drives, I would say that the most of success and influence marketing in brand campaigns, especially

[00:14:19] Kunle: Okay, that makes sense.

[00:14:20] The Art of Selecting Influencers for Different Campaign Goals

[00:14:20] Kunle: And then, you, yourselves as an agency if I was a, a manager, or a director of marketing director at a consumer brand reached out to you, say we’re doing beauty. And I reached out to you for brand campaign, how does the selection of influencers, the types of influencers differ from, if I was looking for a performance, driven campaign objective who would you, what kind of influencers would you be on the lookout for for brand, for a brand driven, campaign.

[00:14:51] Nadia: sure. First of all, if we’re talking about brand campaigns, the brand awareness campaigns usually dwell on bigger budgets [00:15:00] and on bigger numbers of views that we have to get. Performance campaigns are mainly based on smaller influencers. There will be like a big number. of smaller influencers because they have this most loyal and trustworthy connection between them and their audience, because they’re not celebrities yet.

[00:15:19] They’re just people who create content and this content interests other people. Their relationship is more intimate, I would say in terms of, In this kind of like connection between an influencer and their audience. But if we’re talking about brand campaigns, usually we have to incorporate some bigger influencers, some big names that do actually give this brand awareness.

[00:15:42] So for example, if you see a really big influencer who is an expert in this niche, in this specific vertical, for example talk about the product, then you automatically have a bit more trust. To the product itself, because you [00:16:00] heard about it from from an expert who is quite well known, you do you have some level of trust to this person?

[00:16:07] So you have to basically look out for the expert niche influencers who are also pretty big in their following and pretty big in the active users who are watching and engaging with their content. And if we’re like building the strategy itself, then I would say in brand awareness campaigns, we try to list all of the use cases that we can see for the specific products.

[00:16:33] For example, if you have a specific beauty product I don’t know. It’s targeted for women from 30 to 40 years old. And our first step is to really get to know the product if we can to test it out to then list all of the use cases we can think of for this specific product. And then what we do is we match this to the influencers who create similar type of [00:17:00] content and are still rather big.

[00:17:02] Because in performance based campaigns, what we have to do, we, of course, also analyze the use cases and we try to match them with the influencers that we are going to be offering to the client. But it’s a bit different in terms of. The size of the influencers, the niche content that they create, and the content pieces themselves.

[00:17:25] Understanding Influencer Categorization and Engagement

[00:17:25] Kunle: Which, which brings me to my next question, which is how do you, I know there’s a categorization of influencers out there. And I just wondering if you use the same nano micro macro mega and celebrity sort of scale in, in, in your agency how do you categorize agencies sorry influencers by size?

[00:17:45] Nadia: I’m gonna be honest with you, I don’t really like this system of micro, nano, etc. Because usually all those systems are based on the number of followers. That is not [00:18:00] something that we’re interested in our agency and in the campaigns that we run because we should never care and the brands should never care about the number of the followers the influencer has.

[00:18:10] What we should be paying attention to is the average number of views that their videos or their posts get, because this number is 100 percent going to be lower than the number of followers. Of course, with some exceptions, but generally the influencers have more followers than they have the average video views on each piece of content.

[00:18:33] So we’re only interested in the average videos, number video views number. So this is going to be the only segment of the audience that is really active enough to actually watch the content and not just be, I don’t know, there’s ghosts that nobody sees except for the numbers on the followers button.

[00:18:54] What,

[00:18:55] Kunle: So what, when you say the average video views, you were speaking specifically to IG reels [00:19:00] and take talks,

[00:19:00] Nadia: YouTube as well.

[00:19:02] Kunle: On YouTube. Oh yeah, sure. I forgot. I always forget YouTube. You’re right.

[00:19:05] Nadia: Don’t it’s a really great platform for,

[00:19:08] Kunle: It’s, would you say YouTube is great for performance? Where is, so if you were to run a performance campaign what’s your ideal, what’s the first platform you’d say, okay, this is going to drive questions, it’s going to drive user acquisition.

[00:19:20] Nadia: Actually, I would say that the number one platform for e commerce brands would be The Instagram and Instagram stories specifically because you can incorporate the link, you can use the link, the users can click it and you can basically track all the the whole journey of the users that we bring.

[00:19:37] YouTube YouTube incorporates a lot of organic traffic. Because when you’re watching a YouTube video, even if the influencer has put the tracking link into the description box probably you’re not going to go click that link, because once you’re watching the video and when you’re hearing about the product from the influencer, if you’re interested, you’re probably going to go [00:20:00] grab your phone and search for the product yourself.

[00:20:04] So this is like the biggest problem with performance campaigns on YouTube, because the share of organic traffic is usually almost equal to the share of the traffic that goes through the link. So it. can be really tricky To measure all of the traffic that was brought through this campaign. So with Instagram It’s much easier because people don’t have to close the tab.

[00:20:30] They don’t have to close the story to go search for the product themselves because you can just Click the link and you go there. So there’s basically no point in that.

[00:20:40] Kunle: Yeah, you’re absolutely right. So the, most of the performance Instagram performance marketing campaigns we’ve been involved in have been in, in the channel you said, which is IG stories and it’s clickable. That’s the nice thing that feedback loop is very short, what are your thoughts on tick tock and, TikTok shop and [00:21:00] performance from TikTok.

[00:21:01] Maximizing Performance with TikTok and Spark Ads

[00:21:01] Kunle: How would you, given the fact that TikTok is focusing a lot on TikTok shop as a brand, brand owners listening to this podcast, how would you advice that they view approaching TikTok from a performance perspective?

[00:21:17] Nadia: TikTok is actually a great tool to be promoting and selling your product with. The number one step I would say is to consider not only targeted ads on TikTok, but also spark ads. What we like to do when we have this performance campaigns on TikTok is obviously, first of all, we buy the ads from the influencers.

[00:21:40] And once the influencers do post their content, if you’re obviously have approved the content, if the content is good enough for it to be promoted again, what we do is we use spark ads to use this piece of content that the influencer actually posted and we keep promoting it to the other audience.[00:22:00]

[00:22:00] So in here, the difference is that we’re not promoting the creative from the brand’s account, but we’re actually promoting the post. That the influencer made. So the influencer posted this video review of a product and then using spark ads the tick tock official tool, we can promote the video itself and add like clickable link into this creative.

[00:22:23] So we’re actually going to be promoting the. content posted by the influencer, but it will have the button with the link. And we will be able to target the audience that we’re interested in like demographically.

[00:22:38] Kunle: Okay, so just so that I got get you right you spark ads is a platform within Tiktok or to the platform that tiktok offers for you to essentially buy content from its creators So what you’re saying is as a brand owner you go to spark ad sets up your account you select the influencers you send them your products.

[00:22:59] Nadia: No, [00:23:00] not really. There is a tick tock marketplace influencer marketplace. I should say but tick tock spark ads is a bit different. So spark ads is actually a tool that you can use if you have a business cabinet in on tick tock, if you have a tick tock business account. So it is a tool that helps you use.

[00:23:20] The content that influencers have already posted for you, for your brand.

[00:23:24] And you can get this ID number of each of the videos that they posted. And you can later use this video that is actually posted on TikTok already. You can use it as a creative and you can drive new users using this specific piece of content, which also will be branded not only From like your account, your official product or brand account.

[00:23:47] But with the influencer as well.

[00:23:49] Kunle: Okay. So you go to the creator marketplace you buy you essentially get content and then you could re advertise, you could promote that content from the influencers handle with spark ads.

[00:23:59] Nadia: [00:24:00] yeah, because the biggest problem with TikTok if we’re talking about the like performance campaigns is that you can actually place the link for it to be clickable and you well, obviously you can put the link into the bio of the influencers profile, but the influencers tend to Ask for an additional payment for that And it is not that effective to be spending money on it So you will eventually be still losing a lot of users like potential buyers who will just be too lazy to Click on the profile to click on the link tree to find a specific link.

[00:24:38] So spark ads actually helps us solve this problem of not having clickable links and having to calculate organic traffic and actually losing the traffic. So first we post the videos. This could be the videos from not that big creators. You don’t have to spend a lot of money on it. You just have to [00:25:00] buy several pieces of content from even smaller creators who do produce good good contents visually, and then once they posted it, you can actually ask for this.

[00:25:10] So you can use video ID codes and use spark ads on those publications.

[00:25:16] Kunle: Okay. Okay. Makes sense.

[00:25:18] Key Considerations When Partnering with Influencers

[00:25:18] Kunle: Because my, this brought me to, this is my next question, which is as a, as an influencer, a marketer, what, what criteria what should you be on the lookout for when you are looking to buy, content from a creator?

[00:25:34] Nadia: Obviously, first of all, you should actually be looking about the audience alignment and content alignment with your product. Whether this specific influencer is a match for you. Whether it makes sense to be promoting your product with this influencer. Because if you’re I don’t know, if you’re a sneaker shop, and you’re, main target is [00:26:00] to sell sneakers, you wouldn’t be onboarding a beauty influencer, for example, or a cosplay influencer because there is obviously, there is a chance of the audience matching what you’re looking for, but this Match will be much smaller if you, than if you, for example, look for the influencers in the specific niche.

[00:26:22] So first of all, make sure that the content is aligned with what your product is, and then just do the same with the audience. So ask for the stats and look at the comments check that the audience is actually interested in the pieces of content that the influencer is creating. And it’s not just, all of the views from FYP or from in platform promotion.

[00:26:47] So you have to make sure that the audience is real, it’s engaged, it is interested in what the influencer has to say and to show to actually see if, They [00:27:00] will trust the recommendation that the influencer will be doing. Then another thing to look for is content quality and visual style, because if you’re interested in using this content later in sorry in other sources of driving traffic, then you have to make sure that the video creatives are looking good there in high quality.

[00:27:23] And they also align with your brand ideas. And your brand values. What you do next is you go look at the numbers, let’s say. You look at the engagement rate of the influencer. You try to back all of your ideas with some data that is available when looking at the influencer’s profile.

[00:27:42] Obviously you look at the cost efficiency. And try to calculate the the CPM to actually see if the specific influencer. will likely bring enough traffic even for the brand campaign for you to be spending some additional budget on buying a [00:28:00] creative or on buying a post from this influencer.

[00:28:03] Another good thing to be looking out for is actually the examples of the previous collaborations the influencer had with other brands. Even before approaching the influencer, it is quite a nice way to get a glimpse of what you’re likely to get for the price you’re paying. You can also just look for examples to visually understand of how it’s going to look.

[00:28:30] Or you can Do a smarter thing and you can look for all of the posts that the influencer has created over time for different brands. And you can section them into some repetitive posts for the specific brand. So if one influencer has been making, I don’t know, like five to 10 posts for the same brand in terms of several months.

[00:28:58] This is likely due to the fact [00:29:00] that the influencer provides good performance and the brand is rehiring this influencer over and over.

[00:29:05] The tricky thing in here can be that many brands do work on a views guarantee basis. And if the influencer didn’t reach the necessary views number, then the influencer must produce another piece of content for free.

[00:29:22] To actually gather these views, but you can exclude those cases just simply by looking at the timeline of those publications, because if it is abuse guarantee deal and the influencer has a second post for the same brand in, let’s say 30 to 60 days from the first publication, then this may be a abuse guarantee, like complimentary video.

[00:29:46] But if the influencer drives and creates a lot of. Posts for the same brand in terms of six months or three months, then we’re not talking about the views guarantee, but we’re actually looking at a nice influencer with [00:30:00] loyal audience that creates good content that actually brings users. And it makes sense for the brands to be rehiring the influencer for the promotion of the product because.

[00:30:09] The ad works.

[00:30:12] Kunle: interesting, super, super interesting. I really like your points on the views guarantee.

[00:30:17] The Importance of Views Guarantee in Influencer Contracts

[00:30:17] Kunle: Do you think it should be incorporated in every contract?

[00:30:19] Nadia: Oh yeah, 100%. That’s what we’re doing because with TikTok, for example it’s very hard to estimate and to forecast how many views we’re actually going to get. Because TikTok’s algorithms are built differently, and the videos gather views not so much from the followers base, but from the FYP.

[00:30:42] Of course, if we’re talking about YouTube, a views guarantee is easy to estimate, it’s easy to agree on with influencers. We try to use either a views guarantee or a CPM deal as much as we can.

[00:30:57] Kunle: Okay. Okay. Okay. That makes sense. And it’s the [00:31:00] start of all open for you to verify and validate anyway. Yeah. Makes sense. Makes sense. Just looking one more points on tick talk. I’m just trying to figure out if there’s any other points we should speak to tick talk. So with, so you think it’s just spark ads just because they’re clickable.

[00:31:20] Doesn’t make sense buying bio links. It’s much more direct. You could see the results and you could, get your conversions.

[00:31:28] Exploring TikTok and Instagram Strategies for Influencer Marketing

[00:31:28] Kunle: Would you also, encourage tick tock shop or or that’s another sort of activity separate from influencer marketing for performance.

[00:31:38] Nadia: would say that it’s a totally different direction. Of promoting your product. I wouldn’t say that there are like That many ways of making it connected with the influencer marketing strategy that you might be leveraging while selling your product on tech talk.

[00:31:55] Kunle: Okay. Okay. And then can you replicate [00:32:00] this for IG, what you’ve just said, or would you just strictly go with an IG stories strategy for IG and performance space?

[00:32:09] Nadia: What we actually did on IG with that we use influencers and Insta stories to promote specific products of a specific brand. And we were driving traffic to the Instagram profile of this brand after showing a specific. product to the audience using like the IG stories of these influencers.

[00:32:30] Once they go to the profile of the brand, they hit the follow button. They since they already saw the product and they were already interested enough in it to just go over to the profile and to hit the follow button. The info, the users that were brought by these influencers are likely to go to the ID shop and to see the product to try.

[00:32:54] To even buy it straight away from the ig shop but these [00:33:00] are like very rare cases because you can’t actually track it that good to see if The specific user that was following this specific influencer actually followed The brand profile and then went to the ig shop, etc. We usually Try to divide it into separate activities.

[00:33:19] Differentiating the influence marketing perspectives and processes from the platform shops.

[00:33:27] Kunle: Okay. Okay.

[00:33:28] Diving Deep into Instagram Stories for Effective Marketing

[00:33:28] Kunle: So for listeners trying to figure out some performance on Instagram stories, do you want us to break down the process and how it’s achieved?

[00:33:35] Nadia: Yeah the first thing that we have to think about is how are we going to promote the product? What exactly should be shown? What exactly should be said? I’m not saying that you should write a detailed script for each influencer of what to say, when to sneeze, et cetera, but you really have to provide them with the key points, the strong points of the product.

[00:33:59] And some [00:34:00] regulations of what. Should be said what should be skipped like comparing the products to the competitors or something like that and Then once the brief for the influencers is ready The influencers usually create their videos and they share it with you for Like approval. So if you have something to add, if you’re not sure about something obviously you ask the influencer to change it.

[00:34:25] Once you’re satisfied enough with the video you can actually go to posting them. And in here, the very important thing is to not be limiting yourself and the influencers with just creating the stories. Hi, let me tell you about the product. This is it. Look at it. Go buy it. But you should also try to think together with the influencers how you can actually integrate the product in a specific day or into a specific storyline that the influencer is guiding the audience through on this day.

[00:34:59] So [00:35:00] you have to think about the the background, the context. The pre story that will be leading to those insta stories about the product. Oh,

[00:35:12] Kunle: for cutting you short Nadia, but there are situations in which like the influencer would have posted seven different posts promoting other brands. And then your your post is number eight on the same day.

[00:35:25] Nadia: that is actually handled by the contract. You should never agree to that. I would say that the number one thing that many brands don’t think about is signing a contract with the influencer that actually saves you from all of that. Because

[00:35:41] Crafting the Perfect Influencer Contract for Instagram Collaborations

[00:35:41] Kunle: we need to, before you leave, we need to talk about what should be incorporated in a contract,

[00:35:46] Nadia: it looks like it.

[00:35:48] Kunle: sorry, please. I caught you short on the just the context you were speaking to the context

[00:35:52] Nadia: Yeah. You should elaborate on the context of what’s going on in the influencer’s life, why they’re actually [00:36:00] interested in your product and why the user should be interested in that product. Because what worked four years ago, Is not working that good now and it hasn’t been working that good for I would say a couple of years now so If back then you could just shoot some stories about The product without preheating the audience without trying to insert the ads into the context of the influencer’s life it won’t work now because it has been done too many times now and you really have to think about this story leading to your product stories.

[00:36:38] Like a storyline some kind of occasion in the influencer’s life or some kind of events that will actually be then connected to the recommendation of the product. Obviously another thing you should do is put the link on several stories, not just on, on one of them. If we’re talking about,

[00:36:55] Kunle: how many frames should be in a typical, how many frames is [00:37:00] too little and how many frames is too much.

[00:37:02] Nadia: I would say one, one, two frames is too little, too much is anything. More than six.

[00:37:10] Kunle: Okay. Makes sense. Makes sense.

[00:37:13] Nadia: The audience will just get bored. They will just get tired of watching six instastories about the same thing, especially if each story is not like 15 seconds. But if it’s 60 or 35 or 40, then it just becomes too much to keep your attention.

[00:37:37] Kunle: Yeah. Okay. Okay.

[00:37:39] Optimizing Instagram Stories: Views, Offers, and Metrics

[00:37:39] Kunle: And then would you off give a special offer? Or how, or is it just a link? What

[00:37:45] Nadia: Usually a special offer or some kind of welcome bonus for the users who came from the specific influencer is always a great hoop. A discount a promo code or an additional [00:38:00] gift, like one plus one, any kind of special offer is a great hook for the audience. What you do is you showcase the strongest, first of all, you create the storyline to integrate your product into, then you use the influencer to really showcase the product to dwell on its strengths.

[00:38:17] And really showcase them then interest the audience into buying this product. And then what you do is you throw in the special offer, you throw in a really good CDA and obviously a link.

[00:38:30] Kunle: what’s a CDA?

[00:38:31] Nadia: Culture actioning.

[00:38:33] Kunle: Okay. CTA. Okay. Okay. So integrate your products or storyline precursor to the recommendation of the offer, integrate the product into their lifestyle, probably from a previous post, which links directly into it. So it’s very, it feels very native. Showcase a product, interest, audience, and then special offer CTA. Okay. That makes a lot of sense. And then what about the, what kind of metrics? We talked in tech talk about how to select a, an [00:39:00] influencer or a creator in their marketplace. And you talked about audience alignment, content, alignment, content, quality and visual style, CPMs and all of that stuff in IG stories.

[00:39:09] How should you not get it wrong by selection? What should you be looking out for with an influencer?

[00:39:16] The Art of Selecting the Right Influencer for Your Campaign

[00:39:16] Nadia: First of all, you should always be looking at the publication schedule of the influencer. So if you’re interested in IG stories, but. The influencer that you are looking at seems like a great fit, but they mostly do Instagram posts, feed posts and they don’t do stories much. Then it’s not a good idea to asking this influencer for IG stories because the reach on these stories and the impressions on these stories are gonna be much lower.

[00:39:47] You have to make sure that the influencer is posting, enough content on IG stories for at least a week before your brand deal, because this way you will be sure that the algorithms [00:40:00] will bring enough users to their stories before that the profile will be heated up and you are much more likely to get more rich on the stories that you will be buying from this influencer.

[00:40:14] Kunle: Okay.

[00:40:14] Nadia: thing is to ask for fresh stats from the influencer, because a lot of IG influencers and even a lot of IG talent agencies or managers who do represent those influencers, what they like to do is getting the screenshots of the best performing days reach wise on IG story, and they will sort them and they will sort them from like the best videos to the worst videos that won’t be even seen.

[00:40:43] On the screenshot. And this is where a lot of brands get tricked because they see this big numbers, they’re happy, they see a nice CPM, they see a good value in this collaboration. And then once the story goes live and they ask for [00:41:00] a actual views number and actual reach and impressions, they see that if before they were hoping for 100, 000 views.

[00:41:10] Based on the screenshots that were shared by the influencer and they, their story only got like 15k. You paid for 100k, not 15k. This is what happens a lot. So always ask for the fresh stats. Check what stories the influencer posted that day. And ask for the stats from this exam day. So you know that this is actually a pretty fresh stats screenshot, and you can dwell on the info that is presented there.

[00:41:42] Kunle: Make sense. Make sense. Makes sense. You just mentioned something that’s quite interesting, which is like your target impressions. So how do you structure the camp? The contract is it to, is it just posts give me post or when we’re looking for this many impressions

[00:41:56] Nadia: again, it depends on the type of the campaign. If we’re talking [00:42:00] about Okay on Instagram stories, it can be a bit tricky because the influencers themselves cannot be sure at what exact numbers they’re going to be looking at this day or another day. With the YouTube and TikTok, It’s actually much easier to predict and to guarantee even for the influencers because it’s not our job to trick the influencers either.

[00:42:24] We want this to be a fruitful collaboration that will be beneficial for both sides. So on Instagram, we don’t do views guarantees as much. If we’re talking about reels, yes, we try to incorporate the views guarantee in there, but in stories not so much.

[00:42:41] Kunle: Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. So in stories, what you think are the most important points or terms in a, in an agreement that essentially ensures that that protects a brand and almost ensures deliverability and just minimizes loss.

[00:42:58] Nadia: Obviously [00:43:00] the number one thing would be that the influencer must post some content before posting our stories about the brand, about the product to heat up the algorithm to actually bring the audience to the influencer. And then once the influencer will be posting out our stories, this

[00:43:16] Kunle: How many, sorry, how many, two,

[00:43:18] Nadia: That depends on how many stories the influencer is typically posting.

[00:43:22] So if we’re talking about those guys that are posting like a hundred stories per day, then obviously the numbers are going to be different from those who post two to five stories a day. It should be just, It’s a logical amount for the audience to be heated up, 20 or 30 percent of the average number of stories that they post per day.

[00:43:46] And only after this 20 to 30 percent of stories are posted, we can actually go with our branded IG stories. Another thing, there should be no other branded [00:44:00] stories or other branded content for any other brand, aside from our brand. Neither one day before our publication, not during the day that our publication is active.

[00:44:14] And only after our IG story is gone, the influencer can actually go with other brand deals. It also it’s not only about the brand deals that are based on fixed flat fee, but also different affiliate links sometimes even Amazon links that bring users to a specific product. So we’re really have to structure what kind of products we are showing to the influencers audience that day.

[00:44:41] Kunle: Okay, makes sense. Makes sense. What other components should be in the contract?

[00:44:44] Nadia: Obviously views guarantee if you’re able to agree with an influencer on one At that point,

[00:44:51] Kunle: structure the views guarantee? Would you just average out the last 30 views and just say, okay, this is the.

[00:44:57] Nadia: yeah, what we do is we look at all the [00:45:00] recent publications, we cross out those who obviously just went viral for no reason or for a reason that is only algorithm and not us and we try to look at the real numbers once we calculate like the median we write that number into the contract.

[00:45:16] Another thing that we do is we always have the clause that the influencer will only get their remuneration after the publication. If they send us the screenshot with the full statistics on the post that they made, because a lot of influencers just like to, or managers, Also differs. What they like to do is to make the posts, to get the payment and to just disappear.

[00:45:42] And they don’t care about performance. They don’t care about providing the stats on this publication, but we needed to analyze the performance. We needed to analyze each influencer. So we always use this statement that the payment will be made. Only after we have received the screenshots. [00:46:00] another thing that we do sorry, I, I just

[00:46:03] Kunle: Cool. No,

[00:46:04] Nadia: wrote this one is we always include the link to the task assignment or to the brief. Into the contract so that there is a specific reference to a specific brief that the influencer should be following because if the manager or the influencer does not cover the brief points 100%, we have the right to change it.

[00:46:26] We have the right to ask for adjustments. If you don’t have the link to the task assignment, or if you just told the influencer I don’t know. You know your audience better, you do you you will probably not have this option.

[00:46:40] Kunle: Okay. Makes sense. Makes sense. Makes sense. Okay. They should warm up their accounts, which is 20 to 30 percent of average posts per day. So if they’re doing 20 posts, typically they should at least try and get in four or five posts before they post yours. They must post on or they, there must be no other branded content or even affiliate links one day prior.[00:47:00]

[00:47:00] And on the day and until the expiry and then you should, you could incorporate a views guarantee based on averages Just taking out some, viral post and then you must link to the task, assignment or brief in the contract Which gives you that ability and rights to change should you know they not adhere to your guidelines or your brief okay that makes sense.

[00:47:22] And then do you look at when you’re assessing them? Do you look at their the average story views, what story views looks good? Do you look at their link clicks data the historical link clicks data to make a decision? From a performance standpoint

[00:47:33] Nadia: I would say that we don’t just look at the number of views or like the reach on the stories. Because sometimes we work with smaller influencers, sometimes we work with bigger influencers, so it differs a lot on each campaign and each strategy, but what we What we are actually looking at is the stability of those views.

[00:47:53] So even if we’re looking at the first or second screenshot of the stories that [00:48:00] was shared with us, we try to avoid the influencers who have, I don’t know, 100, 000 views on the first screenshot, on the first story, and then 30k on the last one. Because that is too big of a difference, and this is risky for us to be spending the budget on these kinds of influencers if they don’t provide a guarantee.

[00:48:22] Kunle: Okay. Okay. Okay. And then obviously you have an internal price and mechanism, based on average story views. So if it’s 30, 000, story views, they’re worth this much. There’s no way you can pay more if it’s 50, 100, is that the case there internally? Or

[00:48:36] Nadia: Yeah we usually calculate the prices and Estimated cost efficiency based on the CPM. So we have the price, we have the use number, and then we just

[00:48:45] Kunle: what’s a good CPM in 2024 for IG stories

[00:48:48] Nadia: that heavily depends on the region. So if we’re talking about Latin America, it will be five to six. If we’re talking about the United States 25, I would say would be the [00:49:00] lowest, so it just starts at 25 and it goes up and up

[00:49:05] Kunle: to 100, it could go as much as a hundred CPM.

[00:49:08] Nadia: niche content. Yeah. Easily. And it could actually drive sales.

[00:49:15] Kunle: What about the profile of the influencer from a conversion standpoint? We’ve tried some mini celebrities, celebrities that have been like maybe in real housewives of Atlanta or, those and they tend not to, Really deliver from a performance standpoint.

[00:49:28] Should you what’s a psychography of, or it’s like a graphic structure of an influencer you may want to work with influencers. Do you have any red flags in terms of who not to work with? I think that’s a better way to frame that question.

[00:49:40] Nadia: We do have this kind of regulations, but mostly from a brand safety point So if the influencer was involved in some scandalous Shows or some beef. I don’t know the other influencers or just basically if the influencer does not Sorry if the influencer does not have [00:50:00] a Nice reputation Then we tend to skip it Keep this influencer because even if we do run an ad with This influencer there is no guarantee that this will not actually become detrimental to a brand So you really have to check all those guys on their beliefs and what they

[00:50:25] Kunle: Okay.

[00:50:26] YouTube Performance Marketing: Views, Contracts, and Audience Engagement

[00:50:26] Kunle: I know we’re running out of time or run out of time, but do you want to just briefly speak to YouTube, from a performance standpoint what’s the top things to be aware of listeners should really be aware of on YouTube when running performance ads.

[00:50:39] Nadia: Obviously it’s the views guarantee on youtube It’s easy to get a views guarantee or a cpm deal from an influencer because everyone understands what it is They understand the performance of their channel. They understand the metrics they know it all so the influencers who are sure in their content and confident in being able to deliver the specific [00:51:00] performance, they all agree on use guarantee.

[00:51:03] Another thing is to analyze the stats. For example, on YouTube, you can analyze basically everything. You can analyze the languages, you can analyze the all of the regions, all of the countries, the age groups, the devices that are used by your audience to To watch the videos, etc. You can even analyze the depth of a view of a video view.

[00:51:27] So like how long a user is watching the video in general. For a video of, 10 minutes. Usually the average is four or five minutes. So not everyone watches the video up to the very end. In these cases, it does not have any sense, it does not make any sense in putting the ads in the second part of the video.

[00:51:51] So you can actually watch the video Analyze quite a lot of things. When launching a performance campaign on YouTube, you obviously can add the [00:52:00] link. It will be click clickable, but you have to take organic traffic into account. If you have several influencers going live in a period of one week, then you definitely should make the measurements of organic traffic before their postings and after their postings.

[00:52:20] As well as one month after the campaign because there will be a lot of organic traffic and if you don’t Even try to measure it. You will just lose all the stats and you may just bury youtube for you and it Brought a lot of thoughts to you.

[00:52:36] Kunle: I agree. And the organic would would comprise of Google as well as direct. You just understand the ebbs and the flows that you can use like SEM rush to, to really measure that if your website’s cut is calculated is connected. Are there any other YouTube points, to, we should be aware of when engaging or selecting a YouTube influencer.

[00:52:56] Nadia: off the top of my mind, I would say that is mostly it [00:53:00] the Oh, no, actually another very important thing on youtube is to actually go through the comments to the video and to see if the influencer has authentic audience and not some bots. You should actually see how the audience is reacting to the influencer in the comment section whether they’re really interested in the video, whether they’re really interested in the content or the influencer, it’s himself or herself because the comment section really does show a lot.

[00:53:30] And does tell a lot about the relationship between the influencer and the audience as well as whether the influencer Whether the audience trusts the influencer about his, product recommendations

[00:53:45] Kunle: What about the CPM for YouTube say North America?

[00:53:49] Nadia: Obviously depends on the content, but the lowest I would say would be 20 cpm 20 cpm and The realistic average, 25 to [00:54:00] 30.

[00:54:00] Of course there are content categories that are much cheaper. Usually these tend to be the categories with the younger audience. But if we’re talking about science and tech creators, their CPMs are going to be even higher than that.

[00:54:14] If we’re talking about business or motivation or finance channels, then those CPMs are even higher.

[00:54:23] Kunle: Yeah. Yeah makes a lot of sense. Makes a lot of sense. Nadia we could go on and on. Not this in of itself is, it’s like a, like an online course, without the slides, on, on influencer marketing, particularly with regards to its application to performance, marketing for e com that you’ve touched on so many points.

[00:54:43] The show notes of this episode are going to be juicy. So for listeners who. Once you’ve get all this summarized I’m going to make sure that our team put together, very detailed sets of show notes for you. So just head over to 2X e commerce, dot com to, to get, [00:55:00] to grab that Nadia.

[00:55:02] Just wrapping things up.

[00:55:04] Future Trends in Influencer Marketing and Closing Thoughts

[00:55:04] Kunle: What are your thoughts on the on, on the, on where influencer marketing is headed? Do you see any new platforms coming? How do you see the dynamics of platforms, particularly for e commerce which is the audience of this podcast?

[00:55:19] Nadia: That’s actually a very good question because I think that for now the main players, the main platforms that all the campaigns are based on will stay the same. I have not yet seen the platform that can be competitive with Instagram or TikTok aside from Pinterest, but Pinterest is not a new platform whatsoever.

[00:55:38] So I think that for now the main players such as Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Pinterest, and probably Twitch for gaming related products will stay the same, but we’re always on the lookout of the new platforms to, to follow the trends and to be able to catch this audience, the fresh audience that has not been spoiled by a lot of [00:56:00] Yeah,

[00:56:02] Kunle: That’s a fine way to wrap this episode up. So for people who want find out more, as in this, all the information you shared, just is reflective of the level of detail your agency things gets into with influencer marketing. So for people who want to find out more about how to work with yourselves, it’s FAM. E S T E R S fame stars. com. I’ll link to it in the show notes. Are you active on any social media platforms? Do you post anything about social, either your agency or yourself personally?

[00:56:34] Nadia: obviously you can find me on LinkedIn by Nadia Famesters, or if you’re confident, you can try searching by my surname. You

[00:56:44] Kunle: Okay. I will link to, I’ve actually sent you a connection request. But by Nick over is your surname. So I think I, I didn’t slaughter it. I hope.

[00:56:54] Nadia: Good.

[00:56:55] Kunle: but yeah, I did good. Thank you. Thank you. So Nadia, it’s been a pleasure meeting you. We’re [00:57:00] grateful. We thank you for all the the insights you’ve shared and, have a good one.

[00:57:03] Nadia: Yeah, you too, thank you for having me, and I’m really glad to be a part of it.