# How Aware drives app growth with influencers | Influence Unpacked Ep. 2

Channel: AppsFlyer
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f41KDCqhoVc
Duration: 44 min
Language: English
Words: 8256
Transcript page: https://viewrankai.com/tools/youtube-transcript/f41KDCqhoVc

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[0:00] Welcome to Influence Unpacked with Marian Balinoff. The series where we explore what drives success in influencer marketing for mobile apps and games. Influence Unpacked is powered by Appsfly, bringing you insights from top marketers who innovate, elevate, and succeed. So today I'm joined by Nasiba, marketing director at Oware. Thank you, Nasa, for joining me today. Thanks so much for having me, Marion. I'm happy to be here. Happy to have the chat with you. You're amazing. All right. So, first to get started, can you introduce yourself and and tell us more about your journey in in marketing? Um, yeah, with pleasure. So, my name is Niba. Uh, I'm

[0:36] currently employed at Aware as the director of marketing. I've been at the company since June. My marketing roots kind of um started um here in Berlin when I started uh at Blinkist as a as an influencer marketer. Um, I spent just under two years at the company building out our podcast and influencer marketing channels, which was super exciting at the time because podcast was still very

[1:03] much a wild west even still in the US. And I think that experience at Blinkist really shaped kind of my career because after Blinkist during COVID I joined Athletic Greens AG1 where I also scaled our influencer marketing channels with kind of a big kind of start in podcast moving on to more traditional channels like YouTube, Instagram and even dipping my toes into Twitch. I spent about four years um at AG kind of running a pretty I would say major long-term influencer campaign with a really brilliant team and now I'm at a wear where I also do influencer marketing is one of my kind of responsibilities/ areas but I've

[1:44] expanded a little bit my zone of operation from influencer to general marketing but yeah I would say influencer is still very much at the core of my toolkit. Thank you very much for for this uh overview. So nowadays, what do you see would be the biggest challenge that mobile marketers are facing when doing influencer marketing? I think as as established influencer marketing seems as a channel, I do think that the majority of brands first of all like it takes very long before you there's a lot less kind of like established practices out there as there would be for example for more traditional channels like Meta or

[2:20] Google. So I feel like a lot of people kind of start with um first an idea that it's a channel where you can kind of figure it out as you go and then second of all there is also not that much information out there. So kind of between this like I don't really know what I'm doing. Plus like I should be able to find out like for a lot of brands like it either kind of like lands and you get lucky or a lot of brands I feel like don't really manage to get it off the ground. So what I kind of see a lot is one and done campaigns, right? So

[2:53] some brands like they'll book like 10 influencers without really thinking about like okay like who are actually these people? Like how do they fit my brand? Are micro or macro influencers better suited for what I'm trying to achieve? What am I actually trying to achieve with influencer marketing? So what I see a lot is like we've tried it, right? Like we booked, let's say like we spent x amount, it didn't do anything,

[3:15] so we're never going to do that again. So this is kind of what I see. I also you know like see sometimes where brands test let's say just Instagram right so for a lot of brands majority of brands likely when they think influencer marketing immediately like your mind goes to Instagram Instagram stories maybe Tik Tok and that's where it stays whereas influencer marketing like or at least the creator economy is much bigger than that obviously you have things like YouTube podcast is growing massively twitch anything coming anything to do with live streaming. Then you get into the niches like blogs, newsletters and so on. So it's a very very I would say

[3:56] pretty major economy, major industry and just like kind of like chipping away at an edge of it that is usually Instagram stories and deciding that it doesn't work for you um yeah I feel like doesn't cut it. So this is something um I see a lot. Thank you very much for sharing. This is definitely something that I see with a lot of mobile clients as well where there's very few that actually never tested it. Um, but then they had like a 30 or 50k spare budget that quarter and they've decided, okay, well, let's test some marketing. And as you said, like they haven't really set up

[4:28] the the goals that they wanted to achieve. They haven't really thought of what what is going to be the right platform, what is going to be the right format, like how how am I going to track it and measure it, right? Which is a big part. So actually I'm I'm quite curious at aware specifically like how do you look into measurement and attribution because this is a a big topic in influencer marketing. Yeah 100%. I think it's a huge challenge actually as well for a lot of advertisers. How do you how do you track the real impact of of influencer marketing? think similar to any other offline channel to TV

[5:01] marketing like you can never like quantify to the tea uh really what the what the actual impact was how many sales really came because you kind sponsored an influencer what we did both like at across all of the companies that I've worked with aware um uh AG1 Blinkist we worked with landing pages so all of the influencer campaigns be it podcast be it YouTube Instagram They all led to um either a personalized influencer landing page, some kind of a like marketing landing page, a product page, but we yeah worked with UTM links um customized UTM links for that specific influencer. And that was at least some way of um at least

[5:45] understanding like how much traffic you drove to that page. When it came to sales, of course, we worked with things like raw CAC or like some kind of a revenue, right, generated uh by that influencer through tracking, let's say, voucher redemptions. Specifically, when you are um or when when you're running a lot of influencer collaborations, like there will be ultimately a pretty strong portfolio impact coming from your activity within the channel. What we did for example at AG1 is apply a sort of a mental let's say multiplier of 1 and a half or two the sales that came in through channels like podcast or YouTube and then depending let's say on LTV or

[6:26] on through the different channels and when you do influencer marketing you will notice like different channels will have a very different revenue retention TV contribution. So for example, podcast at AG was a more high value channel and this is somewhere where we applied more or less like 1 and 1/2 to two multiplier then it was YouTube where it was also 1 and 1/2 to 1.2 uh and then Instagram I think a bit of a smaller multiplier but this is kind of the the way we went about it. Okay. And did you ever launch campaigns to drive install specifically like lending traffic to the to the app

[7:04] stores? Uh we did that with Aware at the start with Aware. Aware is a health tech company providing DTOC uh blood tests or facilitating the the process of booking a blood test. We ran when I just started we basically didn't have an ecom website. We kind of like were like everything we did was app marketing. We we did um so I basically set up campaigns in the exact same way I would have done at AG which was a a pure ecom brand with the campaign links leading to the app store. I think because we're not let's say an app that inherently provides value from the download on

[7:43] right the conversion rate from let's say like download to sale let's say conversion rate for us was not at the time incredibly high and very very volatile depending on on the influencer just because we didn't have a very strong let's say onboarding flow just because we didn't have those like inherent kind of like app features that get you hooked to the app. We don't have a trial, right? So, we we have like an app through which you can book a um selection of blood tests to be conducted at um our partner labs across Germany for the app to have and then and then after you've done the tests at our lab,

[8:24] your results will be shown in the app. And like this is where Aware really comes in like first we kind of like have certain packages that you can choose from, then we have labs where we send you to. But what we really kind of also offer is like the analysis of your test. So like this is really where the app becomes usable is after you've kind of like done the test, gotten the results and then you get retested and then we upload the results again. We explain everything then you like then that's what where the features really come into play like we have like progress over

[8:53] time graphs and so on. This I think the funnel was to evaluate kind of like the impact of what we did with influencer on on app downloads and so on. Um, for anyone that is getting started with influencer or let's say re getting started because maybe they've tested in the past and they realize they might not have done it the right way. I often advise people to test right to gather data and test. I know this is something that you've done a lot. Do you have like concrete advices for people to know what do they need to start with? Yeah, I mean I think you definitely should before you

[9:26] get started, before you spend any money on influencer, absolutely identify for yourself like what am I trying to achieve? Is it brand awareness? Is it do I really need to drive installs? Do I need sales? I think this will help you determine what what the right channel is for you. Let's say um your number one goal is to drive topline revenue, to drive x number of sales. There's different CPMs, right? Like or buying benchmarks for different channels. Let's say if you're an app with an average LTV of 2030 euro, um it would not make a lot of sense to try and go into podcast where CPMs in Europe start at like 50 60

[10:05] 70 plus. Even YouTube potentially might not be for the first test uh the best kind of channel for you to get to get a start in. Number two, I definitely would also think, you know, like what which channel lends itself uh best to your product. For example, at Blinkist, our secret sauce definitely was like that. Like we kind of hit a really beautiful sweet spot with podcast because Blinkist is an audio first edtech app summarizing, you know, non-fiction books. So the bridge from like listening to a podcast or like that habit is already there with your potential target audience. they listen or dedicate a number of hours a week to listen to a

[10:46] piece of content. So to bridge from podcast to your product with Blinkist for us was really like it was a no-brainer. So really also think about your product like does a channel lend itself really well to your product. You know you might find like very surprising things there. Number two, who do you want to kind of like where will you find

[11:07] obviously your target audience, right? Like if you're a brand, let's say like G-Fuel or a supplement or some kind of a consumer good that that potentially caters a very specific target group, right? Like I don't know, let's say gamers potentially Twitch is the is the right channel for you. And then number two, right, like who is or or on that same kind of like line, who are your key opinion leaders? Like who are the people who could talk about your product at length? Are there any people who are already let's say sages in your in your kind of industry? So for AG1 for example, I think our most iconic

[11:45] partnership to this date is with Andrew Huberman and he I think there's no better sage for AG than Andrew Huberman. Um so and and we kind of like through testing and learning we found kind of that most of our kind of brand stages were in podcast or more in YouTube or more like in environments where with long- form content. So I would say like I would think about all of these things before even to identify what is the right channel for me, what can I afford, what makes sense for my kind of unit economics and then yeah where do I where do I hit a sweet spot in terms of where

[12:21] does my product fit? Where is my audience? Where can I find those people who can speak very well about my product? As well as where where are those kind of sages who will actually be interested in representing my product and will find value in it. No, definitely it's a lot of uh of planning ahead, right? anticipating and and planning um especially because then when you when you start contacting people and from my experience I don't know if it's the same for you but um you contact a lot of influencers and probably half of them are not going to even reply to you going to depend on your brand obviously

[12:55] right um and then you're going to enter some discussion and negotiation phases with the few that are going to respond to you and out of those only a few more are going to be interested available um available at the price that you on to to to pay for for them, right? And so it's really important to have enough time to go through this whole process because otherwise you're going to be rushed. You might not have enough options to choose from and that's going to lead you to choosing influencers not

[13:24] for the right reasons in the end, right? So um that that's a that's a really really good point. Something that um most influencer marketing managers or or leads like touch upon are the briefs, right? because the brief is going to be the basis of that collaboration with the with the creators. Um you've worked both on apps on e-commerce. Do you have any

[13:46] best practices when it comes to brief? Yeah, definitely. I think this is also you know when it comes to like when we when you think about some challenges that brands are facing in influencer marketing or I would see I would say as as well a good brief can be very much a bottleneck, right? Like if if influencer

[14:02] marketing is not working for you, right? like you're finding the the best influencers, you're paying great prices and still something is not working. I would definitely revisit the brief and I think definitely at AG this was something because we ran such a big scale large scale campaign. Briefs were a huge kind of topic of um or point of attention. So I would definitely say like I see sometimes like two extremes either brands send no briefings at all or very kind of like briefs that focus mostly on just explaining the brand and then the part where like what do we actually want from the partnership or um

[14:40] providing guidance to the influencers that part is like very very minor or you will see brands providing just word scripts that that are meant to be kind of read word for word or very very prescriptive briefs. So I think when it comes to briefing again number one I think personalizing it is absolutely um a non-negotiable right so you can get as kind of granular um as you want but I think there is there's many levels to which you can personalize a brief so for example like a nutritionist influencer will absolutely need let's say a different angle on your product than let's say a busy mom. So like there's

[15:20] just going to be very different things that are going to be valuable to that influencer when it comes to your product and and that diversity as well is is consistent for their audiences as well. So I would think about making it vertical relevant. So make it relevant for that influencer. Number two, I think you always have to keep in mind that you first have to sell your product to the influencer first and make it very valuable for them before their audience even considers buying. So within the brief, I would absolutely also focus on not only explaining what your product does, but what your product does for

[15:56] that influencer and then for their audience. So really focus on the value your product provides and really communicate this to the influencer. literally be like what we did at AG was we asked a lot of questions that kind of like guided them towards being like think about why this product could be valuable for your audience. Do people ask you questions like is this a common problem? Like do you usually get

[16:21] consulted on things like this, right? Specifically with um with AG, we asked this a lot because we worked obviously with um um domain experts, right? We're like, "Okay, you're a nutritionist or you are a busy mom. do people often ask you like how to stay in shape or how do you keep your health in check um and so on um make it relevant make it very valuable think of how your yeah your product is valuable to the influencer as well something else we did as well we did you know at AG1 and a way I'm kind of continuing the tradition I I always hop on a personal kind of like

[16:59] onboarding call with the influencer or as close as I can get to the influencer their manager to find out as much as possible um and their interest in the product and how that product fits into their day-to-day um and kind of customize the briefing based on that. And another thing I think also like in the brief before you even kind of send the brief to the influencer absolutely it's it's it's super important to have them have an experience with your product. For example, with AG like obviously we send the product out to everyone before even negotiating or considering a deal. So that at the point that the brief arrives with the

[17:35] influencer, they've already tested your product, they already have things to talk about and to mention to their audience. And for example, with a more process heavy product like Aware, we always make sure that the influencer has booked the appointment, has downloaded the app, has gone to the lab, has received the results, has seen their results so that they can also, you know, kind of like talk about how easy it was and and the brief just becomes a lot more of a guiding kind of like document or like a like a talking points kind of

[18:06] like keep this in the back of your mind. to let this guide your kind of structure of your endorsement versus like this is what we want you to say word for word. Yeah. Because they've gone through the experience, right? It's just about telling the story of like how they've used your product in a way and another. So that makes it obviously a lot more genuine because that's how they've actually used it, which is sometimes a bit harder to do with mobile games, right? Because even though you might ask the creators to play the game so they get a real feel of it and see, you know,

[18:35] what are the different features, I still sometimes receive drafts where I see the creator recording and I see still the tutorials. That's a bit frustrating. But obviously for for products or services like yours, it's it's it's a lot different and they can actually, you know, um get a real feel of it. So you said personalize the briefs per vertical so you really have unique USPS for each of those and it's relevant for the content that they produce. And then when it comes to like renewing the brief like what's the frequency that you do that? Not really. I don't really have like a super let's say know I send out a

[19:11] new brief every um every time we collaborate with the with the influencers. So, so with let's say with AG1, we ran a pretty long-term campaign like you know like I a lot of the influencers that I started working with in my first month. We kept working with them on a bi-weekly basis for as long as I was with AG so 4 years or so. So there will be there will be you know let's say like obviously like general synergies with your general marketing let's say calendar Christmas right like there will be like some very like seasonally relevant points at which it absolutely makes sense black Friday your whatever

[19:47] your cross channel activity will need to be reflected in that brief number two like with with AG like we did product updates right so when we have something new related to the product this would obviously make its way into the briefs new features new um you know like anything anything new would obviously um land in the brief. I would say if you have like an always on campaign like it would it it would be definitely like you can't play the same kind of like pre-recorded endorsement like from one YouTube video or like one podcast episode story and so on to the other. So I would say like if you work with

[20:23] someone long term at least the read has to be done fresh. But yeah, I mean I would say like every second or so integration, I would send out a new brief. Obviously, yeah, if there's nothing new to tell, like maybe just some new sort of like this is maybe something you can think about. Usually, um I think if you work with someone long-term, influencers kind of like can can sort of like take care of this. What we also did with AG with our long-term partners is tune in to or like watch their content, tune in to their podcast episodes and so on. Um, and then whenever we send them a new brief, we'll

[21:01] put in something in the intro, right? Like so with the birth of your child, like have you been like a lot more busy? Like how is your morning routine changed? Or you've been, let's say, like traveling a lot or you spend the last few months in Paris. like do you like um how do you use AG when you're traveling? So really kind of um inspiring let's say also the influencer to to find new ways to to present your product. That's a really interesting one and it's not the the approach that I tend to do often. The reason for that is because on my side and from what I've seen also in mobile

[21:37] games resources are very limited, right? So either you have someone that is dedicated to influencer marketing and that might be one person or you might have like a product marketing manager that is handling many things amongst influencer marketing. So I'm wondering like what's the workload related to u having individual conversations with those creators like hopping on calls with them um obviously consuming the content. I really understand obviously the added value because it really builds strong relationship with the creators and it helps like create obviously more engaged more engaged content but at the same time I'd be curious like from from your different experiences how many people did you have handling influencer

[22:18] marketing was it just you was it like a a team did you work with agencies to help you do that like what was the sort of setup let's say like so at AG I spent like the first one and a half almost two years doing all of this by myself so I didn't have a team and then by the time I I switched to aware like we at AG we were a team of four. So we had kind of the way we managed the team we had channel managers but within the channel managers like we had for example I had a teammate colleague who actually just

[22:47] took care of like listening in to to those uh to those podcasts and then customizing the briefs in that way. Obviously you you do have to kind of pick your battles, right? So when when it came to doing this level of let's say personalized kind of having this level of personalized approach obviously we did pick partners like the most high ticket partners or the most longunning partners the partners that were performing the best. So you know like we worked with hundreds of influencers every month and from those maybe 10 or 15 got a personalized brief. Okay that makes sense. Yeah. in terms of doing the calls. I mean, this is something that

[23:26] really paid off and we really noticed like the quality of the read being so different um to the ones where we, you know, like just send the product, send them a brief and that's kind of their only touch point with the brand. and specifically in a market like Germany or more on the European markets. I do feel like putting a face behind the company absolutely help because it goes a long way for an influencer to say like I've met with their let's say with their team or with their founder and we had a friendly call and they're also passionate about the product. So that I think really carried us as well. But

[24:01] yeah, you can also you know like when resources are limited like there are times that lend themselves better to doing this than others. Let's say if you're just getting started, right, with AG, like when we came to Europe, no one knew about the product. One, number two, like people were very suspicious about supplements because the industry just has a very bad rep. So, jumping on a call with those influencers, with those agencies, like putting in the time like really paid off. Were we able to do it like every month? Absolutely not. So, I think I would really try to feel out like what is a good time for me to spend

[24:35] this extra time, to go this extra mile. It can be at the start of the of the collaboration or it can be at the start of you entering kind of a channel and then it could be like maybe you don't have to do a call with absolutely everyone. Maybe you can do a call with the more let's say high ticket collabs or you can do a call once you have someone going um and and you're

[24:57] collaborating with them more regularly. It can be absolutely add value to your to your kind of partnership to do that call after two three four collaborations. Okay. Yeah. So, it's really about finding the right balance between investing your time in certain creators that you've seen either have already high value for for for what you're doing or that are high tickets and that you want to try to make the most out of it and maximize the chances of of reaching your goals. So, that that makes a lot of sense. And so, when it comes to the process of like choosing the creators, right, cuz like there are

[25:28] so many creators out there. We've talked at the beginning about like okay, establishing before you even get started, what are your goals? where are typically the kind of influences that would resonate with your brand and what and with the goals that you want to achieve. But then once you've identified that, what is usually the process that you go through to select a creator? So if you have a list of creators, what are the metrics that you're going to look at? What is is it you're going to pay attention to or not pay attention to

[25:54] when when it comes to your selection? Yeah. So what once at the kind of selection stage I think that it's a bit of a balance between like what are the metrics that I look at plus like a bit of um let's say qualitative like gut feely let's say judgment evaluation not judgment so first I would I would go through all the hard KPIs right like there's going to be CPMs that you don't want to pay there's going to be audiences that are either too big or too small there's going to be demographics that are just not interesting or more interesting for you, right? There prices, verticals that are going to be

[26:29] more or less relevant. There's going to be um channels that are more or less relevant. There's going to be formats, right? Like so once you kind of like gone through all of those, let's say hard metrics, then like you know, you go into like that that's like potentially when you have like a prospect list, you go through that, you can already like more or less like you know pretty solid like yes or no, this is interesting or not for me. Then you go to that creators let's say profile. Then obviously you have things like following, engagement rate, engagement on their posts. Um, and then once you kind of have gone through

[27:03] this, I think this is where the gut feel part comes, right? Let's say I I I would definitely look past let's say the engagement rate like how does the creator usually engage with their audience, right? Do they ever actually post stories? And this is the part I've never used a tool for this. like you either follow the creator for a few days to see how do they appear to their audience. Is it do they mostly post static post? What is kind of their most

[27:30] successful like format within the reels? Is it like get ready with me like POV? When they do post on stories, if if it is a format that you're looking to book, is it normal for them to recommend a product or to advertise something or to suggest products, things, anything kind of to their audience or will it be jarring? Right? Like if they never first post on their story or never post anything like a recommendation or anything similar to what you're about to kind of collaborate with them on. Do they reply to comments? What kind of

[28:01] comments do they usually receive? Right? Is it is it questions? Is it encouraging? Is it like we would like to see more of XYZ or I like it when XYZ is in your videos. So for example on YouTube we worked with some really big creators that you know had amazing views very few comments never really engaged or then you have some people who have like like very qualitative discussions in the comments a very engaged community and these just can give so much more depth kind of to your understanding of whether or not the the influencer will work for you and across like all of that I think it's also kind of good to

[28:39] understand like why people follow this influencer it can And maybe an interesting example like from ag we worked over the years with a few fitness influencers and here you know like we kind of never really understood why do some of them work why not like we had obviously hypotheses right like AG is a micronutrient product a lot of fitness influencers are really focused let's say on macros like protein versus AG is a very like it's a very kind of specific let's say discussion and then we had actually some cases which I'll never forget right like fitness influ female fitness influencers that had a huge predominantly male

[29:16] audience. And at some point we kind of found out like actually like this is the type of fitness influencer that doesn't really work for us because the hypothesis then came to be that like okay like maybe their audience actually really comes to them to just to to more look than like get advice. So these are kind of the things that you will kind of find out if you kind of go into the scouting, the prospecting with the with these kind of questions like why do people follow them, what value they provide, how do they engage with their audience and so on. Yeah, that's that's really interesting because in influencer

[29:49] marketing like even if on paper two influencers look exactly the same, right? Like so same type of content, same type of same types of audience, location, demographic, agent, gender, same tone of voice, etc. then the two pieces of content might perform completely differently, right? And that's sometimes very frustrating because then you see you think, okay, I found a top performer. I'm going to find look alikes and they're all going to perform well and it doesn't, right? But also because there's so many factors that it can impact the performance. So that that that's really hard to pinpoint exactly what are the sort of criteria that are going to impact the

[30:23] performance. But at the same time it's important to try to have a look at for example that's what I do for for mobile games and probably you you've done as well like look take a step back from the influencer itself and look at it on on a vertical level okay so you said fitness seem to have a good fit right but then within fitness there are subverticals right like types of influencers that do have different performances so I'm wondering like how how do you go about this is it like something where you look at the at the performance and you try to categorize the creators by subverticals

[30:54] or how do you look at the performance in in that sense? understanding why something works um I think is super crucial right like when when when let's say you book influencer X like to really understand like is it the vertical is it really the fact that it was a let's say story versus real or was the video like let's say if if it was a YouTube video where does my content like perform best is it a 10-minute video and a 2-minut integration is it a 40inut vlog and then the influencer speaks for 3 minutes about your product. So, I think there's I think this this can be uh a make or

[31:32] break it, especially if you either have a very small budget. Um, I think it's super important for you to understand like why why those influencers worked. And if you're running like, you know, like huge budgets, like very large budgets like we did at at AG, at some point like you you also really it's also super important for you to understand like why things work for you so that you can do more of the things that work in in an industry, let's say like in in a shrinking let's say inventory at some point like there is just not that many relevant influencers for your brand. So definitely I think this is super

[32:08] important. What we did at AG more towards like year three or so running the program, we tried to kind of work out a sheet in which we started like um like a matrix in which we house all of the influencers and then you go through all of the hard metrics, right? Like vertical, subvertical, age and gender, like everything demographics and then we kind of like try to I'm sure you can automate this by now. This was pre like Chad GPT and like whatever other tool we kind of wrote out a matrix for example. Do they show the product in the video or not? Do they do

[32:44] they read alone or not? Does the product like does it look new like as if they're opening it for the first time like you mentioned? Like is it a trial? Like are they showing like a loading or a splash screen or are they like on level 32? Right. Uh so all of these things like yeah you can you can find out like some very relevant kind of um common denominators right like for each channel like is it in um let's say is it a premid post roll is it within the first oneird of the video or the piece of content is it 1 minute is it 3 minutes

[33:20] was the read done with the co-host or with the guest of the episode so try to like I would try to identify common themes and then look for pattern, right? Like, so I ultimately it's pattern recognition, but your input has to obviously make sense. I I would I would look for yeah common denominators for for your kind of campaign and then try to rate what you've done across um across those kind of dimensions and and from this matrix then you you did find like elements that then became sort of best practices in your briefs or was it like not conclusive enough because there's so many touch points. I want to

[34:00] say like we we it um you know the hope was always like we will perfect it so much that it will spit out a score for the perfect influencer and then we'll go from like oh this is a 10 and we read back and we're like this is our formula. I think this was ultimately like kind of the wish but again like it is very un like fortunately unfortunately what's beautiful about influence marketing it is it has to do with people there's a lot of like soft kind of criteria that kind of come looking what we did have like so the US team um specifically nag

[34:33] they did find that mentioning how long the influencer was taking the product did have a significant impact on the conversion rate so there there definitely can be learnings like this um I'm sure you you've also found that like showing a trial screen or like showing like you know like a splash screen is much less impactful than um I don't know like being actually like progressed um in the game. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, makes a massive difference. And this sort of like matrix I've also done it for several clients that have been

[35:10] running in marketing for a long time. why do sort of correlation analysis right so looking into um obviously conversion rate the LTV the retention stuff like that uh and then correlated or not based on you know the share of audience demographics with from like male 18 plus and all the all the metrics like that to try and find whether or not certain um age range had an impact on the conversion rate or maybe on the LTV or on the overall error right or like the influenc's engagement rate versus you know and and then the CPM and stuff like right so I'm also very data driven and I love spreadsheet and numbers and I

[35:47] wish there was this formula where I could input all the data and would be okay ah this so this is the secret formula but unfortunately that's not the case most of the time so it obviously gives us some indication and sometimes it confirms some assumptions that we have and that's really good because it it indicates that we're going towards the right direction last question before we move forward I wanted to pick your brain and and see like looking ahead, what do you think are going to be the next trends or shifts um in influencer marketing? Yeah, I mean I think you know having been more um on the ground in

[36:21] Europe, I think there's there's you know the US market as well as like Asian markets that are um a little bit ahead and I think when we look at those social commerce, right, Tik Tok shop, Instagram shop and so on, I think that are just like all of those things I think like very much like simplify the influencer funnel. It's a lot more of a cohesive campaign. So, I think that that definitely we'll see a lot more of or like this this is still very much like

[36:47] or at least like the next big thing. Live shopping obviously streaming I think channels like Twitch and so on on and even like live streaming on traditional platforms I think is very underutilized for when it comes to influencer marketing. platforms like Twitch still, I think, are are still haven't reached kind of that recognition that they potentially deserve. I I think they're also very specific, right? But there's still a pretty big, I would say,

[37:14] opportunity for a lot of brands there. Even for something like AG, we tried Twitch and and it was something that worked really well. And kind of like in that vein, I think more community-based platforms, right, like Twitch, and then like going on from Twitch, there's Discord, Reddit, and so on. I think that are very they're very untouched still. Not for everyone, not for every brand, but for some brands, I think this definitely could be um um you know the holy grail kind of channel and very few are looking into these kind of community- based platforms. Um also think you know with the rise of like UGC

[37:52] partnership ads are are a pretty big thing, right? So like very authentic looking video ads. Um things that look like influencer marketing but actually are like meta meta or paid social campaigns. I think this will also definitely amplify the attention towards smaller creators with more tightknit communities. Yeah. More more engaged audiences. I totally agree on with you on on platforms like Twitch and Discord and and even Reddit which are very much used by a lot of people but are not really yet tapped into and it's all about for marketers to actually find the time to start digging into those and understanding okay what is possible to

[38:34] do here like it like people did at the beginning you know when with Instagram and other social media platform um but I'm I'm sure as you said like it's going to arrive in the in the coming years all All right. Okay. So, we can do the quick fire round now if you want and then we can wrap it up uh for the episode. All [Music] right. What's one thing marketers should stop doing in influencer marketing? So, what I spoke about spoke about earlier, I think one and done deals, spray and pray approaches, like really going in blindly and hoping something sticks because I think what really makes influencer marketing work

[39:12] is consistency um and strategy. what's one strategy or tactic that they should start doing right now? Yeah, I think where a lot of uh advertisers get stuck is like just looking at metrics um going as far as just the engagement rate and the follower count because I think where the make or break it moment and and really true kind of like influence. It comes more from audience trust rather than follower numbers or or number of views. And then to wrap it up, what's a proven approach that marketers should keep in their playbook? I think a lot more customization. So, personalize um your partnership, your approach to

[39:47] influencer marketing um a lot more because personalized partnerships, authentic partnerships really are at the core of successful influencer marketing. Amazing. Perfect. Thank you for for for sharing. Okay. Is anything else that you think we should touch upon before we wrap it up? I think we kind of went through everything. One thing I don't know if if this could be useful, why why kind of like doing these personal personal calls and building relationships with influencer really worked or like why I can so so so recommended um is um you know the partnerships that I've or the relationships that I've built back at Blinkist in 2018. It was I'm still

[40:28] working with so many of those partners to this day uh-cau because of that relationship kind of that we built like seven years ago for example and those were also the partners that worked for example from Blinkist at AG1 some of them now even at aware and having built that partnership a lot of those influencers also kind of referred to their kind of industry friends common or fellow influencers and those referrals usually also perform much better than like cold leads, people that I just found myself, right? Like emailing via their like YouTube impressive or something. So I think I think this will definitely building a relationship with

[41:06] your with your partners will really pay off for years and years in the long run. Yeah, it's really about like building your network of like connections. Um and then you get introduced to other creators from those creators because they've worked with you, they know you're like a nice person to work with. you, you know, have like, you know, good deals. So, yeah. So, I totally understand this this vision. Um, and I think it makes it makes a big difference and then it makes your job easier in the long run because then when you switch companies, you already have sort of your playbook of of creators that you can

[41:38] work with and activate depending on the on the on the target audience that you have obviously 100%. And I think also when it comes to campaign management right like when like not even looking let's say like forward looking like there these will be the partners who will always go the extra mile who will always you know like give you like an extra piece of content on top just so that you you know like kind of like they will care for your campaign really care for your KPIs and will be the first ones willing to to go the extra mile to make to make the partnership work. So yeah,

[42:12] definitely will pay off kind of on all fronts. Yeah. And that makes such a big difference, right? Because when you see the creators engaged in the relationship, as you said, like they get they will go the extra mile and that will result not only in like much better content, much more engaging, much more authentic, but at the same time for you and your relationship with them, it's going to be a lot smoother because you know they're going to respect your brief because they they know how you work and they know what are your expectations. So there's not going to be as many back and

[42:38] forth or you need to ask for edits, etc. So, it's it's really a win-win on both sides. Totally see your point. Thank you so much, Niva, for joining me today. I think it was a really really interesting chat that we just had. Where can people find more about you or or learn more about your work? Thank you so much for having me, Marion. Really enjoyed our chat as well. Um, yeah, I think the best place to find me is LinkedIn under my

[43:00] first and last name, Niba Sherupova. Would be super happy to connect and always super happy to chat about anything related to influencer marketing. That's it for today's episode of Inference Unpacked. If you found this helpful, don't forget to like, share, and follow for quick actionable tips on influencer marketing for mobile games and apps. And if you're looking to dive deeper, check out my guide on the Appflow website. It covers everything from setting up your first campaign to best practices and tools to measure success. You'll find the link in the

[43:29] post. See you next time. [Music]

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