Influencer marketing is ruling the marketing industry, with good reason. Consumer perceptions have shifted in favor of the brands that bring a personal feel to their messaging. Thanks to influencers of all kinds, Facebook, TikTok, and Instagram have become powerful business lead magnets. However, with multiple contents and platforms, even the most interesting content has a severely limited lifespan. On the other hand, paid ad campaigns have the advantage of allowing marketers to quickly reallocate finances and grow their resources according to the needs of the day. Influencer marketing lacks this flexibility, as scaling and allocating cash between campaigns takes a lot of time and work.
As a result, if you want your brand to stand out from the crowd, it’s more necessary than ever to supplement your creator’s content with paid ads. In other words, bringing the best of both worlds into one – paid influencer ads.
Why Mix Influencer Marketing & Paid Media?
First and foremost, let’s see why combining influencer content and paid ads is a solid idea.
Brands may profit from both approaches by leveraging paid media’s precise audience targeting and calls to action to boost authentic and engaging influencer content. Brands can use paid media to repurpose top-performing influencer-generated content (IGC) for sales generation, with ads that often outperform brand-owned content.
Regardless of the size of your influencer’s audience, Paid media allows marketers to reach a more significant number of people. This is possible with targeted ad placement and retargeting boosting online visibility over single feed posts.
The ability to track and attribute sales is another advantage of using paid advertising to promote influencer content. By evaluating the click-through rate and the number of sales generated by influencer content ads, brands may gain valuable insight into content performance.
In short, here is what you get with paid influencer ads:
- More conversions
- More reach
- Performance tracking and insights
- Precision targeting
- Repurposing options
- Lower costs for content
8 Tips To Maximize Influencer Content With Paid Ads
Smart brands are starting to optimize and amplify influencer content. They are turning it into paid social ads to stay competitive in the increasingly competitive paid social and influencer industry. Others collaborate with influencers to develop original content for sponsored ads. In contrast, some choose to magnify content that is already performing well organically. Marketers are learning that investing ad revenue behind influencer content can be a terrific strategy to take it to the next level.
Here are some tips for transitioning your influencer content to paid social ads:
1. Clear CTAs
Influencer content thrives on personal stories that their audience can relate to. But paid advertising focuses on getting people to do a specific action at the bottom of the funnel. Encourage influencers to be creative and develop content that sells while working with them to build paid ads. For less experienced content makers, this may be a struggle. But with more brands understanding the value of sponsored social, professional influencers know how to develop genuine advertising that drives sales. It’s essential to keep things simple and have a solid call to action.
2. Stay relevant and build trust
Finding the proper brand-influencer match is vital for creating high-impact influencer content. It is not different for paid social ads. Instead of focusing on the most well-known influencers, brands should consider how relevant the influencer’s content is to their target demographic. If you’re releasing a new menu item, it may be tempting to collaborate with someone with 5 million followers. However, you’ll get more significant results if you work with someone whose audience looks to them for food product recommendations.
Thus, when it comes to ROI on paid influencer ads, engagement rate is more meaningful than follower count.
3. More precise targeting
Targeting, retargeting, and audience segmentation are essential aspects of paid advertising effectiveness. Use resources and tools to ensure that your message reaches the right person at the right time. Access to data insights enables us to develop a campaign that targets the appropriate consumers at the right moment. If you’re working with an influencer to promote a specific product, you can transform their content into an ad. Also, give the campaign a super-targeted sponsored social boost to reach individuals who are more likely to be interested.
4. Leverage data to optimize performance
One of the most significant drawbacks of influencer marketing is tracking results. It can be challenging to determine where clicks lead to conversion in many instances. Using sponsored social ads to amplify influencer content has a significant advantage. Paid advertising allows organizations to track click-through and conversion rates in addition to impressions and reach. This data can be beneficial for refining the content strategy to ensure relevancy and overall performance. Remember that data is only as good as the insights you can extract and use to make content decisions. For example, if you notice that CTA placement affects click-through, this information might help an influencer determine where, when, and how to include CTAs in their content.
5. Gradually reduce customer acquisition costs (CAC)
The sole downside of using paid ads to amplify influencer content is high customer acquisition expenses at lower spend levels. When spending increases, content development costs are met by increased efficiencies, lowering the acquisition cost. This is especially true for brands transitioning from “free” influencer-gifting techniques to hiring influencers for IGC and running the ad via the influencer’s ad account efficiently. While organic influencer marketing is free, it does have restrictions in terms of having control over the media and metrics. Whereas organic campaigns can generate demand, paid advertising allows firms to profit. In most scenarios, the more significant initial set-up expenses will be outweighed by the higher return on ad spend down the line.
6. Content is paramount
Influencer marketing has become a hyper-competitive landscape as paid social has evolved. We can expect the competition to heat up even further as social advertising catches fire among marketers. For influencers as we advance, content and trust are the X-Factors for standing out from the crowd. Influencers often add both flavors to the mix. This is the primary reason for amalgamating paid ads with influencer content. This is a huge development that can change the way businesses and marketers approach paid social advertising.
It’s just as vital to make sure your influencer advertising’s creative and ad language are tailored for your goal as it is for your brand ads (purchases, website visits, add to carts, etc.) When creating content, bear the following in mind:
- The image is high-resolution, and the dimensions are appropriately based on the ad placement you choose (story, in-feed post, etc.).
- The text is simple to read and understand.
- Your product or brand is prominently displayed in the graphic. Having the product prominently displayed as the hero of your ad is critical for increasing click-through rates and, eventually, sales.
- Ensure the brand is mentioned in the first two lines of text, or above the fold. This will result in higher-quality site visits because customers will understand what they are signing up for.
7. Whitelisted ads
Influencer-generated content (IGC) does not have to be limited to a single social media post. IGCs are popular with the general public because they reflect the influencer’s personal style, making them more approachable and relatable. As a result, you should consider repurposing the material as part of a long-term paid marketing strategy to get better outcomes.
You can do this by whitelisting your influencers. This process grants your company access and authorization to promote your ads on their social networking channels. This benefits your brand in many ways, including:
- Increases conversions because of personalized content.
- Adjust the target audience so that the content is seen by the people you want to see it.
- Promote the content to reach a broader customer base and have a longer shelf life, resulting in more impressions and conversion opportunities.
- Promote the content to reach a broader customer base and have a longer shelf life, resulting in more impressions and conversion opportunities.
- Followers will relate to the ad as a result of influencers being featured in the media.
8. Use shoppable ads
Brands can now use various social commerce services to promote and sell their products directly through social media. You can use shoppable tags in feed posts and product stickers in Stories on Instagram to provide product information and pricing and the option to purchase through Instagram Shop without ever leaving the platform. Collection advertisements on Facebook feature a hero video or image and a grid display of items, allowing you to mix and match IGC and high-quality product catalogue images.
Influencer content that shows them using the product or quotes serves as social proof. These ads can create maximum sales and demonstrate the immense potential of mixing influencer content and paid advertising when incorporated with relevant influencer content, a clear call to action, and in-app checkout at the touch of a button.
Ready to Maximize Impact With Paid Influencer Ads?
Using paid ads in tandem with influencer campaigns can help you get the most out of your investment in working with that influencer.
Within a multi-channel marketing strategy, you can engage more people, more often, with your brand message, boosting the possibilities and volume of conversions. It’s not the only approach to acquire those conversions. It is a good one if you take advantage of the fantastic content that’s already out there about your brand.
Who is your dream influencer for your next paid ad?
With AtisfyReach, you can rest assured that the algorithm matches you to the right fit influencer in your industry, and manage your entire campaigns from the ease of a single dashboard. Make influencer marketing a breeze by becoming an AtisfyReach powered brand. Register now!
