Optimizing Brand Performance versus Direct Sales Return on Investment
In the dynamic world of influencer marketing, brands are seeking ways to measure the impact of their campaigns beyond direct sales. This article presents a playbook for quantifying upper-funnel Brand-Lift and reconciling it with the hard ROI demands of Direct Sales campaigns.
Defining Brand-Lift Objectives
The first step in this approach is to define clear brand-lift objectives such as awareness, favorability, consideration, and purchase intent as upper-funnel goals.
Conducting Brand Lift Studies
To isolate the influencer campaign’s impact on brand metrics, Brand Lift Studies are conducted by comparing exposed audiences vs. control groups. Surveys measuring brand recall, favorability, and intent are used to capture the impact of the influencer campaign on these key objectives.
Tracking Relevant KPIs
Relevant KPIs for brand awareness and engagement are tracked, including reach and impressions, brand mentions and share of voice, brand search lift, direct traffic increase, referral traffic from influencer content, and social media follower growth tied to the campaign.
Employing Quantitative Surveys and Social Listening Tools
Quantitative surveys and social listening tools are employed to capture these upper-funnel signals that CFOs can interpret as indicative of brand equity changes, helping justify marketing investments.
Bridging Upper-Funnel Lift to Financial ROI
To bridge upper-funnel lift to financial ROI, several strategies are used. These include correlating brand-lift metrics with sales pipeline growth rates or lead quality in CRM, using multi-touch attribution models to assign partial credit to influencer campaigns influencing conversions, leveraging personalized marketing strategies downstream that further convert influenced prospects into customers, improving conversion rates across funnel stages. Additionally, tracking incremental direct sales influenced by uplift in brand awareness or intent measured through brand-lift metrics is crucial.
Translating Qualitative Brand Improvements into Forecastable Sales Results
To link increases in brand consideration and purchase intent from lift studies to expected conversion rates, it is essential to translate qualitative brand improvements into forecastable sales results. This can be achieved by linking increases in brand consideration and purchase intent from lift studies to expected conversion rates, thus addressing CFO demands for measurable financial outcomes.
A Data-Driven Framework for CFOs
In summary, CFOs need a data-driven framework that quantifies influencer brand lift via controlled lift studies and KPI tracking, then maps those improvements to sales funnel efficiencies and incremental revenue using attribution and conversion analytics. This integrated approach aligns upper-funnel softer metrics with the hard ROI scrutiny typical in Direct Sales campaigns, enabling investment justification based on both brand equity growth and tangible financial impact.
The playbook also includes other key practices such as unified data consolidation, stakeholder scorecard & presentation, influencer tier ROI ranking, scale & iteration roadmap, optimization backlog development, brand-lift initiatives, two-tier approval workflow, high-signal influencer brief, orchestrating spend via marginal ROI triggers, real-time dashboards, weekly ROI Sprint cadence, and Marketing Mix Modeling (MMM) integration.
In conclusion, agencies and brand teams must resist the one-size-fits-all trap and define the horizon at the outset, articulating whether the KPI ladder prioritizes Brand-Lift or Direct Sales ROI. By doing so, they can transform influencer programs into self-optimizing engines that deliver both brand awareness and direct sales results.
- To satisfy the financial demands of executives, the playbook suggests correlating brand-lift metrics with growth rates of the sales pipeline or lead quality in the CRM, as well as using multi-touch attribution models to assign partial credit to influencer campaigns that influence conversions.
- Agencies and brand teams need to define their objectives by articulating whether they prioritize Brand-Lift or Direct Sales ROI, enabling them to transform influencer programs into self-optimizing engines delivering both brand awareness and direct sales results.
