With the value of social shareability and peer-to-peer recommendation at an all-time high, the impact of influencer marketing on the travel industry is undeniable.
Business Insider estimates that by 2022, brands will spend up to $15 billion on influencer marketing campaigns alone - an incredible investment that, currently, amounts to little more than a gambit.
While the power influencer marketing holds over the industry is clear, insight into its ability to drive real-life business outcomes is often hazy at best.
The missing metrics in influencer marketing
Influencer marketing suffers from very little regulation and nascent third-party support, with most influencers self-reporting their engagement metrics to brands without third-party verification.
Trickier yet, many don’t have the infrastructure to provide the beneath-the-surface insights around bookings, purchases and conversions brands need to determine true return-on-content.
Put simply, most brands are spending millions on a marketing channel they can’t accurately track.
This issue isn’t surprising: Influencers aren’t publishers, they’re people. While they might have incredible reach, most are focused on awareness and storytelling, not on driving bookings or conversions.
This raises the ultimate question: without insight into how their content is truly performing, how can brands unlock return-on-content for their influencer marketing campaigns?
Scaling and measuring your influencer marketing
Influencers aren’t publishers, but the content they produce is high-quality, engaging and personalized - exactly the kind of content consumers look for as they dream about and actively plan their vacations.
While tapping influencers to create this content and distribute it across their owned and operated channels is impactful, it doesn’t – and shouldn’t – end there.
Rather than relying on influencers to be the sole drivers of results, brands should do their part by promoting created content on their own channels and beyond.
Amplifying your influencer content generates increased opportunities to connect with your consumers through trusted stories and reviews while raising the profile of your influencer partners, associating your brand with thought leaders in the travel industry in a symbiotic relationship that’s a win-win for all parties involved.
Viewing the amplification of influencer content as a necessary extension of your partnership can secure your investment in an influencer’s personal brand while increasing the reach of engaging consumer content across the travel journey.
Discovering your return-on-content
When brands amplify influencer content through channels they control, they’re able to track the impact of that content through the entire marketing funnel.
Extend, and measure, your influencer partnerships with these three tips:
1. Amplifying influencer content across your owned and operated channels
Contracts with influencers often contain language around when, where and how influencer partners will promote content, but brands shouldn’t rely on influencers as the sole distribution source of the content they create.
Using owned and operated channels to promote influencer content enables your team to reap the benefits of third-party, qualified content performance insights across standard metrics such as CTR, impression count, social media engagements and reach.
At minimum, brands should be re-posting and engaging with influencer-created content upon publication to maximize the immediate impact of the partnership. Consider adding posting times into contracts so all parties know how, and when, to collaborate on organic amplification.
2. Aggregating influencer content into a microsite or dedicated campaign
Depending on the contract in place, brands can extend the impact of influencer content by boosting their organic promotion on their social channels or by aggregating influencer content into a microsite with clear conversion CTAs.
Both strategies allow your team to track content engagement and travel bookings through traditional and trusted marketing metrics.
3. Syndicating influencer content across a premium publisher network
Partnering with a trusted native provider to distribute influencer content creates opportunities for brands to accurately measure the impact of influencer-produced content across key engagement metrics such as time on content and scroll depth.
By syndicating your content across a network of premium publisher partners, your team gains access to concrete data around flight reservations, hotel bookings and other micro conversions needed to leverage influencer content into a bigger picture strategy while associating your brand with top-notch travel publications.
Conclusion
At the end of the day, good influencer marketing is meant to inspire and promote. Great influencer marketing can boost intent and grow your travel audience.
But the widest and most measurable effort happens when brands work to support influencers by integrating their content into a full-funnel approach with multi-channel distribution.