Influencer Advertising: Why EMV must go…

Having spent over a decade now working in media measurement, I’m more and more requested by shoppers for my view on utilizing the most recent self-importance metric du jour, Earned Media Worth (EMV), to measure influencer campaigns. For these unfamiliar with the metric, it’s supplied by quite a few instruments as an try to offer a greenback worth to ‘earned’ social media content material (eg this Instagram put up mentioning us is ‘value’ $500).

The idea might sound acquainted – EMV is basically a born-again model of Promoting Worth Equivalents (AVE) from the previous PR world, which tried to offer a value equal to purchasing that medium or attain by means of promoting. It’s not too long ago raised its ugly head once more as influencer entrepreneurs look to justify their efforts and show their impression.

Fortunately, AVEs have (lastly) been dismissed as meaningless and deceptive metrics by all revered measurement our bodies, however I’d like to elucidate why I imagine their new incarnation as EMVs additionally has no place in a forward-thinking influencer programme.

• Essentially, the rationale you’re doing influencer advertising is as a result of you already know genuine model suggestions from trusted people carry considerably extra weight than an advert – so why undersell your self by evaluating with this previous metric?
• EMV is a black-box metric with every vendor having its personal methodology for calculating. This not solely makes it exhausting to check, but in addition to know – how am I supposed to enhance on this KPI and my model efficiency if I don’t know what it’s?
• The greenback worth is extremely deceptive because it has no connection to final ROI or gross sales. Ask your self, how has this put up valued at $500 introduced $500 of worth to my model? 
• Clearly influencers do sponsored content material and so it’s potential to place a greenback value towards an Instagram put up for instance. However simply as no-one has ever paid rate-card costs for purchasing media within the offline world, the identical additionally applies on-line. An influencer’s charges can fluctuate massively primarily based on how a lot she needs to work with that model, what the marketing campaign is, and finally what’s in it for her.
• Simply as each marketing campaign has completely different objectives, so ought to the KPIs and measurement. Generally chances are you’ll be searching for consciousness if it’s a brand new product launch, generally chances are you’ll be searching for engagement amongst key area of interest teams and so on. How does a blackbox greenback quantity match into your objectives and provide help to measure this efficiency?
• EMV can be a purely quantitative metric. It doesn’t keep in mind the sentiment of a put up, different competitor mentions in a chunk, or whether or not your key messages are there. Suppose an influencer posts a detrimental evaluation of your product – would you continue to depend this as being value $500? Lastly, EMV additionally doesn’t keep in mind your goal audiences and whether or not or not these have been impacted.

EMV has develop into well-liked as a result of it gives a easy reply to a posh query. The truth is that there isn’t one easy magic silver bullet KPI that may be utilized to all manufacturers, industries, and even particular person campaigns. Because of this we constructed a measurement framework, primarily based on the Worldwide Affiliation for the Measurement and Analysis of Communication’s framework and tailored it to influencer advertising to assist manufacturers set objectives prematurely after which measure their efficiency periodically, whether or not after a marketing campaign or extra repeatedly as month-to-month benchmarks.

EMV is often used as a rear-view mirror tactic after campaigns, a means of exhibiting “look, didn’t we do properly?”, or to indicate how a model is benchmarking towards a competitor. As ever, crucial factor we will take away from a measurement train is how can we study from this, and the way can we adapt our methods and techniques subsequent time spherical to make sure we carry out even higher?

And now in case you’ll excuse me, as the worth of this weblog put up is outwardly $375, I’m going to go and deal with myself to a pleasant spa break. Oh, wait.

Bio: Sam has over a decade’s expertise working in digital media and media measurement, and is at present the specialist within the European magnificence sector at Traackr. He’s externally accredited by the Affiliation for the Measurement and Analysis Of Communication (AMEC).