The Influencer Paradox: When Organic Stars Don't Shine in Paid Campaigns

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Last week I made a video called 5 things I hate in advertising.

The first item was celebrities in ads.

This idea got my wheels turning about other celebrities - influencers.

I think influencers for your paid media will not help you.

Let's break it down.

Applying the 3% Rule

An influencer has built a following based on their organic content. Over a long period of time, people trust them because they follow this person and interact with their content.

The assumption is to take great performing content from the influencer and just drop that into ads manager and print money.

That rarely happens.

The reason that never happens is when you drop the content into ads manager you are taking away the strength of an influencer, their audience.

Meta doesn't know who this person is - they just send the ad to cold traffic. And if that cold traffic has never seen the influencer, the influencer is just a regular person.

The real issue is that most influencer content speaks to their audience who already has a relationship with the influencer. Then influencers will talk about a product with assumptions on what to say or leave out context because their audiences knows them.

That same video that did well with an influencer does not mean it will do well on paid. Cold traffic needs all of the information and have no assumptions made by what is being said. Influencer content in paid usually leaves people confused.

If you can exchange the influencer for a regular person, and the video is the same, that means that the influencer didn't need to be in the video.

How to use influencers correctly in paid media

Whitelist with influencers

This is more of a media buying trick than it is creative, but I find you want to use the influencer’s audience to your advantage while also reaching beyond the influencer’s audience. Whitelisting allows you to run their creative from their account. Meta can find people like his or her followers to make the content a better match than straight cold traffic.

If the influencer is a cultural moment or recognizable

This rule kind of cuts out most influencers, but if you have someone iconic they could move the needle for you. They are most likely going to cost a lot for that moment and for most brands, it wont be worth it. I wouldn't suggest doing this, but this is one of the few times I would allow this on paid ads.

You would want to make sure the content is unique to them to make it memorable and effective.

Influencers won’t make your ads

Most influencers create for organic content anyway. They have an audience so they can talk slow or get away with video structure.

In paid media, you have to be clear, and you have to sell.

Most influencers don't know how to direct sell.

Few are good at direct response because they already have built in trust.

Advertisers like me don't have that luxury, we have build trust within seconds of an ad starting. Most content from influencers is drawn out or not great at selling the product which becomes unusable for paid media. So you have this overpriced video that will underperform.

You are better off using influencers more in the traditional sense versus trying to supercharge your content creation for paid. Usually if you use the content for paid, you will pay extra licensing fees that can be expensive.

Most influencers think they are very important and they are... only to their audience.

Outside of the audience, they are just like you and me - normal.

The extra fee to get content that is not actually special is costly. I would try to keep as much of your influencer work within their world and audience.

Not all content is 1:1.

Understand what each piece of content is and how it will help that channel. Just because they have an audience does not mean that content will help you in paid channels.

Influencers are amazing for the business, you just can't rely on them for your content on paid.

You must build a function of creation yourself.

You must make videos from the brand.

You have to learn how to sell the product and make videos that builds trust in an instant. I have heard too many horror stories of people thinking an influencer will save them, and in fact, it almost bankrupted them.

Was this helpful? Let me know by replying!

I will see you next week.

Until then, keep creating!

Matthew Gattozzi

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