In a World Blind to Search, All Eyes Are on Influencers

Can you remember the last advertisement you saw at the top of a search page? While many people are aware of the sponsored ads at the top of these pages, very few actually process them. This “search blindness” phenomenon is making search marketing decreasingly effective for marketers across the board. 

Similar to banner blindness that has been an issue for marketers since the late 1990s, consumers are ignoring the information in search ads; Gartner reports that, because of this, approximately 26% of marketers plan to decrease their spend in search advertising. In an increasingly competitive and crowded market for consumer attention, it makes sense why many are looking to find new placements that people aren’t trained to ignore.

In looking to fill this gap, marketers must consider the current landscape. Suffice it to say, people hate ads, and new strategies that blend advertising efforts with organic content have seen promising results. Chief among these solutions are influencers, whom many consumers feel can provide more authentic recommendations of products and services. While some signs indicate traditional influencer content is losing effectiveness, the authenticity factor compounds for micro- and nano-influencers, with hyper-specific focuses and an increasingly loyal, if smaller, scope of followers. Shoppers are even more likely to follow the prompting of an affiliate link, if recommended by an influencer they’ve built a rapport with.

However, influencer marketing may seem a bit daunting from the outset—particularly in finding and connecting with relevant influencers. For marketers looking to explore the influencer market, it’s important to look into the accounts that align best with their brand and then consider an outreach strategy. Whether a brand’s next campaign is influencer-led, or influencers simply make up a component of outreach efforts, content creators are here to stay and will only continue making an impact within the ever-evolving digital commerce industry.

Under the influence

The expansion of the Amazon Affiliate program is commonly cited as the dawning of the increase in online influencers, allowing for easy generation of affiliate links. While this new wave of influencers may not have the all-encompassing reach of major stars, they have the ability to reach curated subsets of potential consumers who you may be unaware of and who are glazing over your search ads. 

Where these smaller influencers truly shine is in their authenticity. Many consumers may not even consider some of the influencers they follow to be influencers at all, recognizing them primarily as someone they follow with similar interests or values. This wholly differs from most common perceptions of other types of marketing, in which consumers can increasingly recognize when they are being marketed to. Establishing a level of trust with their followers is essential to an influencers’ success, and it adds an automatic level of credibility to those products and services they chose to recommend. It’s modern-day word-of-mouth marketing.

In addition to the distinctions of micro- and nano- influencers, marketers will want to consider the types of influencers they want to reach out to. Of course, these will need to be narrowed down to influencers within the correct industry, but beyond their area of expertise and the scope of their following, some influencers possess additional distinctions. For example, deal-centric influencers focus on curating a comparative shopping experience for their followers within a specific market, such as beauty products or home goods; they’d be able to reach consumers who may not be looking for a business’ product through its traditional website. 

Once marketers have determined the kind of influencers they want to reach out to, they can begin to consider how these partners can be utilized most effectively. Doing so in any capacity may require some minor tweaks to an organization’s overall marketing strategy.

Measuring success

Micro- and nano-influencers specifically thrive on authenticity and reliability—so one may consider allowing these influencers to share their unique affiliate links to a specific product in a way that best resonates with their individual audience. This could range from a post on their story to a live video in which the product or service is highlighted. As a benefit, most influencers have a presence across social media channels, allowing them to create and share a diverse array of content, and followers willing to use their link so they earn a commission. However, establishing a baseline for campaign performance, as well as tracking metrics, is essential.

Campaigns with mega-influencers are most often billed per post, similar to a television ad which marketers pay just to air, while most micro-influencer campaigns are measured for clicks and conversions. This minimizes the risk to the brand, since they only pay for engagement and they’re able to effectively understand the value of the campaign. While an acceptable baseline for clicks and clicks to conversions varies by vertical, there has been a significant upswing in average conversion rates, growing from from 1.83% in 2020 to an impressive 26.9% as of 2022. Unique content through video and livestreams has proven itself engaging—on average, micro-influencers have a 47% higher engagement rate than macro-influencers. 

The realm of affiliate marketing has evolved extensively since its inception, and today, it can streamline the process of collaborating with influencers of all sizes across platforms. Marketers can utilize any number of tools to easily set campaign restraints and track conversions in real time—these technologies help keep the elements of a campaign’s performance attributable for marketers and influencers alike. Marketers can participate in the socially integrated influencer space through research, outreach and a few tweaks to their campaigns, optimizing for social media and the unique audiences of relevant influencers for their niche.

Channels like search may still have a place in marketing budgets, particularly dependent on your key verticals, but as costs rise, marketers should consider where their campaign elements will get the most value and retool elements based on these needs. While search signals intent, influencers need to create interest around products and services, breaking through the search blindness barrier found with paid search listings. The solutions content creators recommend are a welcome element of their audience’s social feed, ensuring those products and services are seen and ultimately purchased.