The proliferation of platforms and formats like short-videos have changed the influencer marketing game for marketers, brands and creators. In this fast-evolving space, keep up with the big trends and hot topics that matter in Storyboard18’s Weekly Shorts in collaboration with affable.ai, an end-to-end AI-powered influencer marketing platform. Track how creators, communities and brands are engaging with users and disrupting marketing to get a sharp and fast insight into present and future trends.
Jingle your way to successful holiday influencer marketing with paid promotions
Even though the 2023 holiday season is months away, we totally get the stress that comes with Halloween, Black Friday, and Cyber Monday marketing. So, putting off your holiday cutoffs is a big no-no. The same goes for influencer marketing. If you plan to run a campaign, you must be on top of it.
Influencers, with their massive followings and super-engaged audiences, can be your holiday marketing heroes. For your potential customers, they are like a best friend recommending the perfect gift or the ultimate holiday must-have. Pouring paid media dollars behind influencer content can be your ticket to stand out amid the fierce competition and a way to reach new and untapped audiences.
Paid promotions for holiday influencer campaigns
Whether you’re running paid social ads or user-generated content campaigns, nailing your ad game is a must. Here’s why: Your ads go through a learning phase where the platform’s magic machine learning works its wonders to figure out the best way to reach various audiences, different times of day, and the right placements. It’s like fine-tuning your ads for maximum impact. And guess what? The longer they run, the smarter they become, and that means better results for you.
Learn from examples about paid promotions:
1. McDonald’s Trick.Treat.Win! – Boosting holiday sales with influencer display Aas
McDonald’s increased its store traffic by 23 percent (which is an increase of 540,000 visits) during Halloween 2018. All with the help of influencer-paid promotions. Although the campaign was launched five years ago, it is one of the best influencer marketing campaigns involving influencer ads. McDonald’s partnered with 20 African-American influencers sharing blog posts and holiday social media posts across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Seeing spectacular engagement on organic content, the brand turned selected posts into social and display ads, magnifying customer engagements to 82.4k.
The key part of the Trick.Treat.Win! Halloween campaign was the influencer whitelisting strategy used by the brand—running branded ads from influencer accounts using organic content. This strategy is a big hit among marketers when it comes to holiday influencer marketing, as it allows for massive reach without seeming inauthentic. And needless to say, the strategy worked wonderfully! McDonald’s drove 98 percent positive customer sentiment for the entire 4-weeks (October 5 – 31). The campaign is an excellent example of how influencer-paid promotions can cut through holiday marketing clutter, influence consumer behavior, and achieve tremendous results!
2. Good American – Targeting holiday season shoppers with TikTok video shopping ads
Good American is a well-known women’s fashion and apparel company owned by Emma Grede and Khloé Kardashian. The company successfully made waves during the 2022 holiday shopping season by taking a unique TikTok creator marketing approach. Good American leveraged TikTok’s new video shopping ads feature to attract holiday season shoppers.
The Video Shopping Ads is an incredible feature released by TikTok in August 2022 that allows brands to share shoppable videos on the platform. Brands can list their products in videos, helping users to shop for products directly from the link. The feature automatically creates a landing page for the brand’s products, provisioning seamless checkouts.
But here’s the twist. Instead of posting random ads, the company repurposed influencer and user-generated content to run shoppable holiday ads. The videos featured the brand’s promotional products, which users could access with just a click. And the campaign was a massive success, driving a 34 percent higher ROAS, 20 percent more efficient CPA, and 28 percent more efficient cost per complete payment, according to a blog from TikTok For Business. Evidently, the campaign was a big hit for the company, boosting in-store sales and traffic during the company’s Friends and Family markdown sale.
3. PetSmart – Driving double-digit engagements with paid dollars behind organic content
In December 2022, PetSmart amassed 3.6 billion views with a simple influencer marketing strategy! PetSmart launched the #PetSmartMadeMeBuyit Christmas campaign with four core pet influencers – @tikatheiggy, @officialjujubee, @madmax_fluffyroad’s, and @lizzardlenny, and additional 10 pet creators on Instagram and TikTok. The interesting thing about this campaign is that it includes a mix of paid ads, sponsored influencer content and organic posts. @tinkerbelleadog and @phillychinchilly pet influencers shared organic content across TikTok, while the four core influencers shared videos, including the sponsored #PetSmartMadeMeBuyit.
In addition, PetSmart turned best-performing influencer content into ads to boost its reach. Such campaigns offer PetSmart an effective approach to going deeper into the market and establishing authentic connections with pet parents across the country.
This Weekly Shorts is written by the editorial desk of affable.ai