Mumbai: From Facebook recasting itself into a metaverse to marketers executing new lines of thought for sailing through yet another year amidst the pandemic, 2021 was indeed a roller coaster year for the digital marketing industry. However, one phenomenon which flourished all through was influencer marketing.

The thriving influencer marketing arena in India is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 25 per cent till 2025 to reach a size of Rs 2,200 crore (Source: GroupM INCA's India Influencer Marketing Report). Globally, the industry is set to increase by approximately $13.8 billion by 2022 end (Source: 2021 State of Influencer Marketing Benchmark Report). What’s more, the induction of AI into influencer marketing is going to completely change the dynamics of decisions & ROI from it.

With a plethora of types of influencer relationships and ongoing campaigns, supervising it the right way will be pertinent to a brand's success.

Data and analytics are now at the centerstage with marketers focusing on when and where to run campaigns, what kind of influencers, and how many influencers to engage with. By measuring the impact and performance of influencer campaigns, Data-driven influencer marketing is not only helping marketers calculate the ROI, further optimise the campaigns but is also helping them identify new opportunities and shortlist key influencers for future collaborations- while keeping a close eye on consumer preferences.

As tools, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and natural language processing (NLP) are redefining the way brands conceptualise and execute influencer marketing by integrating quantitative and qualitative metrics in a relevant way. Such AI-driven influencer marketing campaigns will improve quality audience check and success measurements. Let’s deep dive into this…

The right Influencer: In the recent influencer campaign meetings 'The right influencer' term is being used by brands on a continuous basis and they need a more detailed understanding of the selection. This process is going to be governed by AI technology by the end of this year since it's all based on the data & if we are able to process those calculations in microseconds instead of minutes then this hunt will certainly get more interesting.

With a few common filters we can easily narrow down the list but if we actually want to go in-depth for any decent-sized campaign, it consumes a lot of time and effort which can be easily tackled with AI-based tools. AI-based influencer marketing systems are steadily being leveraged to analyze the minutest of data from an influencer’s social media profile including every content piece posted by them.

Marketers are looking to partner with those influencers whose online persona and style resonates with their brand's image- to ensure that those influencers’ audiences are more likely to engage with their brand. AI-powered influencer marketing is helping brands analyse the performance of multiple influencers across various social media platforms irrespective of the language being used. Such scalability will further expand this year as marketers analyse diverse metrics including the reach and engagement metrics of individual posts.

The Game of Fake Audience: While it can become really tricky to analyse the authenticity of the audience manually, AI is changing this game altogether. With the right algorithmic factors and by considering the step-by-step evolution of ML in this process, brands and agencies can make the right decision without too much time allocation.

Reporting: ML & AI can assist marketers by generating very insightful analysis. The industry stakeholders are seeking to understand the reach and impact of influencer campaigns on multiple levels, even when the campaign is not huge in scale. AI will definitely help in exploring the influencer marketing insights on a level that the market hasn’t explored before and hence add many layers to what brands and agencies are doing so far.

2022 will be a game-changing year when it comes to AI’s influence in the world of influencer marketing. It will play a crucial role in tracking sentiment to shortlisting influencers of all sizes and influencing brands in the way they define their goals and prioritise authenticity. The growing market of D2C brands in India is steadily increasing their budgets and now also want to control their data and creator relationships with the help of AI tools. 2022 will further raise the excitement with new influencer marketing trends unfolding for D2C brands, e-commerce companies, digital marketing, and advertising agencies.

This year will see an escalation of influencer marketing growth as digital marketers will combine innovative strategies with data-driven marketing. 

(About the Authors: Shreyansh Bhandari is the Lyxel&Flamingo co-founder and COO; Veda Bashishtha is the LYRKL co-founder and CEO)