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Influencer marketing has earned a well-deserved spot in many brands' digital marketing initiatives. The numbers don't lie. Research shows that: influencers collectively created 1.4 billion posts in 2024, generating $236 billion in Earned Media Value (EMV), representing a remarkable 8.4x return on investment [1]. Key insight: Around 49% of consumers' daily, weekly or monthly purchases are driven by influencer content, with 86% of consumers making a purchase inspired by an influencer at least once per year [2]. Whether you're running your first campaign, or you're a seasoned expert, you are going to find that when it comes to influencer marketing, there are a lot of moving parts. From finding the right partners to work with to nurturing the relationship to handling payments , logistically, it is a lot.
This is where an AI-driven influencer marketing platform comes into play. But what is an AI influencer marketing platform, exactly, and how can it reduce your cost per acquisition by 30% or more?
An AI influencer marketing platform helps brands find new social media influencers at scale, as well as streamline the management of campaigns from start to finish using artificial intelligence and machine learning. An AI-powered platform will help brands do things like find and connect with new influencers who are relevant to their brand, manage communication, drive sales through affiliate links and promo codes, as well as monitor analytics to measure the ROI of influencer marketing campaigns , all while leveraging data science to optimize for lower customer acquisition costs.
Driving Down CPA with Influencer Marketing: Parfumado's 20% Decrease
The Cirqle exemplifies this evolution in the best influencer marketing software, utilizing advanced AI algorithms to match brands with over 1 million creators while constantly learning from each campaign to offer increasingly accurate recommendations. An AI influencer marketing platform should alleviate brands from manual processes and transactional emails to focus on more strategic work and nurturing the relationship they have with the influential partners who deliver measurable results.
Let's talk about some of the more common capabilities of AI-powered influencer marketing platforms, and how they benefit your brand by reducing cost per acquisition and improving performance.
Imagine sifting through all your social media platforms, one by one, and looking through influencers, one person at a time. Sounds painful, right? Maybe you're already doing this, so you know what we're talking about.
An AI influencer marketing platform can help brands scale their search efforts by giving them the option of searching for collaborators based on various factors , like keywords, location, industry, aesthetic, engagement metrics, and audience demographics. AI tools can analyze vast amounts of data to spot patterns and predict audience interest, helping to refine targeting and significantly reduce Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) [3].
The Cirqle's AI-driven discovery engine helps brands find relevant influencers for their brand through standout features such as social listening tools that discover creators already speaking about your brand online, enabling you to invite them to join campaigns. Automated influencer campaign management begins with intelligent discovery that brings potential collaborators to you, reducing the time and cost associated with manual creator research.
The days of tracking and executing everything manually should be a thing of the past. Create customized workflows to help you track every stage of the campaigning process, from reaching out for the first time, to sending products and making payouts.
Most platforms will allow you to automate transactional emails and notify you when you need to get back to someone so that nothing gets missed. Leading creator management tools handle contracts, payments, shipping, and reporting through fully automated systems . The Cirqle's platform takes this further with AI-powered brief creation, in-platform rate negotiation, and automated contract management that removes friction from scaling campaigns while maintaining cost control.
Automate the busy work to your influencer marketing platform and free up your day for what matters most , building relationships and optimizing for better performance.
De-risk your investment and learn future RoAS estimates of each creator before selection.
Learn MoreManaging influencer relationships is so important. Unlike running paid ad campaigns, with influencers you are investing your money in people and relationships. It is important to be able to track the lifecycle of a relationship which is why all of the best platforms will have an influencer CRM.
This is a contact database where you can organize your influencer contacts to easily see which relationships are performing best. Bulk email your entire list or just certain segments to ensure it is up to date. Store all past communication and campaigns so that nothing goes missing. 49% of creators prefer long-term campaigns when working with brands [4], and advanced creator management tools help identify these valuable partnerships.
The Cirqle's intelligent CRM system tracks relationship performance and uses AI to predict which creators are likely to become valuable long-term partners, allowing brands to invest more heavily in relationships that deliver consistently low customer acquisition costs. Think of it as your ever-growing little black book of high-performing influencers.
Influencer marketing platforms will often have features that allow you to organize your content in a much more streamlined way. Sometimes it can be tricky to keep track of which content you have ownership rights to and which you don't, so organizing it in a way that makes it easy for you and your social teams to see which content you have permission to use is a really great efficiency.
It's also really helpful to be able to look at all your content together to ensure that you have a diverse mix of content types and that you are working with a broad range of diverse influencers. Research shows that 36% of respondents say influencer content outperforms brand-created content [5].
The Cirqle provides real-time previews of how ads will appear across different formats and platforms, ensuring optimal visual impact while reducing revision cycles that increase costs. Look out for features that allow you to filter content by variables like SKU, campaign, whether you have permission to reuse their content or not. And when you're ready, boost this content with paid ads so that you can reach an even bigger audience.
Content creation is the epicenter of telling a story and building a community. An AI influencer marketing platform will help you do it right while optimizing for lower acquisition costs.
Of course with every marketing initiative, the ultimate goal is to drive sales and grow the business. Best in class influencer marketing platforms should have mechanisms to help you drive sales while tracking attribution accurately. This can look like promo codes that provide discounts, or affiliate links where influencers earn based on the amount of products they sell for you.
Sales tools such as these are a huge incentive for influencers to work with you and promote your products even after the initial campaign is over. Advanced influencer ROI tracking software has helped brands achieve remarkable results, with some case studies showing 20% reductions in customer acquisition costs.
Discover How ABOUT YOU Slashed CPA by 49%
The Cirqle integrates directly with ecommerce platforms such as Shopify and WooCommerce, making the sales process streamlined while providing precise attribution that enables continuous CPA optimization. This level of performance tracking helps brands understand exactly which creators and campaigns deliver the lowest acquisition costs.
Where did you start, and where are you now? The only way to know if your influencer marketing campaigns are working is to diligently track the numbers and compare them over time.
An AI influencer marketing platform will help you collect valuable data to analyze so that you can make more informed decisions moving forward. 70% of marketers measured ROI in some way in 2024 [6], but AI-powered platforms enable much more sophisticated measurement and optimization.
If you're a newer brand, you're going to need a way to effectively measure the reach and impressions of your campaigns. If your goal is building awareness, then engagement metrics (likes, comments, shares, etc.) matter. If people are consistently engaging with your brand, then you're talking about a lot of very warm leads.
Beyond this point, you can begin to focus on direct sales. The Cirqle's AI-driven analytics evaluate creators based on historical performance including RoAS, category fit, and engagement rates, empowering smarter decisions that minimize risk. Over time, you can monitor your metrics in a unified dashboard to watch trends and see what types of content and influencers work best for your brand while continuously optimizing for lower customer acquisition costs.
One click launch ads directly from the platform, with automated permissioning and recommended ad configuration.
Learn MoreIn the beginning, you're likely going to be doing everything manually, and this is normal! However, you're going to get to a point when this is no longer feasible. 29.8% of brands find it most challenging to find influencers to participate in campaigns, with payment processing, contract management, and campaign measurement being additional common challenges [5].
Leaning into a platform is going to be necessary if you want to continue scaling while maintaining or reducing your cost per acquisition. That's an indication that it's time to invest in an AI influencer marketing platform. Additionally, this will help you more accurately tie sales to your campaigns, which, as you now know, is important for tracking your return.
By this point, you should have also demonstrated that you're able to get a return on the time, money, and energy you've spent on your campaigns thus far. This means that you can expect a return on your investment in an influencer marketing platform.
Lastly, a platform will come in handy if you're ready to take your campaigns to the next level and make them more official. You'll need advanced creator management tools like this to build out and automate formal ambassador and affiliate programs that scale efficiently.
When you're ready to move your campaign efforts to an AI influencer marketing platform, you certainly have options. The Cirqle stands out among alternatives by focusing on performance-driven results and AI-powered optimization. Brands using The Cirqle have scaled spend and decreased CPA by 20% in their first month. Ready to take things to the next level?
Request a demo today and discover how AI-driven influencer marketing can reduce your customer acquisition costs while scaling your most profitable marketing channel.
