Influencer marketing has really grown up lately, hasn’t it? What started as a bit of a buzzword has evolved into a trusted part of the marketing playbook. Brands are now leaning on influencers not just for visibility, but for real returns. Yup, influencers can bring brand awareness, affiliate marketing results, and real customer trust.
Shortly, we see a growing social media influencer marketing strategy in many B2B industries. The shift makes perfect sense—people crave authentic recommendations, not another polished ad. At Nexalab, we have the privilege of helping clients harness our data visualization tools to track these social media campaigns effectively. And in this article, we are going to break down what we learned so far.
What Is an Influencer Marketing Strategy?
An influencer marketing strategy is a game plan for finding, engaging, and teaming up with content creators.
The content creator in many influencer marketing strategies has earned their audience’s trust. This means they have many followers, good engagement metrics, experts in a particular topic, and many more. Unlike spray-and-pray social media posts, this strategy identifies specific voices that align with your brand’s heartbeat.
The benefit of an influencer campaign is huge. Partnering with the right influencers can instantly boost your credibility, boost brand awareness, and often a better ROI compared to traditional ads.
We’ve seen micro-influencers in Melbourne and niche tech reviewers in Sydney outperform big-name celebrities in engagement. Why? Because the followers trust them. If done right, influencer marketing feels more like a recommendation from a mate than a sales pitch—and that’s powerful.
If you’re wondering how to connect your influencer campaigns with your broader CRM setup, you’ll want to explore our guide on CRM marketing automation. It shows how automated systems can keep your marketing ecosystem running smoothly from lead to loyalty.
How to Create an Influencer Marketing Strategy?
Define Your Campaign Goals and KPIs
Every successful influencer marketing plan starts with clear goals. Think SMART: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Maybe it’s getting more brand mentions, driving traffic, driving affiliate marketing conversions, or boosting Instagram engagement. Then tie those to specific influencer KPIs like clicks, reach, and return on spend. Not sure which performance metrics are worth your time? This guide on marketing automation metrics can help you focus on KPIs that reflect influencer impact
Identify Your Target Audience
Knowing your audience is half the battle. Yup, getting your content in front of the right audience makes all the difference. Are you targeting urban millennials in Sydney or young professionals in Perth? What platforms are they actually on—Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn? Knowing this helps you find influencers whose followers actually match your ideal customer profile.
Choose the Right Types of Influencer Marketing
There are different types of influencer marketing, and each suits different goals. No one-size-fits-all. Each type serves a different purpose, so align them with your goals—whether it’s awareness, education, or loyalty. Based on our experience when creating a successful influencer marketing campaign, mixing types might just be your winning move.
So, here are the several types of influencers:
- Nano-influencers (1,000-10,000 followers): Think of them as your neighborhood specialists—small but mighty communities with sky-high engagement. Perfect for local Australian brands looking for deep connections.
- Micro-influencers (10,000-100,000 followers): The sweet spot of reach and relatability. They’re ideal when your product needs some explaining in several voices and several platforms.
- Macro-influencers (100,000-1M followers): Your awareness amplifiers who bring serious recognition value.
- Celebrity influencers (1M+ followers): The heavy hitters for major product launches when visibility is everything.
- Affiliate-based influencers: The conversion specialists who drive results with transparent tracking.
Find and Vet Influencers
Finding the right marketing partners takes effort. Look beyond just followers. What matters is relevance, genuine engagement, content quality, and how they’ve handled sponsored content before. Whether you’re working solo or through an agency, vetting your picks ensures you’re investing in creators who resonate with your target audience. Here several red flags checklist you need to consider:
- Engagement rate below 2%? Ghost town.
- Comments like “Great pic!” x100? Bot alert.
- Brand collabs = 80% of feed? Walking ad space.
Set a Budget and Compensation Model
In many influencer marketing best practices, your budget should reflect your goals. Flat fees, commission-based structures, affiliate marketing, product-only compensation, or use a mix. All have their place. The key is being transparent and fair.
One thing to note: Australian market rates are all over the map depending on influencer tier, platform, and industry. Do your homework on current benchmarks so your offers stay competitive while delivering that all-important ROI.
Craft the Creative Brief and Messaging
Outline the goals, key messages, brand tone, and any essential hashtags, but give creators room to be authentic. A good brief guide without dictating. A good brief balances structure with creative freedom. This balance brief gives influencers room to translate their message in a way that feels natural to their audience.
Collaborate and Launch the Campaign
Launching a campaign requires coordination. Set timelines, approval workflows, and publishing schedules. Keep communication open and be ready to tweak things based on real-time data. Keep those communication channels wide open throughout the launch. You need to build relationships that transcend the typical transactional vibe.
Use Influencer Marketing Tools to Help You Scale
As campaigns grow, automation becomes a lifesaver. Managing 10, 20, or 100 influencers manually? No thanks. This is why influencer marketing tools, like Octobits, help manage multiple creators. Our platform enables consistent tracking across dozens of creators simultaneously. We turn what would be scattered data points into actionable insights for campaign refinement.
Read our review of marketing automation tools to find the best solution for your influencer campaigns. It contains all the insights you need on what each tool offers, how they scale, and which one will suit your workflow best.
How to Measure Influencer Marketing Performance? (KPIs and Tracking)
Now you need to track how it’s doing. Are you creating a successful influencer marketing campaign? Are you just counting likes and comments? Ideally, you need to dig into metrics that tell you how the campaign moved the needle—think reach, clicks, conversions, and ROAS.
- Reach and Impression Metrics: How many eyeballs actually saw your content across platforms
- Engagement Rate Calculations: Not just raw numbers, but contextual formulas that compare interactions to audience size on each platform
- Conversion Tracking: Following the money through custom UTM parameters, promo codes, and affiliate links
- Sentiment Analysis: Digging into what comments actually say, not just how many there are
- Return on Ad Spend (ROAS): The bottom line—what did you get back for every dollar spent?
Here’s how it plays out: A skincare brand in Sydney rolls out a campaign with 15 micro-influencers across Instagram and YouTube. They assign each creator unique UTM links, promo codes, and define platform-specific influencer KPIs. Then they plug everything into Octobits. In one view, the team sees what’s working—whether YouTube tutorials outperform Reels, or if Story links drive more affiliate sales.
This kind of marketing data visualization helps brands compare creators by tier, optimise budgets, and reallocate funds where it makes sense. No guesswork. Just clean data guiding better decisions. They can then smartly reinvest in what works best. That’s a data-driven social media strategy in action.
Your Next Steps
A smart influencer marketing strategy is helping you build trust and brand awareness authentically. In the long run, successful organisations are the ones that build strong relationships with creators while always maintaining high standards of performance. At Nexalab, we’ve been proud to support marketers who take such an approach. And if you are in the same perspective, let’s talk. We offer free-trial of Octobits for you.
