Why Influencer Marketing Is Leaning Into Reporting and Automation—And Brands Should, Too
Key Points
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- Top marketing platforms are releasing improved reporting and automation features
- With better reporting driving more informed decision making, brands are empowered to adjust and scale their programs with greater efficiency
- Automated campaign workflows reduce manual lift so brands can prioritize other projects while reaping their campaign’s results
Many influencer marketing platforms are becoming increasingly robust as brands flock to integrated systems that enable scale and efficiency. Platform integrations are helping brands run their campaigns with greater effectiveness while driving more informed strategic decisions. With these tools, brands are better equipped to streamline, integrate, automate, and scale their campaigns.
But what is the point of these features in the grand scheme of influencer marketing? Simple. They’re helping brands be like Daft Punk: harder, better, faster, and stronger.
A Brand’s Best Friend
Reporting and automation are two highly desirable features that more and more platforms are prioritizing, including Mavrck. That’s because developers know that brands are continually asking themselves: how can we improve campaign performance while off-loading redundant tasks for our influencer team? Enhanced reporting and automation help them get there.
Upgraded reporting, with an emphasis on raw data collection and visualization, helps brands to anticipate their target audience’s behaviors as well as consumer patterns in a broader capacity. From there, those learnings can be put into practice and garner even more data-driven results. The process of repeated analysis and optimization takes brands to a higher level of audience understanding. By leveraging reporting tools, especially those that are integrated with business suites, brands are able to turn that knowledge into powerfully-targeted campaigns.
Simultaneously, automated processes reduce internal team lift. By programming certain actions to result in a triggered response, brands are able to promote efficient workflows. When time is literally money, this is a valuable enhancement that brands are already prioritizing more as their teams and strategies grow.
What is a Reporting API?
Let’s get into the specifics. Some platforms, like Mavrck, drive their reporting enhancements through an application programming interface (API). Think of an API as a portal through which information and functionality can be shared between two software services. The word “interface” is key to understanding an API’s purpose.
An API lets a developer make a specific “call” or “request” in order to send or receive information. This helps developers quickly deliver information to consumers and is used every day in today’s world. When brands integrate a reporting API into their campaigns, the API sends its influencer program reporting data and campaign metrics to its data visualization and business intelligence tools, which could include Tableau, Microsoft BI, SAP Analytics Cloud, or Oracle Analytics Cloud. This communication enables brands to get the data they want, where and when they want it.
Mavrck’s reporting API is a game-changing value-add for brands looking to integrate influencer campaign reporting data with other marketing technologies. By aggregating and analyzing raw data from business intelligence platforms, data analytics platforms, and marketing mix models, brands can leverage helpful data to drive strategy and sales growth.
What is a Workflow Webhook?
Now, consider automation. Mavrck uses workflow webhooks to automate tasks in its platform. Let’s think of webhooks as the building blocks to marketing automation and scale.
A webhook is a type of API that is driven by events rather than requests. Instead of one application making a request to another with the goal of receiving a response, a webhook allows one program to send data to another program when a particular “event” takes place, thus triggering a predetermined response. Because communication is initiated by the application sending the data rather than the one receiving it, webhooks are sometimes referred to as “reverse APIs.”
The workflow webhook is a feature that automates and connects key tools in a marketer’s technology stack. This integrates the brand’s influencer marketing program with other teams and programs, making it easy to streamline processes across a workforce.
Since webhooks essentially “talk” to other platforms or applications, brands can leverage this functionality by working with their platform or developer to trigger responses to various actions across their influencer marketing programs. For example, if an influencer successfully completed a particular campaign task, the webhook could trigger a compensation response to reward the influencer once they hit the “completion” workflow stage. Consider how this plays into the broader campaign and the time savings!
What Happens When Powers Combine?
When reporting API and workflow webhooks come together, it’s a beautiful thing. These tools, which are both available in the Mavrck platform, allow brands to produce campaigns with strong, targeted results. Here’s how:
Create customizable data visualizations: Create compelling data insights by integrating reporting data and campaign metrics from your influencer programs into your company’s data visualization or analytics platforms.
Prove ROI from your influencer program: Pipe your reporting data into business intelligence and analytics tool to show true ROI and consumer lifecycle value amongst other marketing programs.
Integrate your influencer marketing with other tools and teams: Foster collaboration and achieve truly integrated marketing by allowing technologies to talk to each other.
Automate processes and achieve efficiencies: Streamline and automate the once-manual processes and systems enabling your team to focus on what matters most.
We know that brands are hard at work scaling their influencer marketing programs and strategies to compete in a high-stakes industry where demonstrable value is under a detailed microscope. If you’re a marketer who wants to harness the power of enhanced reporting and automation, we’ve got you covered. Reach out to our team to get a Mavrck platform demo today.
