Adtech Influencer Marketing Should Be More of a Thing
Adtech influencers exist and have tremendous power to drive business outcomes by solving the distribution problem for their companies. As I’ve written about previously, folks like Ari Paparo, Dave Morgan, Matt Barash, Paul Gubbins, and Eric Franchi have large audiences and can use those audiences to boost awareness and drive pipeline for the companies in which they are involved. Every adtech company should be thinking about this as a dimension of its marketing program.
But currently, adtech influencer marketing is basically limited to two use cases. One is that the influencer founded or otherwise works at a company, so their audience naturally benefits it. If any of the aforementioned influencers launched another adtech startup tomorrow, it would enjoy a huge distribution advantage. The other use case for adtech influencer marketing is influencing influencers (which is part of public relations). Ari, for example, runs Marketecture. So, want to reach his audience? Be interesting enough to get an interview on Marketecture. And it probably wouldn’t hurt to engage with him on Twitter. Either way, you’re reaching his highly valuable audience.
My contention is that there’s a third use case that our industry hasn’t tapped yet. This would be a relationship wherein an influencer is compensated for promoting a company. In other words, a company deliberately builds a commercial relationship with an external influencer to reach their audience — with the benefit not just of momentary attention but of the influencer’s trust with that audience.
Let me clarify a few things:
Influencer marketing is not the same as paid advertising. The value proposition is different because the audience relationship is different. If I hear a Publica by IAS ad on Marketecture, I become more aware of Publica by IAS (they have actually succeeded at this by running ads on Marketecture recently). Good for them; they’ve achieved the mission of paid advertising. But if Ari Paparo, adtech founder extraordinaire, personally and repeatedly tells me he is backing an adtech company because he believes in it for xyz reasons, I will have a much deeper affinity for the company than an ad can achieve.
Influencer marketing is not a sponsored post. See above. Sponsored posts are underwhelming relative to high-quality influencer marketing for the same reason that advertising is underwhelming. Sponsored content, while effective at exposing a brand to an audience, at best minimally capitalizes on the credibility of the individual or organization exposing them to that audience; everyone knows it's just a transaction.
Influencer marketing doesn’t need to be cringe and undermine the integrity of all involved. This is the tricky one and, I suspect, the reason we haven’t seen this version of influencer marketing in adtech. The influencer doesn’t want to be seen as a shill, and no company wants to be seen as having tried to pay off someone with influence. But I think this is a wrongheaded objection. Sure — an influencer partnership could be cringe just like any marketing initiative can be cringe. But there are well-known guidelines on how to foster a successful and authentic influencer marketing collaboration. Apropos of which…
For adtech influencer marketing to be successful, several things would need to be true:
The influencer has to really believe in the company. This should be easy because adtech influencers already invest in adtech companies. Why not start there?
When talking about any companies they’re involved in, the influencer needs to be upfront and honest about the connection. The guys on the “My First Million” podcast, Shaan Puri and Sam Parr, who are B2B influencers, do a good job at this. They have a self-deprecating segment called “Thrill of the Shill” that they introduce whenever they talk about a company from which they stand to benefit financially.
When promoting a company, you need to do it organically within the context of the content you create. As a marketing agency owner and content creator, I do this with my clients. I don’t randomly drop their names in my content or podcast appearances. I use them as examples when relevant. Similarly, if you’re going to talk about one of the companies you’re trying to promote as an influencer, make sure the content is still audience-centric. I’m sure folks like Ari and Eric see lessons all the time in their investments that would benefit the rest of the ecosystem, either in the form of lessons about adtech itself or how to grow and run adtech companies. Personally, I want to hear those lessons; I don’t care that the person talking about them may have invested in the companies involved. As long as the content creator focuses on the lesson and the value it delivers to the audience, the audience won’t mind that the content creator is also increasing the profile of a company in which he or she has a financial interest. The self-interested nature of the content is secondary to the content itself.
As an offshoot of #3, keep the cadence reasonable. Tweet or mention the company on a pod once or twice per month. Obviously, if you constantly plug something, people will get annoyed. The success of this entire endeavor hinges on striking a balance between promotion and audience receptivity.
If the influencer followed all these guidelines, I don’t see that influencer marketing would fail to work in adtech. On the contrary, it could be a win for the influencer, the company they’re promoting, and the audience on the other end of the content. The financial terms could take the form of an investment or retainer. I would argue that having an influencer organically plug your company a few times per month on Twitter or on a podcast is significantly more valuable than having a brand ad read on a podcast equally as often.
More broadly, adopting influencer marketing is part of reimagining how we market adtech companies. I’ve argued before that the way a lot of adtech companies are marketed would’ve been appropriate 10 or even 20 years ago. I’m not saying to throw out that stuff (PR, events, awards). Most of the old stuff still works. But I am saying that the gamut of opportunities has expanded. Adtech marketers should be getting creative in thinking about how to tap that potential.
