Still wondering if Creators are simply a fad? The truth is that brand investment in influencer marketing continues to grow. As the latest edition of the LTK x Northwestern study suggests, 93 percent of brands plan to increase their influencer marketing strategy and budget in 2025. Creators were forecasted to account for more than $8 billion in marketing spend in 2024, and as brands plan to incorporate them once again this year, yours needs to understand how to implement an effective influencer marketing strategy.  

The deeper you dive into influencer collabs, the more complex they can be. LTK makes the process simple with more than a decade of working with thousands of retailers, a network of hundreds of thousands of performance-driven influencers across the world, and a track record of managing tens of thousands of paid influencer campaigns.

There’s no better source to guide your marketing journey. Get a running start with our top five steps to create a successful influencer marketing strategy. 

1. Identify Your Goals

You can’t establish a successful marketing strategy without taking baby steps first. Begin by setting and clearly defining your goals. This should be a two-part process of mapping out what you wish to achieve now and in the future, including:

• Short-term goals that are specific and strategic, manifested in a variety of ways
• Long-term goals surrounding overall program and brand growth

Define short-term goals

As you identify short-term goals, think deeply about the key demographics you would like to target and the types of influencers you’re interested in partnering with. As these take shape, visualize the specific outcomes you would like to achieve for a particular product or promotion. 

Pursue long-term goals

Long-term goals should be about creating sustained success. Are you looking to increase brand awareness, visibility, and loyalty? What about website traffic and sales overall? Maybe you’re set on increasing engagement with your brand on social media and increasing the number of revenue-producing influencers you work with. Whatever it may be, drive the big-picture thinking for the future of your brand.

With clearly defined goals, you can work your way backward to pinpoint the right strategic steps for each campaign.

2. Gather Data

Data is one of the most important parts of your influencer marketing strategy. The problem is that many brands don’t have access to the industry data, network, or both that could help them make data-driven decisions. An influencer marketing management partner can help with that. 

The value of data

Why do you need relevant performance data to begin with? Simple: The information guides your brand’s actions, especially for marketing purposes. Performance data offers insights to help you:

• Make the right influencer casting decisions.
• Determine projections based on investment. 
• Choose the most effective channels to promote your products.
• Know what’s trending and how you fit in that space.
• Build on your success to create a well-rounded program.

Brands must ensure that their influencer marketing management partner has access to a deep, rich dataset to plan effective campaigns. LTK has the ability to track conversation rates, average order values (AOV), and competitive analysis, helping you identify the right influencers to deliver on your unique brand and campaign goals. 

3. Test and Track Your Strategy  

Once you’ve created campaigns informed by the right data, test your influencer marketing strategy to see what’s resonating with consumers. Depending on the most effective types of content and influencers based on key metrics, you may have to shift your strategy to better align with your original goals.

Refine your approach 

What is your data saying? Brands should be able to adjust based on their findings. For example, LTK accurately tracks clicks, sales, orders, and AOV for each influencer so you get a full understanding of your investment's success outside of vanity metrics, such as likes. 

Want to see which of your Creators is leading the pack in performance? Explore LTK Leaderboard to understand who’s driving organic engagement and brand visibility across channels.

Leverage app tracking

Another fail-safe approach to testing? In-app tracking. Without it, affiliate program sales can either be misleading, a total mystery, or both. Join the most successful brands in using tracking to:

• Measure the true value and power of your affiliate channels.
• Optimize your spending toward the more valuable channels.
• Correctly measure return on ad spend so you see the other half of sales that usually aren’t tracked.
• Demonstrate the value of your social media investments to your team.

4. Make Room to Pivot

What could the future hold for your brand down the road? Even with the right budget in mind, things can change throughout the year, and making adjustments to your influencer marketing strategy is necessary to stay effective and drive conversions. It may even mean shifting your campaign focus completely. 

Enable budget flexibility

LTK encourages brands to be agile and create the flexibility to pivot throughout the year based on data and cultural climate. Work with your account representative to make sure you’re reserving a portion of your spend so you have the freedom to make changes without creating financial pressure or stress. 

With all this in mind, consider a few best practices as you budget for your campaign mix:

• Focus on evergreen spend (no stop-and-go).
• Pepper in one-off campaigns.
• Take advantage of seasonal pushes. 
• Amplify new product launches.
• Consider test campaigns to get started.

Just imagine doubling down on a successful aspect of your brand campaign or wanting to experiment with a new tactic—just to find out you’re tapped out of budget. Having that extra pool to pivot is essential to your influencer marketing strategy.

5. Optimize Your Influencer Marketing Strategy with an Expert

Brands like yours need access to a network of performance-driven influencers to collaborate with. An influencer marketing management expert can help you find, communicate with, and cast the right influencers for your brand. 

Execute a competitive analysis

Begin shaping your influencer marketing strategy by peering over the fence to see what’s working for other brands in your industry. Influencer marketing management partners can help identify not only competitor strengths but also gaps your brand can fill with its influencer marketing strategy. Is your target audience primed for connected TV or starving for shoppable social, but your competitors have missed the boat? Leverage your partnerships and analysis to make decisions backed by data and move the needle toward a strong ROI.  

LTK has the tools to guide you from beginning to end. Our platform is AI enriched to connect your brand with Creators who have proven success in your industry vertical, execute cross-platform campaigns, and measure results at every turn.

Make Your Influencer Marketing Strategy Take Shape with LTK

From setting goals to leveraging key data to inform and adjust campaigns, the complex moving parts of executing an influencer marketing strategy are overwhelming for brands that go at it alone. LTK makes it easy with campaign management and implementation support and real-time reporting to guide your brand’s success. 

Just dipping your toes into Creator partnerships? We’ll help you navigate every twist and turn of the influencer marketing process so you can effectively:

• Determine goals and budget.
• Research and cast influencers. 
• Determine target deliverables.
• Write contracts. 
• Negotiate competitive rates.

Take the next step with your brand marketing. Get started with LTK and shape your successful influencer marketing strategy.

This post was originally published in February 2021 and updated in January 2025.