Influencer marketing has evolved, but have our metrics kept up? For too long, we’ve relied on a narrow set of KPIs to evaluate the success of influencer campaigns. It’s time to move beyond surface-level engagement and short-term conversions, and instead, think more long-term. The real opportunity lies in using influencers not just as one-off amplifiers, but as strategic partners that drive customer lifetime value (CLV).

 

Why It’s Time to Rethink the Model 

Today’s influencer landscape is more expensive, more competitive, and more complex than ever before. We’re all under pressure to prove impact and make every dollar stretch further. Yet many brands still take a single-track approach strategy; focusing solely on awareness, consideration, or conversion. This oversimplified framework is holding everyone back.

Influencer marketing isn’t binary. It requires a layered strategy that aligns each creator with the stage of the customer journey where they’ll perform best. Without that flexibility, we’re building campaigns that look good on paper but fall flat when it comes to sustainable, long-term business impact.

From Old School to Future-Proof 

Traditional influencer marketing tends to follow a one-size-fits-all model: one campaign, one goal, and a single creative brief that treats every influencer the same. Creators are often expected to deliver results across the board, regardless of whether their strengths lie in awareness, conversion, or something else entirely. Relevance becomes quarterly at best, with limited longevity.

In contrast, future-ready influencer marketing is about assigning the right role to the right influencer. That means testing creators at different stages of the funnel, evaluating where they’re most effective, and then scaling based on those insights. This strategy balances both short-term activations and long-term customer growth.

The Power of Testing: A Case Study 

At Creator Economy Live West, Taylor Darnell-Sibal (National Marketing Manager at Albertsons), took us through a real world example of putting this theory into practice. 

We partnered with an influencer—let’s call her Haley—for a brand awareness campaign. She seemed like a perfect fit: beautiful content, strong engagement, high alignment with our brand values. But when her organic performance didn’t meet expectations, we had to make a choice: write her off, or dig deeper.

We chose to test her content across the funnel. First, we targeted competitor audiences, where she exceeded benchmark engagement by 8%. Then we retargeted our first-party audiences and saw an incredible 14x return on ad spend (ROAS). She was outperforming our expectations—just not in the way we originally assumed.

Based on those learnings, we gave Haley another opportunity in a promotional test campaign. She not only drove new subscribers, but also reactivated lapsed customers, resulting in a 48–52% reactivation rate. That kind of impact would have been missed entirely if we had evaluated her performance based on initial organic reach alone.

Meet T.O.D.D: A Smarter Framework for Influencer Marketing 

To guide our strategy, we use a simple framework we call T.O.D.D.—Test, Optimize, Drive, Done.

We start by testing influencers across different funnel stages before locking them into a specific role. This allows us to see where their content performs best, rather than assigning a blanket strategy based on assumptions.

Next, we optimize based on actual performance data. We avoid bias in influencer selection and resist the temptation to rely on gut feeling or aesthetic alone. Testing helps us find the creators who are truly moving the needle.

Once we’ve gathered those insights, we drive scale using paid media—not just to amplify content, but to strategically grow what’s working. By allocating even 10–15% of our influencer budget to testing, we generate valuable data that empowers our paid media team to execute with precision and confidence.

And finally, we consider our insights and performance learnings done only after they’ve informed our broader campaign strategy and helped us refine future decisions. That’s how we build smarter, more effective programs.

Why You Need Both: Organic and Paid Influencers 

Organic influencer partnerships build long-term brand equity by creating authenticity, trust, and top-of-mind awareness. When audiences repeatedly see their favorite creators genuinely using your product, it builds familiarity and loyalty that can’t be bought with ads alone.

Paid influencer content, on the other hand, acts as a performance engine. It helps you acquire new customers, retarget those who’ve engaged, and retain those who’ve already converted. Strategic use of paid content—especially when informed by testing—can boost conversion rates dramatically and drive repeat purchases through creators who’ve proven their value.

  

Start, Stop, Continue 

Start: treating influencers as long-term partners who contribute at every stage of the funnel.

Stop: running broad campaigns that try to do everything and end up doing nothing well.

Continue: using paid media to test, learn, and scale what works—not just to boost reach.

 

Interested in hearing these insights and MORE in person? Then you need to be at Creator Economy Live East, expanding to NYC this August 5-6. Get your tickets now!