Influencer marketing continues to grow as a popular and powerful way to sell products.
Brands are expected to spend up to $15 billion on influencer marketing by 2022, according to Business Insider Intelligence and Mediakix. And a new Chicago startup has launched to connect those brands with influencers that will give them the biggest bang for their buck.
Crowd Point Analytics, which launched in September, connects brands with social media influencers whose followers meet brands’ target demographic. Using Crowd Point, brands receive a roster of influencers on Instagram, TikTok and other social media platforms that are ideal for the kind of campaign they want to launch.
The startup, founded by Adam Robbins and Alex Cordover, narrows down influencers by number of followers and the demographics of those followers. Crowd Point, which sells its service to companies on a subscription basis, uses influencer databases to collect followers’ age, gender, race, income and education data.
“We’re able to really zone in on target audience accuracy that just isn’t available out there,” said Robbins, who previously worked in sports corporate partnerships and sponsorships for the Arena Football League and USA Today.
Once an influencer campaign has been created using Crowd Point, brands can communicate with and collaborate on content creation and payment with influencers, as well as track the performance of campaigns in real time.
Crowd Point, which is still onboarding some of its first clients, says the platform is suitable for any kind of company, whether they’re selling clothing, cosmetics, fitness products or food and beverages, Robbins said.
“We built our platform in a way that a company or brand of any size can utilize,” Robbins said.
Other services like Creator IQ and IZEA also connect brands with influencers, but Crowd Point says it differentiates itself by using data science to identify more details about influencers and their followers that ultimately allows brands to receive a higher return on their campaign investment.
“Although it’s powered by data science, we built this for marketers. We built this for brands. We built this for agencies,” Robbins said. “That’s the goal—to simplify the influencer marketing process.”
While a turbulent economy due to the pandemic has altered shopping patterns, Crowd Point is betting that consumers are still spending money on products, but that they're discovering them differently than in the past.
“There’s been a big increase in utilizing influencers during the pandemic,” Robbins said. “Because of the pandemic, traditional advertising hasn’t been as effective because people aren’t out and about as much anymore. They’re staying at home and therefore they’re utilizing social media probably even more than they have before.”
