Is AI About to Flatten Every Brand Voice?

Over the past few years, RAD AI has been driving incredible communications campaigns for companies from various industries. Helping brands tell their stories is what we do. However, we also are aware that some of you may have only just been introduced to us and that others may be wanting to know a bit more. So, we thought this would be a great time to tell our story, and who better to tell it than those at its heart? We spoke to our Co-Founder and CEO Jeremy Barnett (JB), Co-Founder and President Bradley Silver (BS), and our new Chief Growth Officer Stephen Klein (SK) about what makes RAD different and to gauge their insights into what lies ahead. Here’s what they had to say:

To get us started, let’s talk a bit about the beginnings of RAD. Where did the idea come from? What led you down the path of creating emotionally intelligent AI?

JB: RAD AI as it exists today would not have been possible if not for the merger. Initially, RAD started out as a creator-enabled platform. The product was decent, but there were a lot of similarities between what we were doing and what others were doing. I came across Bradley's technology, and it was the first platform I used that didn't just give me loads of information but actually made sense of it. We felt like we could be so much stronger together, so we combined forces to create the company and product that we have today. We started by identifying a common problem across enterprise brands. We found major correlations between emotional intelligence and ROI, yet this seemed to be an area that no one else was really touching. Today’s consumers have different needs, habits, and expectations than generations past. Brands want to connect with these consumers, but most of the time they just don't know how to do it effectively. Creating that emotional connection seemed to be the missing piece, so we decided that our internal mission would be to rid the world of bad communication and keep brands accountable in their interactions with customers. If we had a friend that was constantly lying to and misleading us, we simply would not be friends with that person anymore. So then why should we as consumers accept spammy, lame, and ingenuine communications from the brands we do business with? It seemed to us like many brands simply did not know how to connect in a genuine way. That was sort of our "aha" moment, and we built the world’s first AI with an EQ as a result. BS: We no longer live in a world where marketers can broadcast a one-size-fits-all message to their audiences. To communicate effectively in the digital age, you need to understand who you’re talking to and how best to reach them. What’s driving customers’ interests? What are they talking about in their online communities, and how do these conversations impact their behavior? What are they reading and consuming? What emotional connectivity is taking place? We thought it would be interesting to mine that information and build personas around it. Instead of viewing consumers as these somewhat faceless demographic groups, we present them in a much more human way. Customers are real people with their own interests, priorities, hobbies, and needs. By taking the time to understand them on this level rather than just viewing them as numbers and data, brands can begin to form genuine connections. We have found a way to do this using artificial intelligence, and it’s interesting and unique to me that our technology is able to do something that's so innately human.

Stephen, you came to RAD with vast experience in helping businesses around the world connect with their audiences. In your view, what does RAD offer to the martech and marketing space that we aren’t seeing elsewhere?

SK: Many years ago, I had the privilege of working on a project with Apple, and Steve Jobs happened to be in the room. He said something to the effect of, "The trick with technology is to avoid spreading darkness at the speed of light." Well, unfortunately what I’ve discovered is that a lot of the martech tools available today are doing exactly what that statement says not to. So many of the platforms available today are simply doing marketing as it's always been done but doing it faster and measuring it more carefully. As a result, bad marketing is simply going around quicker instead of being rethought or approached with a fresh perspective. RAD is bringing in that breath of fresh air marketing needs. While most platforms tend to focus on sentiment, RAD focuses on things like emotion and resonance to help its clients tell stories that are meaningful, memorable, and valuable. To me, that is just extraordinarily exciting because there seems to be a lack of that in the industry.

What types of companies does RAD work with?

JB: We are pretty industry agnostic. If a brand has a story to tell, we’re happy to help them tell it. We’ve worked with clients in healthcare, entertainment, publishing, and more and are in the early stages of working with some exciting clients in travel and hospitality as well as financial services. The way we see it, authenticity is an issue faced by organizations in every industry. We have an intelligent and adaptive platform that can help combat that, so why limit ourselves?

Data privacy is a huge topic of concern these days, and customers have become a bit wary about how their information is collected and used by the brands they do business with. How is RAD AI navigating these issues?

BS: That's part of the beauty of our data collection and our platform. All the data we collect is anonymous and in aggregate form, so there’s no unique identifiers. Our data source is public and enormous, and our models are adaptive. As new data sources come online or the information changes, the models adapt according to the dynamics of the world. We addressed the changes Europe’s GDPR legislation brought about a few years ago and will continue to adapt to changes in policy and privacy as needed to ensure everyone stays safe.

There has been a lot of mistrust in media and business over the past few years because of deepening divisions in society. As a platform built on authenticity, how does RAD ensure that its messages do not contribute to this mistrust?

SK: There is a lot of sneaky stuff that goes on in marketing, as well as a lot of tricks and games. Marketing people are usually pretty good at marketing itself, but that doesn't always mean that what they’re marketing is good. I think our most effective weapon against this is that we align our values, ethics, and integrity with the authenticity algorithms that Bradley has developed. BS: RAD AI does not and will not work with companies that are doing things that do not align with our company values. In the past, we have refused to continue relationships with clients who were promoting a product that we didn't believe in, or that we felt was overpromised and inauthentic. If we’re going to push authenticity to our clients, then we ourselves need to remain authentic and true to what we stand for. RAD is a company with integrity, and no dollar amount will ever outvalue the standards we set for ourselves.

RAD has achieved so much in such a short amount of time. What made that possible? What enables you to keep ‘winning’?

JB: I think it comes down to our people. There's a very focused environment spanning from the board and leadership to the directors, the Customer Success folks, and the engineers, some of whom have been with Bradley for over eight years. We have a great group of people who believe in our vision and are going to do everything in their power to make this thing succeed. We're gonna 'win' because what we do is special, unique, and delivers return on investment. The reason clients stay with us is because we don't just tell them, "Hey, here's a campaign. See you later." We integrate with their creative teams and paid media environments to form a real partnership. Our clients know they can depend on our team, our technology, our methodology, and our process. Our team becomes almost like a part of their team. I think a key factor of what makes us great.

Following on from that, what’s next for RAD AI? Jeremy and Stephen, where do you see the business going? Bradley, what’s next for the tech?

JB: Long term, I can see us potentially going public or being acquired by someone who shares our vision and values. In the shorter term, we have some great new clients coming onboard, an investment grant, and a fundraise that has been incredibly successful so far. As I said before, we have a super committed team that is really invested in making this thing work, so the only way is up from here. SK: What I find so exciting about RAD AI is that we're very, very close to cracking that ‘holy grail’ of being able to improve clients’ ability to communicate with their audiences in a way that's authentic, emotionally connected, and not annoying. Our technology is there, and our proofs of concept speak for themself at this point. I imagine we will continue to grow our relationships with current client base and bring in more from other industries and geographies. When you combine the business drive of people like Jeremy with the technology genius of Bradley and his team of engineers, the possibilities for RAD are endless. BS: I get so excited when I think about the immensity of what we're able to do and the billions of data points and pieces of content that we're able to analyze. The world of technology has changed so much in just the past couple of years. Imagine what it could look like in just a couple more if we put state-of-the-art technologies into the hands of regular people. To me, that's awe inspiring. It's mind blowing, and it's why I get out of bed in the morning. The potential is limitless, and the world is ever-changing. Our technology will continue to evolve and adapt alongside it. You can learn more about Jeremy, Bradley, Stephen, and the rest of our RAD team here.

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New Standards for Influencer Marketing

by Seth Weinkranz - Seth has 10+ years of experience in developing and executing global influencer-led initiatives cross-platform for Fortune 500 Brands. Today, he is a senior Account Manager with a history of working with prominent entertainment studios, lifestyle & sports brands. This, alongside with Seth’s background in talent management enables him to build win-win business partnerships for both talent & brands.Mar 5, 2024Artificial Intelligence | Content Marketing ROI | Influencer Marketing | Content AI | Creative Intelligence

Part 2 of 3 - New Standards for Influencer Marketing

In Part 1 of this series, we pinpointed what's wrong with the way influencer marketing is done today. We identified how lack of data, skewed data analysis, and tracking the wrong data translates into guesswork instead of actionable business intelligence.Now we'll look at how AI creative intelligence is rewriting the rules by delivering data-driven results.

Introducing Data-driven Influencer Marketing Campaigns

The RAD AI creative intelligence platform is transforming influencer marketing by using content AI technology to deliver actionable insights before, during, and after your campaigns. Bypassing the impasse between automated efficiency and human authenticity, RAD AI combines the best of both worlds.State-of-the-art machine learning optimized for influencer marketing gives you the business intelligence you need to remove bias from creative decisions. Data-driven decision-making and campaign tracking make performance predictable and eliminate unclear results. You get the same quantifiable return on investment you’d expect from pay-for-performance campaigns.

Leveraging Big Data Yields Big Results

How does it work? We overcome conventional data limitations by combining data from 600+ API partners. We’re the only AI that uses Reddit for creative intelligence, giving each client a unique glimpse into what authentic audiences and influencers are saying about your industry in genuine, candid conversations. Our other partners include Google/Adobe Analytics, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube and LinkedIn- among many others.Our cutting-edge content AI platform is trained to use all this data to develop ideal campaign personas optimized for your market. Through our partnership with Reddit, we’ve pinpointed over 100,000 precisely niched customer personas.For each persona, we identify the dominant interests and sentiments of your target audience and weigh topics by audience using an objective scoring system. Based on this analysis, we match your campaign personas to influencers who fit your audience, using a ranking system that identifies your best influencer options.Our content AI analysis helps you optimize the strategy and language you use to connect with your audience. For example, we recommend which hashtags to use to maximize your performance.To track your results, we benchmark six months of historical performance on your social channels and web properties using relevant KPIs. Performance indicators we track include social engagement, conversions, follower growth, and web traffic. Tracking results get fed into a reporting feedback loop segmented by channel to help you improve your KPI performance.

Influencer Marketing Delivers Measurable ROI

This data-driven approach yields a measurable return on investment for your influencer marketing campaigns. You no longer need to guess what results you’re getting from your influencer marketing spend or what to do to improve your results. Just follow the numbers and do the math.Now that you know how to overcome the limitations of conventional influencer marketing through AI, how do you put a content AI influencer marketing strategy into effect? In the final part of this series, we'll show you how it works in action:Part 3 of 3: Putting ROI-based Influencer Marketing into Effect: Four Steps to Action -

Visual Art Meets AI-Backed Creative Intelligence

RAD Intel is proud to announce we're launching a new, first-of-its-kind product, RAD Visual Arts, in partnership with LNDMRK, today's most elite visual art agency.

Famed as the producers of Mural, the world's largest street art and music festival, LNDMRK counts partners like Apple, Nike, and Porsche among its clients. Now we're partnering with them to combine their best-in-class visual arts marketing services with our industry-leading ROI-based influencer technology.

By bringing together the best of visual art marketing and the cutting edge of innovation in influencer marketing, RAD Visual Arts provides our clients with unprecedented opportunities to leverage the power of visual media. RAD Visual Arts lets brands collaborate with best-in-class creatives to develop unique products, cultural moments, content, and community. Read on to learn how RAD Visual Arts can bring your brand an entirely new dimension of cultural activation by turning your marketing into world-class art.

Courtesy @Gawx Art and @NordVPN

Differentiating Brands That Care about Authenticity

Authentic brands are who they say they are. Their company values, passions, and vision shine through everything they say and do, from their advertising campaigns to their products, to the way they treat their customers. They don't say one thing and do another. Their customers know they're real, not fake.

Authenticity is a vital ingredient for influencer marketing success. Influencers have large followings because their customers share their passion, identify with them, and trust them. This trust carries over to brands they partner with. When an authentic influencer endorses a product, their followers value their recommendation.

But when authenticity is lacking, so is the value influencers offer to their partners. If audiences don't trust an influencer, mistrust is going to carry over to your brand. Without authenticity, influencer marketing will backfire. RAD Intel has partnered with today’s most forward thinking brands, partners and visual artists to cultivate authenticity through authenticity. Our collective extensive knowledge of the global art scene provides provides unparalleled access to today's most in-demand artists, producers, and creatives---Key Opinion Leaders like:

• Vexx

  (3M+ YouTube followers)

• Miryam Lumpini

  (311K Instagram followers)

• Gawx

  (2M YouTube followers)

Each of these artists has large numbers of loyal followers that eagerly await their next creation. Through our first of it’s kind partnership with LNDMRK, we help artists and brands meet this anticipation by promoting custom, one-of-a-kind art integrations, delivered via brand specific marketing campaigns.. No two programs are the same, with each production expressing the uniqueness of each artist and brand. This makes each artistic production an authentic, unique creative event which is both culturally significant for communities and financially profitable for brands.

Courtesy @DonnaAdi and Nestle

AI-backed Visual Art Delivers ROI with Creative Intelligence

How do we make a best-in-class approach to visual art marketing even more effective? By optimizing it with artificial intelligence. Through our RAD Visual Arts partnerships, cultural moments now meet data science.

RAD Intel is bringing visual art marketing the same data-driven ROI standards we've introduced to other segments of influencer marketing. Before RAD Intel revolutionized the industry, decisions in influencer marketing were based on intuitive guesswork rather than objective data.

In contrast to other paid advertising media, influencer marketing has suffered from a lack of standardized key performance indicators, data collection guidelines, and analytics tools. KPIs vary widely from platform to platform, leaving results open to subjective bias. Data from one platform may be oversampled, while relevant data from other sources is overlooked. Inconsistent measurement standards and biased data inputs skew data analysis and yield misleading results.

Because of these limitations, decisions about influencer selection, audience niches, and content strategy often end up being based on incomplete data sets. Unscrupulous marketing agencies and influencers take advantage of this situation, showcasing irrelevant KPIs that don't translate into real ROI.

RAD AI puts an end to this by bringing data-driven standards to ROI-based influencer marketing. Our proprietary AI platform uses over 600 API connections to deliver unbiased creative intelligence that informs campaign concepts, content production and influencer selection. This yields better ROI across the entire marketing mix in a transparent, scalable manner.

Our commitment to authenticity begins with our API partner Reddit. As most of us know, Reddit prioritizes authentic conversations between real people sharing their honest experiences, opinions, and feelings. This makes Reddit particularly relevant for marketers looking to better understand target audiences and the messaging they care about most. . Reddit is one of the 600+ API connections we use as a resource for actionable creative intelligence. Some of our other partner connections include Google Analytics, TikTok, Meta, Twitch, YouTube and more.

Our cutting-edge AI and analytics methods pinpoint the information most relevant to our clients and their campaign goals. This enables us to make customized, data-based recommendations about which audiences to target, what type of content strategy to use, and which influencers to work with. We update our recommendations in real time as campaigns unfold to reflect new information coming in.

This data-driven approach yields predictable results and measurable ROI. We guarantee our results because we know the decisions we recommend to clients are based on data, not guesswork. Our innovative approach transforms influencer marketing from an intuitive campaign decision into a measurable, ROI-based science.

Courtesy @RicardoCavolo

Bringing ROI-based AI Together with Best-in-class Visual Art Marketing

What do you get when you bring a data-driven approach to influencer marketing together with world-class visual art marketing? By combining these two winning ingredients, RAD Visual Arts helps marketers apply ROI-based decision-making to the world's most talented visual artists.

Marketers can now:

• Define campaign objectives in terms of measurable KPIs

• Pinpoint ideal audience personas by drawing data from over 600 APIs

• Identify which world-class visual artist is ideally suited for your target audience

• Determine which content perfectly match your audience's preferences Work with world-renowned visual artists to develop unique, authentic artistic creations that get audiences excited about your brand

• Benchmark your campaign performance against historical benchmarks

• Optimize your campaigns by incorporating audience feedback

• Optimize your visual influencer marketing spend based on measurable results

In short, you no longer have to guess which visual artists to partner with, which audiences to target and what type of content to create.

Marketing as Art: Creating Cultural Moments and Communities through Collaborative Content

By applying AI-informed creative intelligence to visual art marketing, RAD Intel Visual Art gives marketers the keys to unlock the power of art for their brand. Marketing campaigns now become cultural moments that build communities around shared values and passions expressed through unique products and content.

We are here to help you set up your next cultural moment while meeting your campaign goals and KPIs. Contact us to talk about how RAD Intel Visual Arts can help you harness the marketing power of best-in-class art and AI.

PART 3 OF 3: PUTTING ROI-BASED INFLUENCER MARKETING INTO EFFECT

In Part 1 of this series, we looked at what's wrong with the way influencer marketing is done today, observing how poor use of data promotes guesswork instead of measurable results.

In Part 2, we revealed how RAD Intel's creative intelligence platform is empowering a new, data-driven way to do influencer marketing, yielding the same type of measurable ROI you'd expect from other types of performance-based marketing.

In this final part of this three-part series, we'll walk you through the steps RAD Intel's uses to put data-driven influencer marketing into action.

What process does RAD Intel use to deliver you measurable influencer marketing results? The overall process breaks down into four main steps which are executed before, during, and after your campaign:

Step One: Campaign Set-up

We start by collecting and analyzing the relevant data to generate the persona insights you need. Our persona insights provide the information you need to optimize your content, match you to influencers, and define influencer deliverables corresponding to your audiences.

Step Two: Benchmarking

Next, we benchmark six months of historical performance data from your social channels and web properties. This lays an objective, solid foundation for comparing your performance with your RAD Intel results.

Step Three: Reporting & Improvement

As your campaign unfolds, our KPI tracking helps you monitor vital indicators such as social engagement, conversions, and follower growth and web traffic spikes. You can see exactly what impact your investment is having on your key numbers.

Our reporting feedback loops empower you to make adjustments which optimize your performance. We provide business intelligence you can apply to improve your paid advertising results, engagement rate and quality, impressions, and reach.

The feedback mechanisms built into our methodology help ensure that your influencer marketing campaigns yield continuous, incremental, steady improvements to your ROI. If you follow our recommendations, you can expect performance in the top 10% of influencer marketing campaigns.

Does It Work? Creative Intelligence Influencer Marketing Success Stories

How well does the RAD Intel approach to influencer marketing work? As a case study, we reviewed twelve months of performance from our clients in the entertainment industry, one of the industries we serve.

Our study analyzed 397 unique pieces of AI-informed social media content made by 63 different creators. For benchmarking, we compared organic impressions and engagement to results from AI-informed counterparts for four of our clients. The results were decisive and dramatic. For all content, 17.3 million organic impressions generated 640,000 engagements, for an engagement rate of 3.7%. For AI-informed content, 6.8 million impressions generated 754,000 engagements, for an 11% engagement rate. Overall, AI-informed content outperformed benchmarks by a 197% lift. This is one example amongst many case studies. Our client base spans industries ranging from healthcare and eCommerce, to B2B sales and financial services. On average, influencer marketers using RAD AI’s solutions enjoy an ROI lift of 3.7X times their investment for organic, paid, and brand-owned channels. This translates into over 600+ hours of labor saved on per campaign and a 300% savings in content creation costs. As this shows, when you compare AI-informed influencer marketing to old-school performance, the results aren’t even close. Creative intelligence beats manual methods hands-down.

Influencer Marketing ROI - Remove All Doubt

Outdated influencer marketing methods leave you guessing about your results. RAD Intel’s next-generation creative intelligence platform removes all doubt about your ROI by combining state-of-the-art artificial intelligence with today’s most extensive range of influencer marketing data. We mine data from Reddit and 600+ API connections. Our comprehensive data scope provides you with 360-degree insight into how to match your target audience with the right influencers, messaging, and content for your campaigns. We provide the information you need to define data-driven goals and benchmarks for your influencer campaigns. Our reporting tools keep your performance aligned with your goals, delivering objective feedback you can apply to improve your KPIs for more impressions, higher engagement, and a more profitable ROI.

We deliver 300% average improvement in productivity and 92% average gains in content efficacy, while doubling ROI for our adopters. Fortune 500 brands like UBS, Condé Nast, and Accenture rely on us to deliver results for their influencer marketing campaigns. Contact us to schedule a demo and see how we can help you achieve your influencer marketing goals.

Artificial intelligence is revolutionizing every aspect of business, but influencer marketing has lagged behind the curve. While other areas of digital marketing have leveraged analytics for years, influencer marketing continues to follow an outdated manual approach. Creator marketers stumble through a fog of intuitive guesswork instead of following data-driven benchmarks.

Subjective criteria drive selection of influencers and creative strategies. Irrelevant statistics pass for ROI tracking. Strategies for scaling hit their targets with all the hit-or-miss accuracy of a shot in the dark.

This blind inefficiency translates into wasted marketing spend. Attempts to cut costs through automated solutions typically fail to maintain the tone of human authenticity necessary for effective influencer marketing. Budgets are met at the expense of missing marketing goals and revenue targets. Marketing teams need a better solution, and they need it now.

There is good news however - a new and better way to activate influencers is here for marketers that demand more. Today’s AI now lets you harness creative intelligence data to understand target audience personas, match audiences to influencers, optimize campaign content, and track your performance with measurable KPIs.

The result is that influencer marketing campaigns can now enjoy the same measurable ROI tracking as pay-for-performance advertising. Now you can meet your influencer marketing goals without breaking your budget.

In this three-part series, we’ll introduce you to the future of influencer marketing by looking at how creative intelligence and content AI are disrupting the industry. First, here in Part 1, we’ll review the old way of doing influencer marketing and identify why it doesn’t work.

Then, in Part 2, we’ll reveal how creative intelligence overcomes traditional limitations by providing a data-driven path to persona analysis, influencer selection, campaign messaging, and results tracking. Finally, in Part 3, we’ll lay out an action plan for launching an effective ROI-based influencer marketing campaign using today’s technology.

What’s Wrong with Influencer Marketing?

Influencer marketing has been around as long as social media, but it’s been slower to harness the full power of automation. Marketing campaign managers still use manual methods to select influencers, based on intuitive, subjective criteria.

This may involve a time-consuming search, lengthy contract negotiations and high expenditures on content development. If you’re lucky, you might eventually connect with the right influencer for your target audience. If you’re not, you can waste long hours at high costs without seeing a return on investment.

Despite these drawbacks, influencer marketers still use manual methods alongside an array of inadequate influencer search platforms. Oftentimes, this manual approach seems like the only way to make genuine connections with influencers who create authentic content.

The alternative is automation, which works well when done right, but can be as wasteful as manual methods and even less effective when done the conventional way. Automated solutions mediated by ad agencies may generate more impressions more quickly, but at the cost of sacrificing human authenticity.

High impressions don’t count for much when you’re channeling your message through influencers who aren’t aligned with your target market, or if your message and content aren’t on-target with what your audience wants. Unless your automated campaigns are guided by a smart strategy and informed by measurable goals and benchmarks, you end up wasting money without seeing real gains.

Adding to the stack of issues, agencies and influencers are happy to take your money in exchange for feeding you misleading statistics which don’t reflect results that matter. For example, CPM-based influencer marketing KPIs may showcase how many impressions you’re getting without demonstrating how well those impressions are converting into business objectives.

Without knowing which metrics matter and where your data is coming from, you’re vulnerable to blowing your marketing budget on statistical shell games. These frustrating and confusing results may even leave you questioning the value of influencer marketing. These are some of the symptoms of what’s wrong with conventional creator marketing as widely practiced today. But what’s the cause of the problem? And what’s the solution?

Traditional Influencer Marketing Doesn’t Work

A lack of actionable business intelligence underlies the problems with conventional influencer marketing. To apply automation effectively for digital marketing, you need reliable data and accurate analysis. This includes intelligently gathering data from historical performance to create a baseline.

This gives you a basis for guiding future results by replicating what works and correcting what doesn’t. In order to do this, you need the ability to analyze previous posts, messaging, keywords, and phrases to see what’s driving current performance.

1. MISSING DATA MISSES THE MARK

Unfortunately, if you don’t have this data and the tools to analyze it, you don’t have a reliable foundation for managing your influencer marketing campaign ROI. And the data you need isn’t easy to come by manually.

For example, you might be relying primarily on Facebook data without knowing that the influencers you need to connect with are talking on Reddit. There are actually hundreds of data sources with potentially relevant information, including social media, website data, and email that can be used as a guide, if harnessed correctly. And in today’s multimedia environment, you need to include not just textual data but also images and video.

If you only use data from your own favored sources, at best you’ll have only a partial perspective on your market. At worst, you may end up chasing biased outliers and missing the mark.

2. SKEWED DATA ANALYSIS DISTORTS CAMPAIGN FOCUS

Lack of relevant data is only part of the problem. Even when you have the data, analyzing it and transforming it into actionable intelligence presents a challenge. Here you need to know which metrics matter for your objectives. If you’re not using the right KPIs to dissect your data, all the information in the world isn’t going to help you.

For example, let’s say you’ve focused on finding which influencers generate the most impressions. However, in the process, you inadvertently neglected to discover what type of content performs best with your target audience. You could end up getting your brand in front of the right audience but with the wrong content. This can lead to high impressions but low engagement and low conversions.

Optimizing your content isn’t just a matter of knowing which media or channel to use, either. For example, you might know that your audience prefers videos, but what kind of videos do they like? How long do they like to watch? Which camera angles, subjects, and editing styles perform best with your intended audience?

For best results, you need to drill deeper into your data than surface analytics. This is another pitfall of manual methods and old-school automation: you only scratch the surface of all the relevant variables that can impact your results.

3. TRACKING BAD DATA STEERS ROI IN THE WRONG DIRECTION

Neglecting relevant variables ultimately limits your ability to track your return on investment. To gauge ROI accurately, you need to go beyond generic KPIs and get specific about which metrics matter for your campaign objectives and the channels you’re targeting. For instance, the KPIs which define a successful brand awareness campaign on TikTok are different from those you’d use for a product promotion campaign on YouTube.

Along with relevant KPIs, you need measurable benchmarks to orient your campaign and tracking to evaluate your results. This enables you to adjust your performance in progressive iterations which steer you toward your campaign objectives. Without these guideposts, you lack the means to monitor your ROI and correct campaign underperformance.

Stop the Guesswork

Without the correct data and analysis tools for accurate ROI tracking, what you’re left with is intuitive guesswork, which doesn’t work as a marketing strategy. Without the business intelligence you need, you’re stuck with speculation.

Without relevant data, you have to make an educated guess who your audience is, what they want, and where to find them. You can only guess which influencers you should work with, what creative strategy to use, and how to track your return on investment.

It’s not hard to guess where this hit-or-miss approach leads. Instead of a profitable return on investment, you end up with meaningless metrics and confusing results that don’t tell you what you need to know. At the end of your campaign, you have no quantifiable way to assess your performance, and no actionable insights on what steps to take to improve your ROI.

So what’s the solution? Enter performance based influencer marketing, powered by creative intelligence:

Part 2 of 3: Creative Intelligence Is Rewriting Influencer Marketing Standards-

As we approach the end of this year, it seems like the perfect time to reflect on the seismic shifts in influencer marketing and the milestones RAD Intel has achieved along the way. In 2024, the industry saw unprecedented growth, driven by AI adoption, the rise of micro-influencers and a renewed focus on authenticity. Influencer marketing evolved into a critical channel for brands seeking to build meaningful connections in an unbelievably fragmented landscape.

For RAD Intel. 2024 was a banner year marked by groundbreaking innovations, strategic campaign milestones and truly impactful partnerships. We not only expanded our AI-powered platform capabilities but also deepened our bench of seasoned experts, underscoring our commitment to empowering brands and agencies with tools that drive measurable ROI. From the launch of State-by-state functionality to the successful AI Buyout Strategy, we’ve helped redefine how businesses harness the power of the creator economy.

This year has been one of growth, brand transformation, and laying the groundwork for building bigger and better solutions that will shape the future of our industry. As we reflect on these achievements, here are some of the key trends and milestones that defined 2024 for RAD Intel and the influencer marketing industry.

📊 Top Trends in Influencer Marketing

• AI-Driven Personalization Takes Center Stage:

  AI has transformed influencer marketing, with nearly 55% of marketers leveraging it to enhance efficiency and personalization in some capacity. Tools like AI-generated avatars, dubbing, analytics, and even RAD Intel’s own Audience Insights are now integral to identifying the right influencers, crafting tailored campaigns, and analyzing engagement patterns, enabling brands to deliver impactful, data-driven results.

• 2. The Nano and Micro-Influencer Revolution:

  Brands are increasingly turning to nano (1K–10K followers) and micro-influencers (10K–100K followers) for more authentic connections and higher engagement rates. In fact, 43% of marketers reported increased use of these influencers this year, capitalizing on their ability to resonate with niche audiences.

• 3. Long-Term Partnerships Over One-Off Deals:

  Building deeper relationships with influencers has become a priority, as brands seek consistent messaging and stronger collaboration. With 34.6% of marketers emphasizing regular communication, this shift reflects a move toward enduring partnerships that create meaningful impact.

• 4. Diverse Video Content Is King:

  Short-form videos continued to dominate, but 2024 saw an increase in demand for diverse formats. From educational long-form content to shoppable live-streaming, brands are finding creative ways to engage audiences across platforms.

• 5. Authenticity and Transparency Win:

  If we’ve said it once, we’ve said it a million times—consumers are increasingly demanding genuine product experiences and partnerships. Transparent influencer collaborations have been key in building trust.

• 6. Social Commerce and Shoppable Live Streaming Soared:

  Platforms like TikTok Shop have upended how consumers discover and purchase products, transforming live-streaming into a dynamic, real-time shopping experience. By empowering influencers to showcase and sell products seamlessly during live broadcasts, these platforms have blurred the lines between entertainment and e-commerce, setting the stage for the next wave of digital consumer behavior.

RAD Intel’s 2024 Milestones

This year, RAD Intel reached new heights, reflecting our commitment to driving innovation and empowering brands with actionable insights.

1. New Name, New Brand: RAD AI became RAD Intel, signaling a new era of smarter, more impactful marketing solutions. This rebrand underscores our mission to provide deep, data-driven insights in the creator-driven economy.

2. Team RAD: Team RAD has redefined large-scale marketing by integrating best-in-class agencies with RAD Intel’s AI-powered capabilities. From influencer activations to scaled partnerships, we’ve set a new standard for execution and efficiency.

3. State-by-State Functionality: Our new state-level insights have enabled brands to tailor campaigns with hyperlocal precision. By analyzing trends from platforms like TikTok and Reddit, marketers can now connect with audiences on a regional scale, ensuring their messages resonate deeply.

4. Driving Innovation with AI Buyouts: With one acquisition under our belt, RAD Intel’s Artificial Intelligence Buyout (AIBO) strategy is designed to acquire small-to-medium-sized agencies and supercharge them with advanced AI capabilities. This integration streamlines operations, boosts efficiency and drives higher margins – allowing every agency acquired to achieve faster returns while delivering more impactful campaigns.

5. Expanding Our Advisory Board: We welcomed industry leaders like Maya Kosovalic (VP of Digital Innovation and E-Commerce, NYX Professional Makeup), Nolan Carleton (former Head of Global Social Media, AT&T), and Heather Stuckey (Global Senior Director of Strategy and Transformation, Mars) to our advisory board, strengthening our mission to transform customer engagement through AI-driven insights.

Looking Ahead

As influencer marketing continues to evolve, the demand for authenticity, precision and innovation becomes even more critical. Consumers are seeking genuine connections, and brands must adapt by leveraging data-driven insights and cutting-edge tools to meet their expectations.

At RAD Intel, we’re proud to play a role in shaping this dynamic landscape, equipping brands with the tools they need to thrive. Ready to future-proof your marketing strategies? Let’s connect and explore how RAD Intel can help you achieve your 2025 goals.

Here’s to an impactful year ahead!