The smart learn from their mistakes. The wise learn from the mistakes of others.

We asked 10 influencer marketers to tell us about a time when one of their influencer collaborations failed and what lessons they took away from the experience. Here are seven reasons why your influencer campaigns are set up to fail – and how to course-correct.

1: You assign sales as the only metric to measure your influencer marketing success

There is a wide array of metrics to choose from when reporting on your influencer marketing campaigns: website traffic, coupon code/UTM link usage, engagement rate, etc. But if you use sales as the only objective for your influencer marketing campaigns, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. Why?

a) Influencer marketing takes time to see results. A consumer might not purchase an item from an influencer post today, but they might remember it, then encounter another touchpoint with your brand, and finally purchase two weeks later.

b) It’s impossible to track the whole impact of influencer marketing. Creator collaborations often work under the radar to bring you sales – plenty of buyers might’ve discovered you via an influencer, but their purchases can’t always be traced back to the channel.

c) You do a disservice to your influencer partners by evaluating them solely on how many sales they brought in. Creators aren’t always credited for their sales (thank you, complicated customer journey), but they’re frequently the source of brand awareness – which often leads to sales down the road. Influencers also provide value in other forms – such as delivering content you can repurpose and building trust with your target buyers.

That’s why Greta Zacchetti, Influencer Marketing Manager at foodspring, says conversion-driven influencer campaigns are always a gamble:

Greta Zacchetti

Influencer Marketing Manager, foodspring

There isn’t really any surefire way to know in advance if an influencer will generate revenue.

Relying on sales alone also undersells your efforts and performance in front of stakeholders. Namrata Thakker, Head – Communications, PR, & Influencer Marketing at Bestseller India, also got burned by using sales as her only metric to measure a campaign’s success:

Namrata Thakker

Head – Communications, PR, and Influencer Marketing, Bestseller India

Defining sales as the ONLY metric for influencer marketing isn’t ideal since there is always a qualitative impact you cannot measure.

2: You don’t lay out clear expectations early and upfront

Sometimes it’s tempting to skip the groundwork to get the ball rolling on a campaign, especially when working with an experienced influencer. Surely, they know what they’re doing and can deliver content that converts even if your brief wasn’t the most thorough, right?

It’s always better to err on the side of caution, according to Leslie Belen, Influencer Search and Outreach Assistant:

Leslie Belen

Influencer Search and Outreach Virtual Assistant, Dately

One campaign I worked on didn’t meet expectations because the influencer’s content didn’t align with our brand’s messaging. While their audience and engagement were great, the final deliverables didn’t match what we had envisioned.

No matter how big or experienced the influencer is, it’s always wise to set expectations clearly in the beginning and provide detailed influencer briefs. That’s what Leslie went on to do after learning the hard way:

Leslie Belen

Influencer Search and Outreach Virtual Assistant, Dately

I worked on creating more specific guidelines and fostering better relationships with influencers to ensure both parties were aligned throughout the process. It was a valuable lesson in the importance of setting expectations and maintaining strong communication.

Does that mean you always have to build out ironclad briefs? Of course not – you can get less detailed in your briefs for repeat influencer partners who have proven that they understand your expectations by providing content that needs minimal edits.

But when onboarding an influencer for the first time or working on a new type of campaign, it’s best to provide as much detail as possible upfront.

3: You don’t vet influencers thoroughly before starting a collaboration

The way you select your influencer partners can make or break your campaign. Vetting influencers thoroughly is time-consuming (and often tedious), but it’s a necessary part of the process to see the results you want. At a minimum, you want to ensure an influencer:

• Has audience demographics that match your ideal customer profile
• Doesn’t have a lot of fake followers or inflated engagement
• Shares content that already aligns with your brand
  

Abdullah Khan, Influencer Marketing Manager at Upwork, shares that his team couldn’t reach campaign goals because they had relied on follower count alone to vet partners:

Abdullah Khan

Influencer Marketing Manager

One of our campaigns didn’t perform as expected because we chose influencers based solely on their follower count rather than their audience engagement and alignment with our brand. The content didn’t resonate well with their followers, and the campaign results fell short of our goals.

With Modash, you can speed up your influencer vetting process. Each influencer has a detailed profiled analysis – showing their fake followers, performance metrics (segmented for sponsored posts, too!), audience demographics, and much more.

But remember: vetting an influencer isn’t just about the quantitative metrics. Athira Aravind, Brand Partnerships and Influencer Manager at Mahina, shares how artificial engagement led to a failed creator collaboration:

Athira Avarind

Brand Partnerships and Influencer Manager, Mahina

We worked with an expensive creator for one of our campaigns, and the collaboration performed very poorly. Upon analyzing the content, we realized that the creator had too much engagement from engagement pods, which inflated the engagement rate.

Another (anonymous) marketer shares their experience going through an agency to book a creator, who turned out to be part of a group of creators helping each other boost their engagement numbers:

“The influencer profile looked good on the surface but had a completely fake audience made up of fellow content creators helping each other increase their engagement.”

To better detect fake audiences, use both software and manual vetting to analyze an influencer’s profile. Watch out for red flags like:

🚩Comments from the same people on almost every post (signs of an engagement pod)

🚩Generic comments (like “nice post”) or emoji-only comments

🚩Low number of comments compared to likes and shares

🚩Nonsensical, unnatural-sounding comments (signs of bot followers)

There will likely be some bot activity and fake followers in every influencer’s profile – especially if they have a huge audience. That doesn’t always mean the creator has purchased engagement or followers. If there are some red flags in every post, run. If the warning signs are few and rare, provide some leeway.

It’s tempting to skip proper examination of influencer profiles, but thankfully, influencer marketing tools like Modash make the process easier by checking for fake followers, engagement rate, audience data, and more. With those off your plate, all you have to do is manually vet the comments and content quality.

4: You rush the influencer marketing process

Excellent influencer marketing campaigns owe their success to proper preparation. Give yourself ample time to find influencers, vet their profiles, perform outreach, follow up, negotiate, establish a contract, draw up a brief, etc.

If possible, I highly recommend you add some buffer time so you can plan your campaign at your own pace and not in a hurry.

Nicole Ampo, Influencer Marketing Manager at American Hat Makers, recounts an incident when her team had to push influencer collaborations in a week because of a time-sensitive product launch:

Nicole Ampo

Influencer Marketing Manager, American Hat Makers

It caused stress to everyone in marketing, graphics, and social media. My takeaways from that experience were to never rush things and to value everyone’s time.

Another (anonymous) user had only seven days to collate influencer content for a campaign:

“I had to hurry to find, vet, negotiate, and contract with the influencers. It all felt very rushed, and the results weren’t as we’d hoped. The more notice, the better, to ensure we get the results we want.”

Often, having the luxury of time comes down to educating stakeholders and adjacent marketing teams. Let them know how much advance notice, time, and resources you’ll need to be successful for each campaign. This will minimize last-minute requests.

And when you absolutely must perform on short notice, rely on trusted influencer partners you’ve worked with in the past. Since they already know your expectations and contract terms, you can onboard them faster than you could a brand-new creator.

When working on a tight schedule, lower your expectations for the content (since you are also putting the influencer on a time crunch). And remember that some creators will ask for a rush fee to prioritize you on their calendar.

5: You don’t have a rock-solid influencer contract

Influencer contracts can be a bottleneck in getting the green light for a campaign. But they’re also essential to ensuring your company’s safety, acting as a reference in case of any disagreement.

Lucy Sergeeva, Head of Influencer Marketing at InkPoster, shares a time when an influencer ghosted her team after receiving payment, probably because there was no risk of violating any contracts:

Lucy Sergeeva

Head of Influencer Marketing, InkPoster

I negotiated a collaboration with a YouTuber who promised to create two videos for $350. We sent the payment via PayPal, but we never received any deliverables in return.

She adds that the episode taught her the importance of influencer contracts:

Lucy Sergeeva

Head of Influencer Marketing, InkPoster

Since that incident, I double-check everything. And when working on a paid basis, I only proceed with legal agreements, no matter how small the amount is.

In certain cases, however, contracts seem like overkill. For instance, in influencer gifting campaigns where there’s no payment involved, it might not make sense to introduce contracts. (The example doesn’t apply if you’re practicing influencer marketing for expensive products, though.)

If you’re gifting, weigh the risks and decide if you’re willing to take the loss on your product’s COGS if an influencer doesn’t deliver. If yes, you can skip the process. But in most cases involving paid partnerships, it’s best to have a contract in place.

Influencer Marketing Coordinator Fernanda Marques once dealt with a client who didn’t approve influencer content despite multiple rounds of review – after having approved the briefs her team had created. Influencer contracts came to the rescue of the creators and her team:

Fernanda Marques

Influencer Marketing Coordinator

The brand kept requesting changes that hadn’t been mentioned prior, even though the influencers had already followed the approved briefing. Ultimately, we had to cancel the campaign, as it became unworkable. Thankfully, we had solid contracts in place to protect everyone involved.

A contract creates a safety net you can fall back on and protects both parties. Sometimes, even if you don’t plan to enforce an agreement, having your campaign partners sign it anyway is enough to dissuade them from going rogue.

6: You don’t trust your gut

POV: You find the perfect influencer. Their metrics look great, they communicate well, and their price fits your budget. And yet… your gut tells you something is off.

Ignoring that voice and moving forward with the creator would be a mistake. Laura Altdorffer, Influencer and Affiliate Manager at iRESTORE Laser, agrees:

Laura Altdorffer

Influencer and Affiliate Manager, iRESTORE Laser

A software we used showed that an influencer received high engagement and had the perfect audience demographics. Despite that, I suspected our campaign with her would fail – we had worked with similar influencers who didn’t convert well. Sure enough, when we ran the campaign, she didn’t convert at all.

Laura adds:

Laura Altdorffer

Influencer and Affiliate Manager, iRESTORE Laser

It just shows that sometimes you have to go with your gut and past history to make the final call.

As you do more and more influencer partnerships, you will develop a strong intuition to predict whether or not a campaign will work – even if you can’t put your finger on exactly what puts you off. Trust that sixth sense!

7: You don’t ensure timely and proper communication with your internal team and creators

As an influencer marketer, sometimes things go wrong that aren’t your fault but are still your responsibility.

Cheyanne Pettyjohn, Director of Influencer Marketing at Rookie Wellness, recounts an incident wherein a campaign failed because the creators didn’t receive the product on time. This was due to factors entirely out of her control, and yet, it was her responsibility to ensure timely communication and mitigate any concerns:

Cheyanne Pettyjohn

Director of Influencer Marketing, Rookie Wellness

This campaign reminded me that it’s my job to take responsibility for communication failures between the company and the creator. I am the one who has to make sure that the channel is clear and catch any issues in time. I need to have the ability to work with my team to solve a problem that potentially wasn’t even mine to start with.

You always have to stay prepared to address any potential issues in the pipeline – whether that’s a product issue, shipping delay, or misunderstandings. It’s part of the job to fight the unexpected fires because, as Cheyanne says, both the company and your influencer partners rely on you to succeed:

Cheyanne Pettyjohn

Director of Influencer Marketing, Rookie Wellness

At the end of the day, I am the one our partners look to to set them up for success.

Transform your setbacks into stepping stones

There’s no mistake-proof vest (yet) to shield yourself from errors completely – especially in a world as ever-evolving as influencer marketing. But you can change your perspective and view your setbacks as stepping stones.

The other way to protect yourself is to always keep learning from the mistakes and experiences of other influencer marketers. If you’re interested in getting insight from the pros sent straight to your inbox, then subscribe to our free newsletter, Return on Influence. That way, you’ll keep your ear to the ground and prevent errors you didn’t even know you could make.