How Influencers Cancelled A/B Testing for Marketers in Social Media

The digital age has changed the world in almost every industry. Founder and CEO of the award-winning Technica Communications, and documentary filmmaker Lisa Anne Pinkerton once said that “influencer marketing is a strategy that connects brands to a credible individuals within a niche community with an engaged and large following.” Influencers can benefit brands in many ways when it comes to reach and engagement, but it can also hinder brands when it comes to running analytical tests on their social media advertisements.

A common method for measuring the potential of an ad campaign is running an A/B test which compares two similar yet key different ads to determine which performs best. Marketers may want to use A/B testing for their social media ads however, the amount of power influencers carry has completely nulled the potential of a significant comparison when A/B testing ads on social media. In a unique event an influencer may repost one of the ads which can cause the video to have a larger view to impression ratio or a lack of statistical significance

Variable Influence and Engagement

When you think of influencers on social media think of brand equity. Influencers bring the value to the products they engage in or promote. When an influencer promotes a product, their unique relationship with their audience can dramatically impact the product's reception, making it difficult to isolate the effect of the marketing message itself in an A/B test. An A/B test would require a more equal chance at testing to determine any significance.

Authenticity and Trust Factors

As mentioned before, influencers often build trust and authenticity with their audience, which can heavily sway their audience's perception of a product. This factor is hard to quantify and replicate in a controlled A/B test, as it is intrinsically linked to the influencer's persona and audience relationship.

Conclusion

While these factors make A/B testing more challenging in the context of influencer marketing, they don't render it impossible. Marketers need to adapt their testing methodologies and consider additional variables. A company that truly has a desire to grow will constantly seek innovative ways to test which methods work best for their brand and audience.