Influencer marketing has undoubtedly become an essential part of the marketing mix for advertisers, with the industry on track to hit $10 billion in ad spend by 2020. But the industry is also at a “sink or swim” moment due to the issue of fraud. 

Roughly one year ago, Unilever’s former CMO Keith Weed called on the influencer marketing industry to clean up, and social platforms continue to delete massive amounts of fraudulent bot accounts in an effort to combat the problem. But is this a long-term solution? 

Influencer marketing platforms like CreatorIQ are taking matters into their own hands, and using AI technology to identify the telltale signs of fraud. Some examples are: audiences severely over-indexing in click farm hotbeds, like Brazil, or rapid follower growth without a commensurate bump in total engagements. 

And as influencers begin to migrate off social and onto additional platforms like TV, technology-driven solutions like this are what the emerging media sector needs to prove its maturation. It’s also probably why consumer goods giant Unilever invested in CreatorIQ.

Photo by Caroline Attwood on Unsplash