Influencer marketing has skyrocketed in the past five years. With the industry forecasted to hit USD $9.7 billion in 2020, Influencer Marketing Hub reports that 91% of marketers now view content creators as an effective marketing medium.

1. 1
Ensure Intelligent Influence
Combating InfluencerFraud

2. Ensure Intelligent Influence:
Howto combat rising influencerfraud
InfluencerMarketing Hub,The State ofinfluencer Marketing 2020:
Benchmark Report
Influencermarketing has skyrocketed in the past five years.With the
industry forecasted to hit USD $9.7 billion in 2020, InfluencerMarketing
Hub reports that 91% ofmarketers nowview content creators as an
effective marketing medium.
As compared to 2018, twice as many large corporate campaigns engage
with digital audiences through influencers. Unsurprisingly, 80% of
marketers wanted to integrate influencers in content strategies.
2
Estimated influencer
marketing growth
(YOY)
$ 9.7B
$ 6.5B
$ 4.6B
$ 3.0B
$ 1.7B
2016 2017 2018 20202019
Credit: Influencer MarketingHub
Have you increased
content output in the past
2 years?
Yes 84%
No 16%
Top brand safety concernsfrom brandsfor
influencermarketing
This rapid industry growth has also heightened brand safety concerns.
Historically, marketers considered followercount and engagement as
criterion forinfluencerselection. Reacting to this, as many as 24% of
influencers have turned to affordable 3rd-partyvendors to fraudulently
build audiences and manipulate profile engagement.

3. 3
Mumbai police recently made headlines by identifying 200
celebritieswho used websites posing as digital marketing agencies to
purchase fake followers. India-based company, Social King, currently
sells 20,000 followers forUSD $230, with at least 70 others in the
country suspected ofengaging in similarfraudulent activities.
It is estimated that fraud eats up 15% ofinfluencer ad spend.
Costing the industry USD $1.3 billion annually, over684 million fake
accounts have been removed from Facebook,Twitter, Instagram
and Linkedln since 2014. InAPAC, there are approximately 58 million
fake users with India and Indonesia making up the largest pieces of
the pie. Upfrom 30% in 2019, 34% ofmarketers now perceive
brand safety as an on-going influencermarketing concern.
Top 10 types ofinfluencerfraud
No longeris influencerfraud just categorized as securing a following
ofautomated fake profiles, otherwise known as bots, orreal people
exercising false identities.Today, application programming interface
(API) manipulation allows bots to choreograph social engagement
in more nuanced ways. Forexample, three types ofbots exist
onTwitter- scheduled, watcherand amplification. While the
formerposts on its own profile to maintain a facade ofauthenticity,
the lattertwo actively respond to influenceractivity with seemingly
organic tweets and retweets.There are also so-called ‘engagement
pods’ where clusters ofreal influencers band togetherto regularly
interact with each other’s posts.
In the face ofthese increasingly complex gambits, brands must
effectivelyvet influencers. Some tell-tale signs offraud include
unexplainable spikes ordips in followercount, irregularlike-to-
followerratios and sudden drops in engagement rates.

4. 4
How INCAhelps guarantee brand safety
With marketers flagging influenceridentification as theirgreatest difficultly, innovativeAI-driven influencer
marketing solutions, such as GroupM’s INCA, have developed specialized technology and tools as part of
theirproprietary platform INCAtech to help guarantee brand safety.
InScore
INCA’s proprietary ranking score that rates creators and
content pieces on a scale from 1-100.This is based on a
proprietary algorithm that converges 60+ data fields that relate
to an influencer’s profile, content, audience and performance.
Genuity Score
Indicates the proportion ofrealversus fake followers on an
influencer’s Instagram profile.The metric functions at an
accuracy of88% and is informed by Machine Learning to
identify common features from bots across different providers.
Engagement orView Graphs
Abnormal spikes ordips can easily be identified by reviewing an
influencer’s engagement andviews trends on Instagram,Twitter
and Facebook by hour, day, week and month.
4

5. 4
CompetitorsAnalysis
Up to three-years worth ofhistorical data can be analyzed across multiple social channels to give brand’s in-
depth insights into theircompetitors’ influencercontent strategies.This can help brands avoid overlapping
influencerpartnerships.
PublisherMOAT Tracker
MOATanalytics tags can be
added to social and publisher
content to helpverify
performance by tracking metrics
such asviewability, invalid traffic,
scroll depth andvelocity.
% In-TargetAudience
With special geographic, genderand age filters, INCAtech can determine the proportion ofan influencer’s
following that fits with a brand’s target demographic.
Negative Keywords
Using customizable search queries, any influencers who have posted orengaged with controversial topics
in the past will be omitted from INCAtech’s creatorselection.
Verified Filter
INCAtech can identify and filterforverified ‘blue
tick’ profiles from Instagram andYouTube.This
gives brands the added ability to workwith only
platform-verified creators.
5

6. 6
To learn more about GroupM’s brand-safe influencermarketing
solution, INCA, pleasevisit inca-global.com.
Brand safety is one ofthe core pillars ofINCA’s data driven
approach to influencermarketing.Through the above tools and
metrics, we’re able to mitigate the risks that come with working
with creators.With the industry expected to grow, we can expect
these fraudulent tactics to adapt alongside these changing tides.
As marketers, we must continue to demand formore effective
data-driven approaches tovet influencers, protect brand credibility
and customeraffinity.As advertisers, it is imperative that we are
prepared to do so.
Questions?
Contact yourlocal INCAlead.