A well-executed influencer campaign is one that can be tracked down to business metrics, the king of which is revenue.

Altered State Productions, a US-based marketing and media production company, created a video-led campaign for Valyōu Furniture, a brand that’s been focusing on social media as one of the main revenue drivers.

The Feathers Destroyed campaign focused on the brand’s flagship product—the Feathers Sofa—and aimed to:

maximize organic reach among Valyōu Furniture's target demographic
drive sales

Combining influencer marketing and traditional SEO, the agency delivered the following results in 4 months of campaign deployment:

$11,000 influencer cost and $14,708 in ad spend for the entire campaign
540K views: up 500% over previous months
25,000 increase in followers across multiple platforms
14x ROI: the campaign generated $501,500 in sales attributed to influencer posts, organic social posts, email marketing, and paid ads.

Valyōu Furniture's campaign tracking in Influencer Analytics

Read on to see exactly how they did it.

Step 1. Identify key campaign channels

The Altered State team used Semrush Referring Domains data and Semrush Social Media Reporting to see which platforms attribute to the most activity, engagement, audience, and sales.

In order, based on the highest traffic, the top sources are:
Direct
Organic Search (affiliate and Valyōu’s website)
Google PLA, Google Ads, and Google Business Profile
Facebook / Instagram
TikTok
YouTube

Valyōu Furniture's social media stats shown in Semrush Social Tracker

Together with the client, the team chose the following channels for the campaign:

YouTube - SEO takes the highest priority for the brand as the sofa is a product that is traditionally purchased after extensive research and consideration. A YouTube video would boost the brand’s presence both in Google search and on YouTube itself, as the second-largest search engine.
Email - Retargeting customers who abandoned cart, which was well over 17,000. Valyōu has demonstrated high open rates and engagement in their previous email marketing campaigns, which solidified the decision.
Facebook/ Instagram - All of Valyōu’s competitors are strong and active on Instagram, so it only made sense to be active on this channel. This is also a strong channel for home goods, decor, and lifestyle brands to be discovered.
TikTok - the team chose it for brand awareness and the ability to gain traction quickly. TikTok audiences tend to be highly engaged with both influencers and unique content.

Valyōu Furniture's backlink overview shown in the Semrush Backlink Audit tool

Step 2. SEO optimization

Altered State used the Ecommerce Keywords Analytics app from Semrush, where they explored the demand trends from top retailers.

Core keyword trends in the Ecommerce Keywords Analytics app

The top retail keywords for Feathers Collections were "Cloud Couch" and "Modular Sectional Sofas”. These keywords boast the highest conversion rates and searches, and have moderate difficulty. Historically, Valyōu’s emphasis was on terms from customer FAQ inquiries such as "Machine Washable," "Pet Friendly," and "Stain Resistant." So Altered State combined the two sets of keywords to make an all-in-one campaign.

Keyword clusters for the Feathers Destroyed campaign

These keywords were used in video captions, descriptions, and even comments, all of which boost discoverability.

Step 3. Ideation for longer watch time

To highlight the sofa’s most prominent feature—durability and ease of cleaning—the Altered State team came up with a provocative and engaging concept: actively attempting to destroy a sofa. This created an "experiment-like" setting, feeding into the viewer's anticipation and curiosity, ensuring they stayed hooked to the end.

The longer watch time and audience engagement proved to improve the video’s SEO rankings for targeted keywords.

Step 4. Find the perfect influencers

The Altered State team was looking to engage key personalities who could resonate with the client’s target audience. Besides that, they needed to have a proven track record of great performance in their previous collaborations.

Altered State initially deployed traditional marketing tools to tackle this challenge:

Manual Instagram Search
Google Search
Commenting for Collaboration
Hashtag Analysis
Influencer Networks
Word of Mouth
Competitor Analysis
Guest Bloggers
Industry Events
PR Agencies

While these tools did provide some basic data, they fell short of delivering the hard data for forecasting, such as the influencers’:

engagement rate
distribution of likes
expected views
cost of integration
CPM
audience credibility
likes from non-followers, etc.

The process became a laborious cycle, signaling a pressing need for a transformative solution. It was also hard to set a budget and land the most effective number of influencers to include in this campaign.

Influencer profile in the Influencer Analytics app by Semrush

Step 5. Prospect influencers

The team was looking for more insights and fewer open tabs. This is where the Influencer Analytics platform stepped in. A robust marketing platform, Influencer Analytics played a pivotal role in this campaign. It seamlessly filled in the gaps left by traditional methods, helping identify influencers, manage the campaign, and provide insightful analytics all in one place.

The Altered State team started the influencer prospecting process using the Influencer Analytics platform's discovery function.

“We found this feature invaluable as it allowed us to filter influencers much more precisely than with other platforms in regards to follower growth expectancy, audience credibility, likers’ credibility, likes from non-followers, audience interests, and account growth compared to the previous month,” says Combina Key, Influencer & Affiliate Advisor at Altered State Productions.

Filters applied to influencer search in the Influencer Analytics app

The team also used the search by keywords function to find influencers relevant to the brand and products. For instance, they used keywords like “home tour” to source influencers who had recently moved into a new home:

Step 6: Curate influencer list

The team reviewed the filtered influencer profiles in the Influencer Analytics app to see if their stats matched the baseline requirements. The team looked at:

location
engagement rate
distribution of likes
cost of integration
CPM
audience credibility
likes from non-followers, etc.

Influencer Analytics also gave them insight into the influencers’ content stats:

All this data helped the team build a budget and set their performance goals.

Upon identifying potential influencers, the team added them to their list within the Influencer Analytics platform. The list feature streamlined the management of their influencer outreach and follow-up efforts, ensuring no opportunities were overlooked.

Step 7: Outreach and contract negotiations

With their curated list of influencers, Altered State Productions started the reachout. This step took place outside the platform, often through email or direct messages on social media platforms. They clearly communicated our campaign objectives and expectations, and upon reaching a mutual agreement, secured contracts that outlined specifics like payment, content creation, and timelines.

The influencers gathered at the showroom to produce content all together and post live while it was happening. Whether they were creating Instagram posts/stories, YouTube videos, or TikTok clips, the agency ensured all content aligned with the campaign's essence. Where possible, they reviewed and provided feedback on the content before it was posted.

Step 8: Analyze and report final metrics

Once the campaign concluded, Altered State dove into measuring its success. They assessed aspects like reach, impressions, engagement, website traffic, and conversion rates.

All of these stats were collected automatically in the Influencer Analytics platform and used as the client report:

The Influencer Analytics app allowed the team to analyze performance by content pieces, influencers, and channels:

Key Takeaways

The Feathers Destroyed campaign is a good example of the synergy of creative concept, SEO optimization, and data-driven influencer marketing. To replicate its success:

Find top traffic channels and social media engagement for a brand with tools like Semrush. Use this information to choose the optimal campaign channels.
Conduct keyword research to discover their search volume, conversions, and demand trends. Use a tool like the Ecommerce Keywords Analytics app for this.
Use data, not gut feeling, in influencer marketing. Use the Influencer Analytics app to:

Refine influencer search based on country, language, and audience size across platforms like YouTube, Instagram, Twitch, and TikTok
Access insights such as posting frequency, viewership statistics, subscriber count, and potential advertising costs
Organize and curate custom lists of influencers for future collaboration.
Streamline campaign analytics and reporting with accurate and real-time data on engagement metrics, spend and, ultimately, ROI.
Measure the impact of each influencer's contribution effectively.

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