Marketing Experts Reveal Top Strategies To

Arlen:
Welcome to the e-commerce marketing podcast, everyone. My name is Arlen and I am your host. And today we have a very special guest, Alessandro Bogliari who is the CEO & Co-Founder of The Influencer Marketing Factory, a global influencer marketing agency that helps brands engage with Gen Z and Millennials on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. Welcome to the podcast, Alessandro.

Alessandro Bogliari:
Thank you for having me.

Arlen:
Yes, thank you for joining me. I’m really excited to talk to you because, you know, I love talking about influencer marketing, affiliate marketing. It’s part of what I do day in day out with OSI affiliate software. We’re constantly, you know, encouraging our customers to engage, uh, influencers and affiliates, giving them practical strategies. And so I’m really excited to see, you know, what you can bring to the table, how you can enlighten us on this, you know, huge growing. I guess you could say industry really, you know, influencer marketing is really almost an industry now at this point. So, you know, that’s going to be the topic of today. Influencer marketing, social commerce, you know, how all of this can fit together to help a e-commerce brand or any e-commerce brand, you know, grow their sales and just achieve more success. But before we do get into all of that, why don’t you tell us a little bit more about your background and specifically how you got into what you’re doing today?

Alessandro Bogliari:
Absolutely. Yeah, I will try to make it short. We Italians, we talk a lot, you know, and make, you know, English stories longer than supposed to be. But I will try to make it very short. So basically around maybe nine years ago, I was doing my master thesis and I had to choose that topic. And that was influencer marketing because I was already, you know, somehow working in the industry. And so I was like, you know what? I noticed that back in the day, a lot of people doing influencer marketing were almost only focusing on the content and on the touch of feel. and the style of the person that was behind the camera or on camera, but not many people were looking at how much to pay influencers, how to track things properly, how to look at demographics. I was a growth hacker at the time, so I was helping big companies in growing their accounts and revenues. I was like, why don’t we get that approach also with influencer marketing? In my thesis, basically, I came out with an algorithm and a little tool to calculate how much to pay an Instagrammer. especially specifically in the fashion industry in the United States. So it was based on a lot of data scraping that I did myself. That was the first time that I actually got into not only on the academia side, but I was like, you know what, influencer marketing can be finally seen or it should be seen as any other branch of marketing. So if you put money in, you should be able to calculate how much to pay influencers, why to pay them, which one to choose and so on. So because I started like that, many years passed by then and after four or five years, Um, you know, from Europe, I moved to Miami and now I’m in New York city. But when I moved to Miami, I was like, you know what, I think that it’s time for me to start something and I started an influencer marketing agency called the influencer marketing factory. We’ve been one of the first, you know, offering TikTok, uh, to, to people, um, you know, to Sony music, Universal music, Warner music group, especially for songs, and that’s because I was still, my brain was already wired in a way. Like if we’re looking at influencer marketing, let’s look at as again, I put one dollar in. what I can expect from it. So because I learned my way from Instagram and YouTube and creating these little tools, I was like, what is next? And the next big thing was TikTok. So moving forward, basically, it took all these, let’s say nine years of knowledge, right? And I was like, it’s time to create something that is an agency that only don’t look anymore at vanity metrics, but look at data and, you know, like, you know, there is like, you know, conversion focused and oriented, right? When it comes to that. So. I’m trying to make it super short, but yeah, this basically started like nine years ago from academia to having one of the most recognized agencies in the U.S. when it comes to influencer.

Arlen:
Wow, that’s awesome. Yeah, congratulations on the success that you’ve had in nine years.

Alessandro Bogliari:
Thank you

Arlen:
You know, that’s awesome. And you kind of having the kind of the foresight to see where everything was going, you know, with regards to these social media platforms and really just kind of the rise of this whole influencer culture, I guess, if you will. And it’s definitely here to stay. I don’t see it going anywhere anytime soon. And so. Yeah, it’s good to see that there’s firms like yours out there that can help brands, you know, navigate through this because, you know, from a lot of brands, especially older brands that have been around for a longer time, you know, and a little bit more established, you know, you mentioned brands such as, you know, Sony Music Group, things like that, where they’re more used to the traditional time types of media, you know, they of course try to adjust with the times but. You know, as we know in marketing and in technology, things just change so quickly. You know, if you don’t really have, you know, an expert either on your team or that you’re, you know, um, that’s doing work for you or an agency that’s doing work for you, that is constantly on the pulse of all of these changes, then, you know, you’re going to get left behind. And so, yeah, it’s great to know that, um, you know, you guys are out there to, to kind of help, uh, you know, shed, shine some light and guide the guide, these companies through to the right direction. Um, you know, where I want to kind of start off our, our conversations, a little bit different. I usually kind of wait to the kind of end to start this, but I think I want to kind of start off with. Establishing what I call, I guess you could say kind of some social proof as to people have heard about influencer marketing, they, you know, hear about all these influencers. They see these pitches across the social platforms, but you know, a lot of businesses may still not be convinced. And so I want to start is I want to see, can you share a case study where influencer marketing has really significantly boosted an e-commerce business, either a business that you’ve worked with or just one that you’re familiar with in general.

Alessandro Bogliari:
Absolutely. We work with many e-commerce, and it’s a myth that people say, it’s difficult to track things. It might be a bit more difficult compared to the difficult display banners. You put one dollar in, you can track from the beginning of the cart to the end, depending if you’re tracking pixel in place and so on. It might be a bit more difficult and later on, I will tell you a bit more also how to best practice. But I would say that overall nowadays, If you put things properly, you set up them correctly, you can actually really go and look for the ROI of campaigns. So especially in e-commerce. The good thing is that nowadays you can combine brand awareness with conversions. And a couple of examples I can bring you today, it’s a couple of clients that we are working on. And I wanted to bring you two examples. One, a big object, like an item, that has to be both that costs $0. of dollars and then an item that is more portable. Okay. Why am I doing both? Because not like, you know, a lot of the times there is this idea that e-commerce is online can be only for maybe like, you know, cheap items or something that you buy, you know, maybe during like, you know, I don’t like, you know, during the evening, you want to spend some money, you go like, you know, on Amazon and you buy a bunch of things that you don’t need.

Arlen:
Right?

Alessandro Bogliari:
Influencer marketing actually can help to influence the others, right? What I say all the time is that Anytime that you maybe went to a restaurant or watch a movie, the majority of the times it was your friends or family that were suggesting that to you. Basically, influencers are doing the same, are people that you trust, are people that maybe are experts in a specific niche,

Arlen:
Hmm.

Alessandro Bogliari:
or you can see them as someone that you like, someone that can represent you, someone that are relatable to you. And so one example is spring-free trampolines. Again, outdoor trampolines that cost thousands of dollars. 

Arlen:
Okay.

Alessandro Bogliari:
It’s not like a pair of shoes. 

Arlen:
Right.

Alessandro Bogliari:
So what did we do? We said, basically we did a couple of things with our influencers. So we said one, how easy it is to build them. Because sometimes one of the problems is like, oh, then I buy an item. It’s going to be very difficult for me to build it. So we showcased how easy it was for everyone. Every day, they all like to build them in their garden. And then the second was about the emotions, the feelings that you can get from the moment. When you get a trampoline, either you’re a kid or if you’re an adult, you become a kid again. Right, so for us, it was like showing the, especially when some of the parents had gifted them to their kids, they did not expect that. 

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Alessandro Bogliari:
So imagine getting on camera, the feeling and the emotion of these people, of these kids having something like that, and they know they’re gonna play with that, like, you know, for all their life.

Arlen:
Right.

Alessandro Bogliari:
for a few years for sure.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Alessandro Bogliari:
So instead of just being like, you know, only about the quality of course of the, of the, you know, the quality of the materials, how it is, it is, it’s about the emotions. And at the end of the day, whenever you follow an influencer or content creators, you follow them also for their daily V-logs, their weekly V-logs. And imagine if part of that is also like getting the gift for their kids. It’s just not a part of the product, but it’s about also the, again, the feelings that you can get out of it.

Arlen:
Okay.

Alessandro Bogliari:
And… Because we were able to track everything, we were able to look at the return on investment, and they were able to sell a lot of items online. Again, we’re talking about thousands of dollars. So not something that you just, you know, with impulsivity, like you’ll just buy like that. But because you saw everything that is behind the scene, all the emotions, all the feelings, you want to have the same for your family.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Alessandro Bogliari:
And that was the connection. And that’s why influencer marketing works well. So that is for one big item, I would say. We also work, for example, for Pura. they do a fragrance, you know, like diffusers that you can bring at home.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Alessandro Bogliari:
And you can have like different type of like, you know, fragrances and flavors and, you know, and so on. And in that case, it was like, it was like not only looking at the items per se, but it was like, what is my typical day in life? And how can Pura help me out maybe in relax, for example, or I want to get back home from, you know, something stressful and then I can, you know, just get. back to my apartment and having these fragrance that can calm me or I want to prepare a dinner with friends and I’m gonna choose a specific fragrance. So with influencers all the time, it’s like no matter what you’re selling, it’s not just about a product. It’s about how you’re able to storytell that, right? 

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Alessandro Bogliari:
Tell a story behind the product. So in that case, for example, the call to action was to bring the people to have, I think either a discount on the website or a subscription model. And thanks to influencers, We can always push like promo codes, for example,

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Alessandro Bogliari:
and that works very well because you’re seeing the product, not in a, you know, not in a, I would say scripted and super polished, you know, like advertisement you can see maybe on TV, you see real people

Arlen:
You’re right.

Alessandro Bogliari:
that those people can be you. And maybe it’s going to be you, right? Because it’s the same family, same couples, the same single people.

Arlen:
Hmm?

Alessandro Bogliari:
And because of that, you recognize yourself in these other people and they’re going to be like, you know what? I think that. this item, this diffuser could be fantastic in my living room. And that’s why it works. Again, it goes behind and beyond the products. It’s about what it means for you during, like, you know, living your daily life.

Arlen:
Yeah, yeah, that’s awesome. And thank you for sharing those two case studies. And I’m glad you kind of broke it down into the company that had the larger product down to the smaller one. And as you can see in both cases,

Alessandro Bogliari:
works for both.

Arlen:
it works exactly.

Alessandro Bogliari:
Yes.

Arlen:
It’s applicable in both cases, influencer marketing, you know, from a large purchase item, like a trampoline, a backyard trampoline to a small, you know, essential oil diffuser. I mean,

Alessandro Bogliari:
this.

Arlen:
you know, the bottom line, and I think one of the main things I think is that people are kind of looking at these influencers almost as their friends, you know, or family members because they trust them. And the good influencers are the ones that kind of pull in their audience into almost their own family. They’re sharing as much as they can. They’re going through their day-to-day routines. And it’s almost like, yeah, you know, it’s my cousin. you know, that lives, you know, a couple of states down that, you know, is telling me about his life, the different products that he’s using. And it’s all just kind of seamlessly integrated into his day-to-day activities. 

Alessandro Bogliari:
Mm-hmm.

Arlen:
So it’s almost like they’re not necessarily selling per se, but you’re just seeing their experiences and you’re being sold on, you know, what it’s doing for them. 

Alessandro Bogliari:
Yes.

Arlen:
And I think that’s kind of the key thing there. And which that kind of brings me to the next question. You know, because… These days, you know, when we’re talking of influencer marketing, there’s a lot of influences out there and it could be almost overwhelming for a brand to find the right one. And so how do you really identify the right influencer you know, for your product or services?

Alessandro Bogliari:
That’s a good question. You’re totally right. These days, there are so many influencers or people that call themselves influencers.

Arlen:
Right.

Alessandro Bogliari:
And they’re not catching.

Arlen
Exactly.

Alessandro Bogliari:
First of all, we have to be sure who is an influencer will call themselves an influencer, first of all.

Arlen:
Mm.

Alessandro Bogliari:
When it comes to techniques that are different ones, we as an agency, we have been doing this for years now. So we have our own databases. We use third parties. We have connections with talent agencies all over the world. But overall, no matter what is your budget, When it comes to e-commerce, I would recommend to try to avoid vanity metrics, so number of followers and number of views. They can help you understanding a little bit, but it’s just part of the story. When it comes to e-commerce, I would contact certain influencers that on paper, they look good. So certain ranges, they are in a certain geolocation, especially if your e-commerce may be only ship, for example, like domestic, let’s say. Or you want to be sure that it’s the right niche. You want to be sure that the demographics of the person, of the influencers is also in line with you.

Arlen:
Yeah.

Alessandro Bogliari:
An example is that many times, sorry, many times brands, they look at all of the influencer, but they do not look at the demographics of their followers.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Alessandro Bogliari:
What’s the point where I sell the time is that to sell like through an influencer that maybe has certain interests, but their followers has other interests. Or for example, maybe someone is based out of LA, but for some reason, maybe they, let’s say that they were living in New York before that they moved to LA. but the majority of their followers is still in New York. And you’re trying to sell things in an e-commerce that only, let’s say, for any reason, ship only in California.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Alessandro Bogliari:
Wouldn’t make sense, right? So very important to look at demographics. And lastly, that is very crucial when it comes to e-commerce. If you’re able to ask historical data to these influencers that you selected, that would be the best. So ask them, for example, can you tell me how many clicks that you generated for that campaign, if it is possible to know? What is the typical? click through rate when you do an advertisement. If you ever got your posts white listed, right? 

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Alessandro Bogliari:
So boosted through or paid media, what were the results that the clients got? So sometimes they cannot share because of NDAs and I totally understand that. But if they can share without maybe telling the name of the company that they work for, by giving you a benchmark that is gonna be very helpful. Because the worst that could happen is that on paper, they have really good numbers. but they might not be able to influence the others in buying your product. So basically you’re not only paying them for the content, you’re paying them for the distribution and for the influence power.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Alessandro Bogliari:
So I would go very detail and asking them the most possible the metrics that you care the most. So again,

Arlen:
Hmm.

Alessandro Bogliari:
if it is an e-commerce and you have a tracking pixel in place and you know that you can track things, ask them. 

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Alessandro Bogliari:
Or for example, ask them in the past if they ever worked with promo codes, how many were redeemed, for example.

Arlen:
Right.

Alessandro Bogliari:
And usually they should know, right? 

Arlen:
Yeah.

Alessandro Bogliari:
Because either they know or the clients know, and usually they give them as a feedback.

Arlen:
Sure.

Alessandro Bogliari:
So I would go and just to finish on this, I would say, do your homework before. It’s always better to take more time and find the right people compared to rush it and then wasting money. 

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Alessandro Bogliari:
So, it’s better that you select the right ones and you are at the peak here. Then just free money, the influencers and then realizing that, oh, maybe they were not the right one. And now you have. basically waste the money for no reason.

Arlen:
Yeah, yeah, that’s that is so true. Your bottom line is you got to do that homework up front because,

Alessandro Bogliari:
Absolutely. All the time.

Arlen:
You know, the good thing it is, like you said, these days, the data is there, you know, you simple things by asking them, okay, if you were using promo codes and your previous relationships with brands, you know, how many were redeemed stuff like that, you know, how many purchases were done through the different relationships that you have and it’s, it’s available, you know, they, so they know those things. And so you want to know. And then, you know, secondly, like you said, finding those ones that really have the demographics of the customers that you wanna tap into. Cause you know,

Alessandro Bogliari:
So,

Arlen:
because there’s so many out there, I mean, you don’t wanna find an influencer. You know, like let’s say you, I know your company specializes in Gen Z, the Gen Z demographic and millennials, but like let’s say you’re a company and you’re trying to target baby boomers,

Alessandro Bogliari:
Mm-hmm.

Arlen:
but then you approach an influencer. whose audience are Gen Zers, that’s obviously a mismatch. And so if you don’t do your due diligence to take a look at that, then obviously that influence is not gonna be the right one for you. Now, another thing, let’s say we have some businesses that are listening, they’re kind of sold on this, they wanna get started, but their budget is limited. There’s a lot of businesses out there that especially in these days with our economy, inflation. people are watching everything that’s being spent. Could you share some strategies for small businesses with limited budgets, you know, to be able to, on how they can still leverage influencer marketing?

Alessandro Bogliari:
Absolutely. So even if this goes against my own business, do not use an agency. 

Arlen:
Mm-hmm. Okay.

Alessandro Bogliari:
Don’t do it. Like at the beginning, if you are like very small amounts, I would say, do like try to get your hands dirty yourself. And all the, when you’re like really either you have more budgets or you don’t have maybe the time or, you know, capacity to run like bigger campaigns, then you can go with an agency. But I would say that at the beginning it’s better if you try that yourself. And again, they’re like, you know, platforms outside that some of them they cost maybe some tens of dollars per month. Some others are like 60 per year. So it really depends. In that case, if you want to spend 60 on a platform, I would say it’s better if you go with an agency because at least you could have like a wide closed service with you. But if you are, let’s say maybe $5,000 or even less, like really like small budgets, the best would be to look for any maybe affordable solutions in terms of influencer marketing platforms, especially for the discovery side. 

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Alessandro Bogliari:
So you can go there, let’s say you’re selling shoes, for example, you can go and look for any experts that are selling shoes. And then you look for the different filters, let’s say that you find maybe 50 of them that you like, and then the real job starts about negotiation and scope of work. So it’s all about, you know… It’s not just the selection, you have to start sending them an email. In the email, be very specific, be very clear, be transparent.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Alessandro Bogliari:
Do not try to be cheap with the influencers when possible, because it’s their job. A lot of them, they do that full time. And nowadays things change it. So it’s very difficult to find people that are going to work for free or in exchange for discounts. 

Arlen:
Hmm. Right.

Alessandro Bogliari:
That is not how it works anymore. So I would select them. I would send them an offer based more or less like on the data that you have. 

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Alessandro Bogliari:
At the beginning, if it’s your first time, you’re going to commit. many mistakes, it’s normal as in anything. You will find out that maybe you overpaid people or maybe you didn’t look at certain things. But what I would say is that in general, find the one that you like, send them out an email with certain followups, tell them exactly what you have in mind. And you want to be on the same page from day one about

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Alessandro Bogliari:
how much to pay, what to expect, what is the scope of work. The scope of work when you do an agreement is very important. You want to be sure that you’re gonna post in that range of time, you know, by those deadlines, these are the things to say, these are the things not to say, then it also depends by you how much do you want to give freedom. 

Arlen:
Yeah.

Alessandro Bogliari:
We prefer usually to give freedom to the influencer to be their themselves, the real themselves and authentic. But maybe you can tell, for example, you know, there are certain keywords that we don’t want to be associated with and you can tell them in the guidelines.

Arlen:
Right.

Alessandro Bogliari:
So overall, I would say talk with them to understand what they want and what you want. The more you talk with the influencers, the more you can understand the psychology. behind that, because at the end of the day, it’s not a business to business.

Arlen:
Thank you.

Alessandro Bogliari:
 It’s a people to people type of business. If you think about it, right.

Arlen:
Yeah.

Alessandro Bogliari:
So I would say that only once you start doing the first post, you are able to add them, send the contract, having everything under control. You have all the different tracking pixels in place, especially for e-commerce is in this case, listening once you have that. What I would recommend it is do the first campaign, let’s say 10 different influencers, right.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Alessandro Bogliari:
And then you start looking at the voice performing and we start the next time you take maybe the top. free performers, you keep them and then you find for seven more. And then basically you optimize similar to what you would do for AB testing in display ads, right? You basically put the same money, same amount on each of them. You do AB testing for display ads. And then after a while you remove the ones that are not performing and you put more money in the one performing in order to,

Arlen:
Right.

Alessandro Bogliari:
you know, decrease your CPI, increase your CTR is the same concept also for influencers.

Arlen:
Mm.

Alessandro Bogliari:
And only after the moment, if you are like, you know what, we’re doing enough money. We’re doing enough revenues because of this one, but we don’t have people in-house, or we need experts, then it’s when you get an agency.

Arlen:
Mm.

Alessandro Bogliari:
An agency cannot just scale the game 10 times faster, because we know the people, we know how much to pay, we have connections, we can go faster.

Arlen:
Right.

Alessandro Bogliari:
But yeah, to finish on this, at the beginning, if you don’t have enough budget, why, let’s say, give it away, a big chunk of it to an agency when you can do it in-house? And then after that, once you understand things… I would say give it to someone else because it’s very time consuming. People do not realize how time consuming it is. And that’s why usually smaller, bigger brands give it to an agency so that they can basically can do everything else.

Arlen:
Yeah.

Alessandro Bogliari:
But we take care of, you know, every from finding them, negotiate the price, execute the campaign, agreements, logistics, area analysis, all of that then goes to the agency side.

Arlen:
Yeah, yeah, that’s awesome. And thanks for sharing that. Yeah, it’s good to know that from day one, yeah, you don’t need an agency. You can get into this on your own. You can do the due diligence and establish the relationships, do the negotiation and manage it. And then I like what you said as far as just like any type of marketing, you got to do testing. And so you don’t want to just necessarily just approach one influencer, do one campaign. approach a few, maybe set up three different campaigns and see how each one of these influencers performs over time. And then based on the results, then you know who to go double down with.

Alessandro Bogliari:
And you can easily see, for example, with promo codes, if you do have a system in place, and nowadays every type of e-commerce system has that, you can just export in a CSV all the promo codes used, and then you just like, you know, you see what is the sum of all of them, and you can see these protein-olive-free, these protein-hundred, you know, and then you know who is actually influencing the others in buying. So,

Arlen:
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, that’s a quick and easy way just to see who’s outperforming the others. Well, Alessandro, I’m always interested in also learning from, you know, the mistakes and the issues that other brands have had, because that’s where you kind of really learn. And so I wanted to see, can you talk about any of the challenges and pitfalls that brands have had dealing with influencer marketing? And what are some things that a brand should avoid when dealing with influencer marketing?

Alessandro Bogliari:
Absolutely. First of all, do not put the eggs in one basket. Do not pay only one influencer because you think it’s going to be the right one. No, even if it’s not their fault, the post could be shadow banned. The post could be posted at the wrong time and not going viral for any reasons. Right. So just diversify as you would do in everything. And secondly, I would say, especially for e-commerce system, even if I said before that, of course, nowadays you can track and you can do that. I will still change the mindset when it comes to influencer marketing. What I mean by that is that you shouldn’t look at influencer marketing as I put $1 in and then tomorrow or the same day I get $10 out.

Arlen:
Hmm.

Alessandro Bogliari:
It doesn’t work like that. Part of the life cycle of someone on social media is not to necessarily buy, it is to get inspiration. So maybe you might see… An influencer is talking about a product and then you don’t buy, but then you buy because of our remarketing campaign. 

Arlen:
Hmm.

Alessandro Bogliari:
So, you have to look at influencer marketing as a way to get your message out. Okay. Getting user-generated content that if you pay for media rights, you can use also in other distribution, right? You can put it on your website. You can maybe, you know, add, sorry, money on. And then also something I say all the time is that apart from like, you know, what is happening with, with the content per se, you also have the comments that are happening behind the post. 

Arlen:
Right.

Alessandro Bogliari:
So basically, sorry, basically what is happening is that you’re going to have user generated content, big distribution and comments that you can read. 

Arlen:
Mm.

Alessandro Bogliari:
And reading the comments, you can actually have real time feedback of what people like and what they don’t like.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Alessandro Bogliari:
But don’t look at it as just, I put $1 in, I’m going to get this the same day. 

Arlen:
Yeah.

Alessandro Bogliari:
It’s going to be longer, but with the same price, you get just so much more at the same time. So it’s 360 compared to the typical display ads where I put $1 in and then I can’t wait to get this out. Maybe sometimes it’s life cycle of an influencer market that takes a month for someone to buy. So if you change the mindset, then you’re going to be productive for you. If instead you start spending in an influencer market and be like, what is my money back?

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Alessandro Bogliari:
Oh, it’s already tomorrow, like, you know, it’s 24 hours. Why, why I’m not selling enough.

Arlen:
Right.

Alessandro Bogliari:
That could be a terrible way for you to test influencer marketing and then be like, you know what, this doesn’t work actually.

Arlen:
Mm.

Alessandro Bogliari:
It time be patient. And again, do your homework and finding the right people, track everything. If you do that properly, it’s going to be, in my opinion, one of the best channels to sell, if you look at CPM, CPI, CPC, whatever it’s going to be. But

Arlen:
Yeah.

Alessandro Bogliari:
if you’re not patient and you’re like looking as it would be in display ads. Google or whatever it is, the same day or tomorrow, double return, that’s not what influencer marketing is.

Arlen:
Yeah, yeah, it’s really good to hear because yeah, of course, with a lot of these marketing campaigns that brands do. Yeah, I mean, obviously, the bottom line is the brand wants sales, they want to get more revenue, they want to get a return on that investment. But you do have to when you’re looking at influencer marketing and even other types of marketing, you do have to look at some of the ancillary benefits that are coming along with that. And you mentioned some great ones, you know, the comments. that you’re getting, the engagements that the influencers are having with people, who are they engaging with, who aren’t they engaging with? What are some of the things that people are resonating with in the communications? And so all of that stuff is invaluable. You may not be able to pin a dollar amount on that, but when you think about it, those things are, they’re really invaluable and can really go a long way to help in a business, for sure. Well, Alessandro, as we get ready to wrap things up, I wanted to see, I’m always interested in the future of things, the future of a lot of these marketing things, because as we know, things change so quickly. So I wanted to see how you think the future of e-commerce and influence of marketing, how do you see it, you know, next five, 10 years, and are there any particular emerging trends or technologies that you see upcoming that a brand should be aware of?

Alessandro Bogliari:
Absolutely. So I’ve been studying what is happening in China and Indonesia for a few years now. And it’s, you know, out there is basically social commerce and live stream shopping. That’s, that’s what happens there. Right. So

Arlen:
Okay.

Alessandro Bogliari:
it’s what I’ve had, you know, like an async approach as we have in the States and in Europe. So you post something and then I might see six hours later, and then I have to click on a button and to go through a third party website in an embedded browser. There’s not going to have the same cookies that I have usually. that is not going to have the same pixels, it’s going to be very chaotic. So as of now in the US and in Europe, you know, TikTok, Instagram, they are trying to make the, I would say the flow a bit better from, I see something from the website that I follow to buying that product,

Arlen:
Right.

Alessandro Bogliari:
but we’re still kind of far away from what is happening in China and Indonesia. You know, many times people forget, but Indonesia is the fourth country by population, and that’s why a lot of the times they do a lot of tests in Indonesia, right? and she will know how big it is. So I would say that overall, we also created a report, actually two reports on our website. One is called, one is about social commerce and one is about livestream shopping. We analyzed, we basically asked the question to users and content creators. And there is still a lot of, I would say, skepticism when it comes to buying things online inside social media. So not like Amazon and well-known website, but all social media, there is still a detachment, I would say. So I don’t know when it’s gonna happen. I don’t think it’s gonna happen this year because it was supposed to be last year, but things are still gonna be slow. But most probably if the people in the US and Europe are gonna change their mindset when it comes to buying online, it might be very interesting to try to make the link between influencers and social commerce better. 

Arlen:
Right.

Alessandro Bogliari:
Because imagine if I’m watching a video on TikTok or Instagram Reels or YouTube Shorts. I see a product in. And then I can easily click on the link that is inside or maybe it’s popping up on the video.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Alessandro Bogliari:
I click on it, I add it to cart and then like how it happens right now in Instagram, once I put my credit card once it’s in the system together with my billing info. Look at smooth it is. Nowadays, the majority of people, as people listening in e-commerce, they know more than me. The majority of people leave the cart when they have to put their information on the credit card again, because

Arlen:
Right.

Alessandro Bogliari:
it’s not like, oh, it’s in the other room, whatever. or I’m walking, I don’t have Apple Pay with me, you know. So I would say social commerce can really create these smooth experience, this frictionless experience, but we’re not there yet.

Arlen:
Yeah.

Alessandro Bogliari:
Like TikTok UK, they do have it, but it’s still a smaller country compared to others. So

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Alessandro Bogliari:
I would say that the data is not there yet. And the last one, it’s also live stream shopping. I would say that up until, so live stream shopping just like for people listening, it’s a… you know, it’s this, I would say this way for people to sell in real time.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Alessandro Bogliari:
And so maybe let’s say you go on TikTok, you go on Instagram live and you can see people selling and they usually do it either from their apartment or from a store. And they can show you, for example, this bag in different colors, and then people can text you in real time, can I see them, can I see that bag on your shoulder? Can I see that, that shoes? How do they go together with that skirt? Whatever.

Arlen:
Right.

Alessandro Bogliari:
We can ask you that. That is the power of it. 

Arlen:
Mm.

Alessandro Bogliari:
But let me tell you why I don’t think that right now it’s that powerful in the US yet. I would say it is because of two reasons. One, we’re missing really good hosts. OK? An influencer can be a really good influencer, but not maybe be a host. 

Arlen:
right?

Alessandro Bogliari:
A host has to be someone that can talk for three hours, maybe, and be energetic.

Arlen:
Yeah,

Alessandro Bogliari:
And they have to be always on point.

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Alessandro Bogliari:
It’s difficult. And the second part, I would say, it is also about the incentives. Right now, if you go on a live streaming, there are not enough incentives for people. Unless I’m gonna have a big discount or a drop collections, you know, form effect, right, that I want to buy in that moment. Why should I invest one hour of my time during the day to go on a live streaming? So up until we are not able to, on the social commerce side, you know, maximize everything together and basically make it easier and smoother. And for live stream shopping, to make it an incentive for people to join. I don’t see it working well in the US.

Arlen:
Mm-mm.

Alessandro Bogliari:
If instead we’re gonna add these things on top, that is gonna be a fantastic opportunity for any e-commerce out there.

Arlen:
Yeah, for sure. Yeah, those are some great kind of glimpses into the future. As you mentioned, you know, some of these things are of course more adopted in other countries or I guess they’ve kind of taken off more in other countries like the social commerce and ability to sell. I think a lot of that as far as like with the US, a lot of it has to kind of deal with the social platforms. It almost seems like these social platforms have to just either Get fully integrated or embedded into some type of e-commerce platform or form a relationship with one of these platforms such as Shopify or you name it. Unless until that happens, until they’re tightly embedded, yeah, it’s not, it’s not a smooth process and people are going to be, you know, you know, there’s still kind of obstacles when somebody’s trying to purchase from, you know, let’s just say an Instagram reel or a post.

Alessandro Bogliari:
And there are these integrations already, especially with TikTok, like you can integrate with different platforms for e-commerce, but still I still feel that the education side is missing. 

Arlen:
Yeah,

Alessandro Bogliari:
A lot of people don’t know what is social commerce

Arlen:
right.

Alessandro Bogliari:
and a lot of them don’t know what is live stream shopping. 

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Alessandro Bogliari:
So we still needed the education on this, 

Arlen:
Yeah,

Alessandro Bogliari:
I would say.

Arlen:
that is true because there’s also that trust factor, 

Alessandro Bogliari:
awesome.

Arlen:
people trusting that, okay, they’re not familiar with doing it, is it safe?

Alessandro Bogliari:
Yes.

Arlen:
Is this really a scam? Is that really that brand selling it? 

Alessandro Bogliari:
Thanks a lot.

Arlen:
So that’s a whole nother thing though as well. 

Alessandro Bogliari:
Yes.

Arlen:
So you’re right, it’s gonna take some time, but hopefully within the next few years, it’s going to, it’s gonna improve. And I definitely see it happening for sure, as well as with the live stream shopping. And you mentioned some really valid points where You know, I’ve seen the line stream shopping. The, um, Amazon actually does it. They get influencers that, you know, go through, uh, kind of a time, timeline of different products that they kind of go through. And then they’re pitching them in real time. They’re talking about how they’re using them. Um, they, they’ve kind of targeted, um, cause you mentioned some key things there. You gotta have some hosting skills to do that. They’ve targeted influencers that have done hosting that may have done acting that are familiar with doing it. And so, you know, of course they have the budget to be able to compensate them for doing that. But I think, yeah, it’s, you know, as a smaller brand, yeah, if you get the right person, it’s still something that can definitely work. I see that for sure.

Alessandro Bogliari:
And just to add on that, like when you say Amazon, I guess you’re referring to Amazon live. And what I still say is that Amazon live, I think is doing a good job because you can easily see the products on the screen and you can buy them without leaving the live streaming. But a main challenge is that you don’t go on Amazon every day, 

Arlen:
Yeah.

Alessandro Bogliari:
but you go on TikTok and Instagram every day.

Arlen:
Right,

Alessandro Bogliari:
So basically Amazon is great in their technology, but they don’t have enough social activations, I would say.

Arlen:
That’s true

Alessandro Bogliari:
They are trying, but they are still missing that. While Instagram and TikTok, very good for social, not that good when it comes to buying products.

Arlen:
Yeah, exactly.

Alessandro Bogliari:
So you know, each of them have something, but not of them, they are both together.

Arlen:
Right, right. It’s kind of like they both have to kind of merge in a way, but you’re very right. When you’re going to Amazon, you’re already in mind of you’re trying to buy a product. 

Alessandro Bogliari:
Yeah,

Arlen:
You’re not just going on there casually.

Alessandro Bogliari:
exactly.

Arlen:
You’re just trying to talk to people or 

Alessandro Bogliari:
Very difficult.

Arlen:
see what’s going on.

Alessandro Bogliari:
Exactly.

Arlen:
Yeah.

Alessandro Bogliari:
We usually go like,

Arlen:
So.

Alessandro Bogliari:
I have to buy these and maybe you can also buy related items. It’s very difficult that you go on Amazon. I mean, I know people that is their way to relax. They go on Amazon and they’re like, I’m going to spend money. 

Arlen:
Right.

Alessandro Bogliari:
And but yes, it’s still missing that push. 

Arlen:
Yep.

Alessandro Bogliari:
Right now, it’s very pool. I would say when it comes to Amazon.

Arlen:
Yeah, very true, very true. Uh, well, this has been an awesome discussion, Alessandro. I really appreciate you coming on and, um, you know, I learned a lot. I can, I can go on talking about influencer marketing for hours and hours.

Alessandro Bogliari:
Of course.

Arlen:
It’s a, it’s a hot topic that is, uh, you know, really exciting to me. And I know as you, you as well. Uh, so yeah, this has been a great conversation. Um, but before we let you go, I always like to switch gears so our

Alessandro Bogliari:
Yes.

Arlen:
audience can get to know you just a little bit better. If you don’t mind sharing one closing fun fact, uh, that you think we’d be interested to know.

Alessandro Bogliari:
I don’t know if it’s a fun fact, but you know, because I spend all this time in front of a computer, all these digital things and metrics, the thing I love the most is cooking.

Arlen:
Okay.

Alessandro Bogliari:
And it’s the way where I basically just remove myself from a screen

Arlen:
Right.

Alessandro Bogliari:
and I go back to basic. Right. So I would say that everyone that, that’s my suggestion, advice, everyone that it works a lot of like in front of a computer,

Arlen:
Right.

Alessandro Bogliari:
try to make it your like, make it your fun things during the day, during the week. That is something where you don’t have to be with a device.

Arlen:
Right.

Alessandro Bogliari:
because sometimes you will just realize how stressed you are just to be next to your phone.

Arlen:
That’s true.

Alessandro Bogliari:
So, what I do is that whenever I cook, I just throw everything away

Arlen:
Mm-hmm.

Alessandro Bogliari:
and I go back to basic and I do things where I basically try to have my, you know, brain to relax because

Arlen:
Mm.

Alessandro Bogliari:
it’s so opposite compared to what I do that helps you like, you know, having a good time. And also sometimes breathing something that is different than a typical, you know, day to day. sort of operation that you’re into. So cooking, I mean, like it’s one of those things, I know that either you love it or hate it,

Arlen:
Right.

Alessandro Bogliari:
you know, like it’s one of those things in there. It’s difficult to have it in the meat, but that’s the thing that I do. Like it really relaxes me. It’s very fun. You can learn about cultures and people

Arlen:
No.

Alessandro Bogliari:
because of food. So

Arlen:
Right.

Alessandro Bogliari:
that’s what I try to do when I’m not in front of a computer.

Arlen:
Okay, great. Well, that’s awesome. Thank you for sharing that. And

Alessandro Bogliari:
course.

Arlen:
that’s a great piece of advice as well. You know, no matter what it is you’re doing, in your case, it’s cooking. That’s

Alessandro Bogliari:
Yes.

Arlen:
your way to kind of detach and unplug

Alessandro Bogliari:
Mm-hmm.

Arlen:
from all of this technology, because,

Alessandro Bogliari:
All done.

Arlen:
yeah, you have to do it. You know, you have to do it throughout your life, because otherwise, you know, it can be really stressful, like you said, just by having your phone next to you, even if you’re not even looking at it.

Alessandro Bogliari:
It’s a notification, little,

Arlen:
Yeah.

Alessandro Bogliari:
so I’m like, you know what, I’m going to remove it. I’m going to put like little, I do not disturb it. And for the next hour or two hours, I’m going to be in the kitchen and, you know,

Arlen:
Gotcha,

Alessandro Bogliari:
that’s for me.

Arlen:
yeah,

Alessandro Bogliari:
Yes.

Arlen:
that’s good stuff. Well, Alejandro, well, thanks again for sharing that, for sure. Lastly, before we do let you go, if you don’t mind sharing the best way for our listeners and viewers to get a hold of you if they’d like to pick your brain anymore about influencer marketing.

Alessandro Bogliari:
Absolutely. I would say a couple of things. So, you know, one for people, you know, like watching, but I’m, you know, I have a professional microphone for one reason, because we also host a podcast called the Influence Factor. And basically every Wednesday we go out with, you know, episodes about what is happening in the influencer marketing, created economy specifically. And we had like, you know, very good, you know, clients and brands on LinkedIn and Reddit and OkCupid and many others. So if you’re really into the topic, we go in detail with each different guest, again, every Wednesday on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube. And then if you said, if people want to beat my brain, feel free to add me on LinkedIn. I basically accept everyone that sends me a request, usually because you never know in life. So if you want to add me there, I also post. Every Tuesday I post a newsletter about what is happening in the social media industry, and I’m quite active on LinkedIn. So that is everything about like no professional. And if you study or are interested in what I cook and what I do, Instagram is going to be the main channel. But I would say that if you want to give it professional and picking your brain for business things, the podcast called The Influence Factor and my personal LinkedIn, just tap my name, you’re going to find me there.

Arlen:
Okay, great. Well, that’s awesome. Well, thank you for sharing that. 

Alessandro Bogliari:
Absolutely.

Arlen:
We’ll definitely be sure to have the links to your website, the podcast and the show notes there. And people can also connect with you, like you said, on LinkedIn, as well as Instagram, if they want to see what that last dish is that you cooked up. I’ll be sure to check that out myself. Well, it’s been awesome talking to you, Alessandro. Really appreciate our discussion and we thank you for joining us today on the e-commerce marketing podcast.

Alessandro Bogliari:
Thank you.

Podcast Guest Info

Alessandro Bogliari
CEO & Co-Founder of The Influencer Marketing Factory