I’ve seen large incremental budgets dangled to media reps in RFPs for “The Big Idea” throughout my career. However, the rep who is able to tap into these dollars is few and far between. In the last 6 months, I’ve brought in more than seven figures and won The Big Idea budget every time by employing my secret weapon: influencer marketing.

Influencer marketing is undoubtedly one of the hottest marketing strategies of our time. In this piece, I lay out the 5 reasons why influencer marketing is by far and away the best use of these dollars, as follows:

1. The constantly fresh content created by influencers prevents creative burn out mid campaign.
2. Influencers have the ability to create authentic content that speaks naturally to their audiences, boosting engagement.
3. Influencer content does not get blocked by ad blockers and offers the viewer a more seamless user experience.
4. Influencer content yields a higher ROI than traditional media buys.
5. Brand safety and placement transparency are possible with well-run influencer marketing.

Eliminate Ad Burnout

Anybody who has been through it knows that creative burnout is no joke. If you are on the agency side, creative burnout could mean losing the client. In contrast to traditional advertising, where the same advertising executives are responsible for developing the campaign creative, influencer marketing leverages the influencers’ creative geniuses to continually produce fresh and exciting content.

Authenticity For Increased Engagement

When influencers endorse products authentically, the endorsement is a natural fit for their audience, resulting in fans who are much more likely to purchase a product and engage with a brand. That’s why the followers watch the influencer in the first place: to hear what the influencer has to say and build a connection with the influencer. Audiences appreciate not being force fed another interruption advertisement that may or may not be relevant to them.

Make Ad Blockers Work In Your Favor

According to a recent report by PageFair and Adobe Systems, the number of internet users using ad blockers increased 40% in the past 12 months. That was before Apple facilitated ad blocking for Safari on iOS9. While display advertising is suffering from these developments, influencer marketing is thriving because influencer content is native and is not blocked by ad blockers.

Increase Your Earned Media For Higher ROI

When done right, influencer marketing provides the highest ROI in advertising. According to a study released by Burst Media, CPGs average ROIs as high as $11.33 per $1 invested. Traditional digital media ROI ranges between 2x-4x depending on whom you are speaking with and the specific campaign. Either of those numbers is far lower than influencer ROI which ranges from 5x-11x. From gaming to travel, this influencer marketing can push the needle for marketers across industries.

Transparency & Brand Safety

Another advantage of “The Big Idea” (aka Influencer Marketing) is that the question of ad “viewability” does not apply. One of the biggest concerns in display advertising is whether the viewer actually saw the advertisement. A report by Infectious Media found that up to 54% of digital advertising campaigns go unseen. In contrast, when an influencer publishes a piece of branded content, people are specifically going to the influencers’ channels to view that content.

Also, because influencers have been chosen by brands and their posts have been pre-approved, brand safety is no longer an issue. Finally, all of the problems you run into with traditional digital media buys (i.e. inventory, placement transparency) are resolved: with influencer marketing you get what you pay for.

The biggest idea of all would be to swap these budgets all together. Why not RFP for the real ROI driver — Influencer Marketing — and use those incremental dollars for the standard digital media buys?

Article Written By: Misha Talavera