What is the carbon impact of an influencer marketing campaign?

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As the climate crisis worsens, influencer marketing is another sector of the industry that is coming under fire for the impact of its activities on the environment.

Whether it’s a plane ride for a paid photoshoot, a product donation, or a link follow, influencer marketing campaigns impact the environment in multiple ways. By measuring and understanding them, brands and KOLs can optimize carbon impact and mitigate or offset emissions.

In collaboration with enterprise carbon impact solution Sami, Kolsquare is developing an open-source tool that will enable brands and content creators to measure the precise impact of their posts and influencer marketin quality directors email database g campaigns.In this interview,

Michella Saliby , Product Manager at Kolsquare, explains the complexities of the project.


Is it difficult to measure the environmental impact of an influencer marketing campaign?
It's actually quite difficult. To calculate the overall carbon footprint of a campaign, we need to know the activities of all the influencers involved in it, as well as the brand's communications related to it . From the influencer's point of view alone, things might be simpler, because the only data they'll need is that relating to each published medium.

What kind of information are you talking about?
With Sami, we’ve identified three main categories of an influencer campaign that are responsible for the majority of emissions. The first is design – including photoshoots for each influencer and travel required. The second is distribution – the type of content, platforms, and results such as views and engagement, etc. And the third is the actual increase in sales – which is usually the goal of the campaign. If the brand uses promo codes and tracking links, we can have this exact data. And if you already know the carbon impact of one of your products, you can add the impact of your sale.

Will both the brand and the content creator have to provide the information, or only the brand?
Both. For KOLs, we need information such as whether they travelled while the article was being written , and everything related to the trip, such as how they travelled, the type of accommodation, the type of food they ate during the trip. We need to know what kind of electronic equipment they used and for how long; whether they received any branded gifts for fan contests, and if so, where and how the prizes were sent. We also need to know all the technical information regarding the messages themselves, such as the weight in MB, number of views, duration, audience location, etc.