Earned Media Value — EMV — has long been a favoured metric for quantifying the success of influencer marketing campaigns in monetary terms. It is an estimate of the amount of money that would have been spent on a traditional media campaign with the same impact. It was devised during the early days of social media and influencer marketing when the predominant objective of campaigns was building brand awareness. But is EMV still a relevant indicator for calculating ROI?
In the early days of social media, EMV was the KPI by which to measure a campaign's success or failure. But as social media and influencer marketing matures, new, more concrete metrics emerge for measuring the impact of campaigns. E-commerce and social commerce, for example, provide marketers with a means of directly linking influencer campaigns to sales and conversions through promo codes and tracking links.
In addition to likes and comments, marketers now have a range of engagement metrics such shares, saves, plays, and views to evaluate impact. It is also possible to evaluate the sentiment behind engagement metrics for greater understanding of how the campaign and content was received by the audience.
Strategies that involve fixed payment, per post or a series of posts, and measure engagement still dominate the industry. But as influencer fees rise and new platforms and formats force marketers to stretch budgets, the pressure to link influencer marketing to a tangible ROI is more intense than ever.
Earned media refers to the worth of the visibility or exposure that a brand gains from a campaign. In practical terms, earned media reveals the value of actions like word-of-mouth, consumer reviews, social media posts, media coverage, or blog mentions. These organic mentions are generated by people outside of the brand, which marketers can tap into to grow its presence even further.
Earned media value aims to assign a monetary value to the reach and engagement generated by sponsoring an influencer to create a social media post. This metric estimates the equivalent amount of money that would need to be spent on traditional media to achieve the same impact.
For example, on the Kolsquare platform, we provide detailed EMV data for individual influencer posts and aggregate this data to estimate the total EMV for a campaign. This helps brands quantify the value of their influencer marketing efforts by translating engagement into a monetary figure, thus facilitating a more tangible evaluation of campaign ROI
Assigning earned media a monetary value enables marketers to distinguish and compare earned media results to paid media activities.
It is similar to cost-per-mile (CPM) calculation. CPM seeks to understand how much it costs a brand to reach a number of people, and whether that is more beneficial than other channels.
However, earned media value goes a step further by assessing the earnings expected from the reach and engagement that an influencer provides This comprehensive approach offers a more detailed understanding of the influencer's impact, enabling businesses to better gauge the return on investment from their influencer marketing efforts.
EMV is calculated by placing a monetary value on indicators marketers are already tracking, such as likes, comments, shares, and impressions. Its credibility issues stem from a general confusion over how to calculate the value of indicators, how it is calculated, and what it then tells us about the impact of a campaign or marketing strategy.
The confusion only worsens as there is no single standard for setting the initial indicator values upon which the calculation of EMV relies, and values can vary according to individual market conditions. In addition, social media platforms like TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube do not set or validate values for engagement metrics on their platforms.
This means brands and platforms must customise EMV settings to suit their own purposes.
This leads to confusion and misunderstandings about what EMV represents and how to estimate it, especially when marketers attempt to compare campaigns without a uniform baseline.
Yet, there are some predefined frameworks to follow. The US marketing firm Ayzenberg Group’s Earned Media Value Index is recognised as the first index on the market and widely accepted as a global industry standard.
Kolsquare uses the Ayzenberg Index algorithm to calculate EMV on its platform. The algorithm incorporates media buying data, reporting analytics of Fortune 500 companies, and third-party research to arrive at values for individual metrics that are updated regularly in line with market fluctuations.
Taking these complications into account, we have defined our own technique at Kolsquare. We calculate EMV for influencers and campaigns using the Ayzenberg Index as the base value. Here is the formula:
EMV = The number of likes × the value of a like + the number of comments × the value of a comment + the estimated impressions of a post / 1,000 × value of 1,000 impressions
Let's walk through an example calculation for EMV using the provided formula. We'll use the following values:
Now, let's plug these values into the formula:
The final part of the earned media value calculation is to total the components. As a result, in this example, the EMV would be $2,000.
This value means that a brand creating a piece of content with an influencer is likely to gain around $2,000 worth of attention and interest. This is not the exact ROI of the campaign; this dollar value is simply a guide to the benefits from the increased viewers and share of voice from the content produced.
Determining an average earned media value is inherently challenging due to significant variability across industries, individual campaigns, and calculation methods. There isn't a standardised average EMV because each campaign's impact and engagement metrics differ widely.
Determining a good EMV is near-impossible, especially with little access to an average value. It's highly dependent on the context of your campaign and the expected return on investment. However, there are some guidelines.
Like on any other digital channel, your EMV should exceed the cost of your campaign. For example, if you invest $10,000 in a campaign and achieve an EMV of $50,000, the ROI would be considered positive.
Comparing your EMV to past campaigns can also provide a benchmark for success. It's also important to consider that you will have other gains from your campaign, namely, increased sales or followers.
EMV assigns an aggregate value to the KPIs you’re already tracking—likes, comments, shares, etc. In doing so, it attempts to measure the nebulous concept of ‘brand awareness’ generated by an influencer's social media posts or influencer marketing campaigns.
Being able to assign a monetary result to brand awareness generated by a social media campaign enables marketers to justify investments and activities. For C-level managers who are less likely to be involved in the day-to-day workings of an influencer marketing campaign, an analysis of EMV from one campaign compared to another helps to inform decision-making.
“Often people who’ve worked in American companies love this KPI because it speaks the same language as advertising; you’ve got €50,000 – €100,000 a year for influencer marketing, and EMV is great because opposite that, it shows you’ve earned X-amount with your campaign. Where it is useful is not to use it as a one-shot metric but to compare how well different campaigns have worked,” Omnicom PR Group Head of Digital and Influence Anne-Laure Barieraud told influencer marketing professionals at the Influencer Marketing Klub in Paris recently.
“[But] in the last 10 years, we’ve done a better job at proving that influencer marketing works. More qualitative KPIs can tell us if we’ve had an impact on purchasing behaviour, on the audience and perception of the product. It goes further than EMV.”
Those who dispute the value of EMV as an indicator argue it is popular because it provides a simple answer to a complex question, allowing marketers to draw concrete conclusions when there may not actually be any.
Detractors also argue that EMV does not measure the variety and tonality of interactions and whether they are bringing meaningful connections or consider the difference between a spontaneous message and an advertisement.
“Moreover,” warns the French Union of Public Relations Specialists, “this method consists of artificially attributing a market value to the spontaneous reactions of an audience. It’s the digital equivalent of the Advertising Value Equivalency (AVE), which tries to assign a market value to an item by comparing it to the value of advertising space.”
However, EMV is just one indicator in a range of many that can be used to draw conclusions about the performance of an influencer or influencer marketing campaign. Its value as an indicator resides in how it is applied to the reporting and analysis process.
As with any influencer marketing campaign, the first and most crucial step is to establish your specific goals; if sales or conversions are the goal, EMV is perhaps not the most important indicator for measuring performance.
But if the goal is generating awareness and reach or competitor benchmarking and analysis, EMV can be a useful aggregator and one of the better ways to judge whether you've impacted your target audience. You can also use an adjustment factor to ensure it fits your goals.
Secondly, and equally importantly, transparency around the baseline calculation of EMV is paramount. So is ensuring all team members—internal and external—are working off the same baseline values and calculations. Anything less will render comparable analyses unreliable.
So, to EMV or not to EMV? Let’s give the last word from Kolsquare Founder and CEO Quentin Bordage.
“In an ideal world, one day the industry will have a standardized method for calculating EMV that is validated by the platforms,” he says. “EMV is not perfect, but it’s the only relevant aggregated indicator. Valuation of engagement can be challenged and personalized, and calculation should be more transparent in the market to allow comparison.”
Kolsquare is Europe’s leading Influencer Marketing platform, offering a data-driven solution that empowers brands to scale their KOL (Key Opinion Leader) marketing strategies through authentic partnerships with top creators.
Kolsquare’s advanced technology helps marketing professionals seamlessly identify the best content creators by filtering their content and audience, while also enabling them to build, manage, and optimize campaigns from start to finish. This includes measuring results and benchmarking performance against competitors.
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