Why brands are now spying on competitors' influencer playbooks

Influencer marketing rules are shifting in India: brands now must go beyond inward-looking campaigns and scan competitive landscape, monitoring rival playbooks and adopting proven tactics for better outcomes.

- Pratishtha Bagai

As influencer-marketing budgets surge, but return on investment (ROI) lags, brands are demanding concrete, actionable insights into what actually works, fuelling the rise of a new service sector focused on in-depth competitor analysis.

Major consumer brands have begun enlisting influencer-marketing agencies to conduct forensic studies on rival campaigns. These studies analyse factors such as the influencers who were tapped, the budget behind each campaign, who drove the highest engagement, and, most critically, what the return on investment looked like. The shift comes in response to complaints from brands about heavy spends yielding disappointing returns, making data-backed strategy more urgent than ever.

“The playbook for an optimal influencer campaign is in constant flux, driven by the ever-shifting social media algorithm,” said Praanesh Bhuvaneswar, co-founder of influencer marketing SaaS platform Qoruz.