Influencer marketing agency Hypetap has unveiled its latest innovation: Hypetap Intelligence. 

This new data-driven service aims to give brands deeper insights into their influencer marketing efforts. Hypetap founder and CEO Detch Singh says the product solves a long-standing problem in the industry: the lack of comprehensive data analysis comparable to other marketing channels. 

“We realized that influencer marketing lacked some of the industry research and insights that other channels have when it comes to analyzing what’s happening in the market,” Detch explains.

Developing Hypetap Intelligence presented challenges, particularly in data organization. “We’re looking at tens of billions of data points, so it took a long time for our CTO, Data Science Lead, and their corresponding teams to organize that,” Detch reveals. “I’m talking years of arranging the data and putting together prototype products and services, which we could then test with our clients.”

Left to right: Dr Melissa Gray (Data Science Lead), Dhruv Singh (CTO), Bryce Coombe (Managing Director, Australia), Detch Singh

As influencer marketing continues to claim a larger share of marketing budgets, Hypetap Intelligence offers brands a suite of features designed to optimize campaign performance and justify spending. From competitive analysis to sentiment evaluation, the service promises to bring a new level of sophistication to the industry.

“Influencer marketing has become such a significant line item for many brands that they want to know how well it’s doing and make sure they’re planning for it appropriately,” Detch says.

How Hypetap Intelligence Deepens Influencer Marketing Insights

Detch explains how Hypetap Intelligence differentiates itself in the market: “Other media that’s been around for a long time have loads of data on entire verticals. They can illustrate very clearly what’s happening in the market. Influencer marketing has never had that, and that’s where we can help our clients tremendously. They’ve always had this data for their other channels, which was a big gap for them.”

Hypetap Intelligence consists of two main components: intelligence and insights. 

The intelligence section offers competitive analysis, including share of voice and estimated spend comparisons. 

Detch notes, “You can clearly see how much share of the influencer marketing landscape you have relative to your competitors. We can also get a good idea of how much you’re spending relative to your competitors. Are you overinvesting? Are you underinvested?”

The insights component focuses on campaign effectiveness, offering sentiment analysis, brand lift studies, and benchmarking tools. 

Detch highlights the depth of their sentiment analysis: “Our studies go much deeper than just determining if the sentiment was positive, negative, or neutral. We analyze what audiences are saying. Is there an intent to purchase? Was there brand discovery as a result of this? How much commentary was about the brand and the product? Were audiences asking specific questions that can help inform comms strategy?”

This level of detail helps brands understand the true value of their engagement metrics. Detch illustrates this point with an example: “You might have a low cost per engagement (CPE). We didn’t pay much for a high engagement volume, but how great was the engagement? It was cheap. You got lots of it. But what if it was all negative?”

To ensure clients can fully leverage these insights, Hypetap provides comprehensive support. “When we do these studies, they are tech-enabled but human-powered,” Detch explains. “We’ve got an entire team led by Dr. Melissa Gray, who leads the Hypetap Intelligence offering, and we’ll put together a sophisticated, meaningful report based on this data.”

As brands face increasing pressure to justify their marketing spend, particularly in the current economic climate, Detch believes Hypetap Intelligence offers significant value. “What we’re able to do with Hypetap Intelligence is get a stronger understanding of the landscape that the brand is playing in and showcase ROI through deeper insights.”

Addressing criticisms that influencer marketing is difficult to measure regarding direct commercial return, Detch notes that the industry has made significant strides in this area. “To be fair to influencer marketing, there are lots of ways now that we can measure direct impact, down to sales attributable to campaigns or pieces of content,” he states.

However, he points out that Hypetap Intelligence goes beyond these traditional metrics. “There are many bespoke ways to plug into what brands are already doing regarding ROI.”

Real-World Impact

Beyond competitive benchmarking, the tool also aids in campaign timing. 

Detch elaborates, “We’ve even got some of our clients working with us on bespoke projects where they’re overlaying other data on top of our share of voice data. For example, we’ve got a travel client that plans to overlay their bookings data on top of the share of voice data to a better time when they should have their campaign in the market.”

The industry vet shares an anonymized case study of an FMCG client that showcases the importance of looking beyond efficiency metrics. 

“We had a campaign where one of the channels was extremely efficient. All the CPMs were low. We got huge amounts of reach and much commentary,” Detch recounts. “When we did the sentiment analysis, we found that much of that commentary was negative, hate speech and trolling.”

This insight led to a strategic pivot. 

“Based on that negative commentary, we adjusted our strategy for that channel and amended the messaging. We also knew that the current strategy was working effectively on the other two channels, so we could double down and invest more there,” Detch explains.

Another example involves a retailer operating in a competitive environment. 

“We’re doing monthly competitor reports on the share of voice, competitor spend, and the kind of messaging each of their competitors uses in the current economic climate, whether that’s effective or less effective than what they’re doing,” Detch reveals.

Client feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. “This is exactly what we’ve been looking for for the last few years, and it hasn’t existed,” Detch cites a testimonial.

“It’s been very validating as we get this out in the market,” he shares. “It’s a very clear product market fit.”

Responsible Approach

Hypetap Intelligence prioritizes data privacy and responsible analysis. 

“Everything is anonymized and aggregated,” Detch states, adding that the tool uses only publicly available data for anything specific to particular influencers. The company’s engineering and data science teams collaborate closely with legal advisors throughout product development. 

“We audit these practices regularly. We’ve got internal audits that we run quarterly and take quite seriously,” Detch stresses.

Global Expansion

As Hypetap Intelligence expands its global footprint, Detch sees universal applicability for the technology and its corresponding service. 

“I think we’re giving [brands] a significant competitive edge when it comes to understanding the landscape when they’re planning with our intelligence, and we’re also helping them understand effectiveness and optimize for stronger campaigns moving forward,” he notes.

The company is actively exploring new markets, primarily focusing on Europe. 

Detch reveals, “We’ve just finished building expanded capability for our insights to work across multiple languages in Europe. “We’re already doing that in a campaign for an FMCG client across seven countries and five languages.”

Though details remain confidential, Detch hints at bespoke data science projects tailored to specific industries. “Product development is a never-ending cycle,” the founder concludes.