• by Laurie Sullivan , Staff Writer @lauriesullivan, July 19, 2017

How do marketers evaluate influencer relationships?

Ross Fadner, director of event programming at MediaPost, led a panel discussion on the topic at OMMA LA on Wednesday. He asked the panelists to share some good, bad and ugly facts.

There's a lot of cleaning up that should be done in the influencer space, creating accountability, said Jeff Suhy, president and partner at Mod Op.

About 74% of marketers still struggle with the return on investment from influencer marketing because it's difficult to define a strategy, said Maria Sipka, cofounder and chief evangelist at Linqia.

It's not just about providing ROI, said Travis Hawley, VP of business development at Viral Nation -- defining it is important. Influencer marketing has the potential to be effective and it is maturing and being held to higher standards.

It's clearly a challenge to understand the dollars, but for Steve Abraham, EVP managing director at MediaCom LA, it's really about understanding whether ROI is the correct measurement to use. Tighter controls are also required, he said.