[Part 4/4] Actions Speak Louder than Words: The Social Playbook for Behavioral Data

By Henley Worthen · September 26, 2022

[Part 4/4] Actions Speak Louder than Words: The Social Playbook for Behavioral Data

Partnerships for proven ROI

The creator economy is the economy. Influencers are becoming more integrated and aligned with brands, many of them holding stake in the companies they represent and acting as consultants for wider brand positioning. Partnerships are the pinnacle of today’s marketing strategies. With dollars on the table and brand perception at stake, it’s important that strategists utilize measurements that let that project ROI more accurately.

We’ve broken out our latest report, Watching is Better than Listening: How to build brand preference using social behavior into a four-part mini-series. In our fourth and final segment, we’re looking at the ways consumer & behavioral insights can help brands mitigate risk and form partnerships with proven ROI.

Keep reading to find out how to:

  • See what niche categories are driving web traffic
  • Hone in on specific creators to assess value and weigh options
  • Benchmark effectiveness of partnerships before, during, and after campaigns


Allbirds footwear brand can optimize partnerships by targeting its driving categories

A direct-to-consumer brand like Allbirds relies on web traffic to make the vast majority of sales. Behavioral analytics that reveal related category interests can help this growing brand form strategic influencer partnerships and target the content types that are driving web traffic. This knowledge takes the risk out of decisions and content strategy and contributes to community building and brand loyalty.

Web browsing data gives you the ability to see what the visitors of your owned website are viewing on social video. This helps you increase funnel optimization and partnership effectiveness. 

Within these wider video categories are niche communities that offer a large addressable audience of consumers for a brand like Allbirds to reach their target. 

Allbirds’ web visitors are 21x more likely to watch videos about Rowing (within the Sports video category). This insight can help Allbrids sift through the endless creators on social video to find ones that are already engaging their target customer. 

Alternatively, if Allbirds’ goal is to broaden reach, the brand could go for a niche category with a smaller affinity like Spa content. Partnering with an influencer who speaks to this niche audience could help increase that affinity from 10x. Then, Allbirds would be able to track that growth by monitoring the interconnections between social video consumption and online shopping


Go deeper than niche categories to single out the perfect influencer

Fashion subscription brand, Rent the Runway, partnered with Clevver Style from Hearst with a try-on haul. This popular brand can rest assured that this partnership is an effective one as they are able to see that her audience is 18x more likely to visit the Rent the Runway website after watching her content. 

High web-visit affinities can mitigate risk for marketers because they already know that this influencer is a proven effective funnel driver for the site. However, these insights are also helpful for measuring campaign success. After a campaign or partnership has been executed, analysts can measure how those affinities increase or decrease. 


The 4-Part Social Video Playbook: In review

Over the past few weeks, we’ve provided four deep dives into our report, Watching is Better than Listening: How to build brand preference using social behavior, for busy marketers who need to bring new insights and ideas to their next meeting. 

While Social Listening is a popular insight strategy amongst today’s brands, it leaves many marketers with major blindspots. The bottom line is monitoring views & engagements doesn’t tell you what your audience actually prefers, shops for, and searches for online. 

Here’s the Tubular take on how going beyond views & engagements can help you get ahead:

  1. Get ahead of competition by understanding the vast majority of silent social media users

Content & creators shouldn’t be evaluated based on their audience’s likes & comments because the vast majority of users don’t engage this way — but that doesn’t mean they’re not willing to purchase your products. Surface level measurements tell us very little about the consumer value of the audience and their relationship to your brand. Go deeper to get ahead.

  1. Create content that resonates by understanding adjacent interests 

Social listening techniques don’t tell us what else your audience is interested in. Audience Also Watches tells you what audiences prefer to watch, helping you create content that is relevant & evergreen. Evergreen content is key because it continues to rack up views over many months and builds loyalty. 

  1. Mitigate risk when investing in new social ventures

Venturing into new wave technologies, like NFTs and Virtual Realities, to reach Gen Z audiences can be tested without the risk. Before investing time and money into your own Roblox game, learn how to use behavioral insights to ensure the success of your new concept. 

  1. Partner with creators based on ROI projections & addressable audience size

Creators are a massive force that direct the economy and dictate consumer trends and behaviors. Focus on behavioral insights to evaluate the consumer landscape within niche categories and creator audiences.

Ready to turn the lights on and cast out all branding blindspots? Check out the full-length report here: Watching is Better than Listening: How to build brand preference using social behavior.

Be ahead of the curve in
the age of video.