The evolution of influencer marketing has brought unparalleled opportunities for brands. But it’s also created some murky tactics, including undeclared partnerships and hidden collaborations. That’s where marketing analytics platform Ravineo, which officially launched on Nov. 12, comes in.
Ravineo lets brands and agencies make smarter, data-driven decisions about their influencer strategies in real time, using AI to identify where and when brands are mentioned on social media.
This month, Ravineo launched its Influencer Analytics feature to improve understanding of brand exposure across influencer content.
“What we bring in is AI to detect the brands automatically,” said Jan Rezab, CEO and co-founder of Ravineo. “Frankly, we’re just taking what was there, and doing it through AI and being smart and standardized about it.”
Ravineo uses AI technology to help brands identify all brand mentions on platforms such as Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok, including undisclosed partnerships and hidden collaborations, so they can fully understand the impact of their influencer relationships.
Although Rezab wouldn’t say which brands use the platform, (firms have had access since Feb), he said it counts some of the largest beauty and fashion brands as clients. It is currently working with 100 companies and more than 1,000 users are on the platform for its capabilities like auditing influencers, listing, tracking, reporting, and researching.
“[Brands] came to us and said, ‘Look, we got to have some structure here,’” said Rezab.
Distinguishing branded from non-branded content
A significant issue in the creator space is the challenge of distinguishing branded content from non-branded content, said Rezab.
Creators have found that labeling a post as “sponsored content” does not always achieve the same level of engagement as posts that do not have that label.
In Ravineo’s November 2024 analysis of over 70,000 influencer posts (including images and videos) on Instagram, 13,432 were identified as partnerships. Of these partnerships, 80% were not labeled as such, while only 19% were properly indicated.
The team established criteria to define what qualifies as a “sponsored post.” Using its AI index tool, the visibility of a brand in a post determines the likelihood of it being a sponsored post. The index operates on a scale from one to 10, with 10 representing “super-prominent.” This study only considers posts rated as nine or 10. Through manual verification, over 90% of these posts were confirmed to be sponsored, said Rezab.
“We know by the brands directly that these are paid partnerships—and we know they are not declared,” said Rezab
When creators don’t label a post as “branded content,” it’s more challenging for brands to evaluate the success of the content and figure out whether the creator is the right fit.
