In a MediaBrief exclusive, Rohit Khanna, Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer at Eleve Media, speaks about the evolution of influencer marketing from a reach-driven discipline to a performance-focused growth channel, the increasing emphasis on ROI and attribution, and the growing integration of creator-led campaigns within broader marketing strategies. Khanna also shares how brands are redefining success metrics, how agencies are balancing creative authenticity with business objectives, and how new-age platforms are helping deliver more measurable campaign outcomes. Read on.
As creator marketing matures into a more structured, performance-driven discipline with an unambiguous focus on measurable outcomes, agencies are redefining how they deliver value to both brands and creators. Speaking with MediaBrief about how Eleve Media positions itself within this evolving ecosystem, where creator-led campaigns are no longer judged by reach alone but by strategic impact, Rohit Khanna, Co-Founder and Chief Operating Officer at Eleve Media, says, “The influencer marketing ecosystem has evolved significantly from being primarily visibility-driven to becoming far more strategic and outcome-oriented. At Eleve Media, we position ourselves not merely as campaign facilitators, but as long-term brand and creator partners focused on building meaningful, measurable impact.”
“Today,” he says, “brands are looking for integrated solutions where storytelling, audience alignment, and business objectives work together cohesively. Our approach therefore focuses on identifying creators whose audience behaviour and content language align organically with a brand’s positioning rather than pursuing scale alone.”
“At the same time, campaigns are becoming increasingly data-led,” says Khanna. “This means stronger emphasis on audience insights, platform behaviour, engagement quality, and post-campaign analysis. The role of agencies today is to balance creativity with accountability, ensuring campaigns remain culturally relevant while also delivering against clearly defined business outcomes.”
Brand expectations: measurable outcomes vs. reach
Touching on how brand expectations around influencer marketing deliverables have evolved, particularly the shift from traditional reach and engagement metrics to measurable outcomes, Khanna says, “Brand expectations today are far more mature and performance-conscious compared to a few years ago. Earlier, influencer marketing was largely evaluated through vanity metrics such as likes, impressions, and follower counts. While visibility still matters, brands are now equally focused on deeper engagement quality, audience relevance, and conversion-linked outcomes.”
He adds, “There is also greater scrutiny around authenticity and audience credibility. Brands increasingly want to understand whether creator audiences are genuinely engaged and aligned with the target consumer profile rather than simply large in scale.”
“Additionally,” Khanna says, “marketers are expecting stronger strategic integration, where influencer campaigns contribute meaningfully to larger brand and business objectives instead of functioning as isolated digital activities. This shift is pushing agencies and creators alike to adopt more accountable and insight-driven execution models.”
From awareness to conversion-focused campaigns
With influencer marketing evolving toward greater accountability, brands are prioritizing tangible business outcomes from creator partnerships. Addressing whether this has triggered a visible shift from broad awareness campaigns to tightly defined, conversion-oriented objectives across categories, Khanna says, “There is definitely a visible shift toward sharper, objective-led influencer campaigns.”
He continues, “While awareness continues to remain important, particularly for launches and brand-building exercises, many categories are now approaching influencer marketing with more defined performance expectations. Sectors such as beauty, fashion, fintech, D2C, and lifestyle are increasingly looking at creators not just for reach, but for their ability to influence purchase consideration and drive measurable action. This has led to greater emphasis on creator-audience fit, platform selection, and content formats designed around consumer behaviour.”
“That said, the objective ultimately depends on the category and stage of the brand,” says Khanna.
“Not every campaign needs to be conversion-first. The real evolution lies in brands becoming more intentional about defining success metrics upfront rather than treating influencer marketing as a broad experimentation channel.”
Balancing creative freedom with brand guidelines
As the tension between creative freedom and brand compliance intensifies, agencies are rethinking their planning and execution models from the ground up. Explaining how Eleve Media navigates this balance, Rohit Khanna says, “One of the biggest shifts in influencer marketing today is the move toward collaborative execution rather than purely transactional partnerships. Brands understandably want consistency, compliance, and measurable performance, while creators need enough flexibility to maintain authenticity with their audiences.”
“Agencies,” he says, “therefore play a crucial intermediary role. At Eleve Media, the focus is on building structured briefing systems that clearly communicate campaign objectives, guardrails, and deliverables without over-controlling the creator’s voice.”
He continues, “The reality is that audiences respond best when content feels natural to the creator’s style and community. Overly scripted communication often impacts credibility and engagement. The balance lies in aligning creators strategically with campaigns where brand messaging can integrate organically rather than forcing uniformity across all content.”
Top campaign pitfalls: selection, briefing, alignment, measurement
With the pressure to deliver measurable results intensifying, brands and agencies are scrutinizing every stage of campaign execution to identify where efforts most frequently fall short. Addressing whether the weakest link lies in creator selection, briefing, content alignment, or measurement frameworks, Khanna says, “One of the biggest gaps still lies in strategic alignment at the early stages of campaign planning. Many campaigns continue to prioritise creator popularity over audience relevance and contextual fit, which can dilute effectiveness even if reach numbers appear strong.”
“Briefing,” he says, “is another area where challenges emerge. Either the brief becomes too restrictive, limiting authenticity, or too vague, resulting in inconsistent messaging and execution. Strong campaigns typically come from clear objective-setting combined with collaborative creative alignment.”
He continues, “Measurement frameworks are still evolving. While engagement metrics are easily available, accurately measuring long-term brand impact, consideration, or cultural relevance remains more complex. As the ecosystem matures, the industry will need more sophisticated attribution and evaluation models beyond surface-level performance indicators.”
Attribution evolution and reliable ROI tools
As brands demand clearer proof of return on investment, attribution in influencer marketing is undergoing a fundamental transformation. Touching on how this evolution is unfolding and which tools and methodologies now offer the most reliable links between creator content and business outcomes, Khanna says, “Attribution in influencer marketing is becoming significantly more sophisticated as brands demand clearer visibility into business impact.”
“Earlier,” he says, “campaigns were often evaluated largely through engagement metrics, but today marketers are increasingly looking at conversion pathways, audience actions, and contribution to broader funnel objectives.”
He continues, “Tracking mechanisms such as affiliate links, platform analytics, promo codes, pixel integrations, and performance dashboards are helping improve visibility into measurable outcomes. However, attribution in influencer marketing still cannot be viewed entirely through a last-click lens because creator content often contributes to awareness, consideration, and trust over a longer period.”
“The most effective approach,” Khanna says, “tends to be a hybrid measurement framework where quantitative metrics are combined with qualitative indicators such as audience sentiment, brand affinity, and engagement quality.”
“At Eleve Media,” he says, “we strengthen attribution and campaign intelligence through CreatorTag, our proprietary SaaS platform built exclusively for Eleve Media clients.”
CreatorTag he explains, “supports the entire influencer marketing workflow, from creator discovery and audience evaluation to campaign tracking and post-campaign reporting. It helps brands identify creators not just by follower count, but by relevance, engagement quality, audience demographics, content fit, category alignment, and past campaign performance.”
He continues, “During execution, CreatorTag enables structured tracking across key metrics such as reach, engagement, content performance, creator-wise efficiency, and audience response. Post-campaign, it gives brands a clear view of what worked, which creators delivered stronger impact, and how the campaign performed against defined objectives. This allows influencer marketing to move from a one-time execution model to a more insight-led, repeatable, and performance-focused growth channel.”
Integrating influencer marketing with media mixes
With brands increasingly viewing influencer marketing as an integrated component of their overall media strategy rather than an isolated digital activity, the question of fit has become more nuanced. Addressing how this evolution is unfolding and how creator partnerships now align with broader communications efforts, Khanna says, “Yes, there is a noticeable shift toward more integrated marketing approaches.”
“Earlier,” he says, “influencer marketing was often treated as an isolated digital activity focused primarily on social media visibility. Today, brands are increasingly viewing creators as part of the larger communication ecosystem.
“Influencer-led content is now being adapted across paid media, performance campaigns, events, commerce integrations, and even offline brand experiences. This reflects a broader understanding that creators are not just amplification channels, but cultural communicators who can influence perception across multiple touchpoints.”
“As a result,” he says, “campaign planning has become more collaborative across media, creative, and strategy teams. This integration also allows brands to create stronger consistency in messaging while improving overall campaign efficiency and recall.”
Future of Influencer Marketing: platforms, algorithms, trust
Finally, peering into the future, the influencer marketing model faces a host of disruptive forces, from algorithmic shifts to the fragile currency of consumer trust. When asked how these changes will reshape the way creator content is consumed and valued, Khanna says, “The influencer marketing ecosystem is moving toward greater accountability, authenticity, and measurable impact.
He continues, “As platforms evolve and consumer behaviour shifts, creators who build genuine audience trust and engaged communities will become increasingly valuable compared to those driven purely by scale. AI, analytics, and data-led planning will continue to strengthen campaign execution and measurement, but human connection and storytelling will remain at the core of effective creator marketing.”
“At Eleve Media,” he says, “we are building a more structured and technology-enabled ecosystem through CreatorTag, which helps us analyse creator performance, audience behaviour, and category trends to make sharper campaign decisions. We are also developing creator-focused applications to simplify campaign management and collaboration while investing in vernacular creator communities across Indian languages.
He wraps up by saying, “Going forward, we believe the industry will move beyond one-off activations toward long-term creator partnerships built on trust, technology-led intelligence, and measurable business outcomes.”
