Influencer campaign

How to create an influencer campaign

An influencer campaign asks your attendees, speakers or sponsors to promote your event on their LinkedIn and rewards them with coins for every post, click and ticket sold through their link.
You set it up in three places under Marketing:
• Campaign Cards (under Configure) – design the social card that goes into the post.
• Influencer Campaigns (under Manage) – create, target and send the campaign.
• Influencer Engagements, Missing Engagements and Influencer Leaderboard (under Reports) – track the results.
You set up and send the campaign; the influencer's post, link clicks and ticket sales then earn coins on the leaderboard.

Before you start
• Connect an email provider. Integrate your mailing provider with run.events first. See Integrating mailing providers with run.events.
• Campaigns post to LinkedIn only. Card designs are sized for a LinkedIn post: 600 × 313 px.
• Prepare a background image in SVG format at 600 × 313 px.
• Decide on your audience first. Every card design and every campaign belongs to one type – Attendee, Speaker or Sponsor – and a campaign's type can't be changed after its first save.

Step 1: Design the campaign card
The campaign card is the image influencers share in their LinkedIn post. Create it before the campaign, because the campaign needs a design to choose from.

1. On your event dashboard, select Marketing. Its screens are grouped under Manage, **Reports **and Configure.

2. Under Configure, open Campaign Cards. The screen is headed Social Cards designer – it's the same feature.

3. Under Create a new social cards design, choose a starting point:
   o Start from a template – reuse a design you saved earlier. The template already has a campaign type.
   o Start From Blank – build a new design. Use this for your first campaign.
   

4. If you started from blank, choose the Campaign type (Attendee, Speaker or Sponsor) in the flyout, then select Start Designing.

5. Give the design a name, so you can recognise it when you set up the campaign.

6. Select Upload Image and upload your background (SVG, 600 × 313 px).

7. Drag and drop Standard Fields or Custom Fields onto the card. For example, add User Profile Photo – it shows the photo of whoever publishes the card, taken from their run.events or LinkedIn profile. For a round photo, pick Rounded Image shape in the toolbox.

8. To preview, select Test social card with real data, pick an attendee and select Apply.
   

9. Save the design. To use it in all your events, save it as an organizer-level template.

Step 2: Create the campaign

1. In Marketing, open Influencer Campaigns. The list shows every campaign with its type, status, engagements, conversions, tickets, voucher and sent date.

2. Select Add new. A flyout opens on the Campaign tab.

3. Fill in Campaign info:
   • Campaign Name - A name for your own reference. It also becomes the utm_campaign value in the tracked link.
   • Campaign Description - A note for your own reference.
   • Campaign Type - Attendee, Speaker or Sponsor. Locked after the first save.
   • Target Link - The page the post's link leads to, usually your event or registration page. run.events adds UTM tags to it automatically.
   • Default post text - The suggested post. It's prefilled; adapt it to your event. Influencers can edit it before posting. Type where the link should appear.
   • Footer - Fixed text added to every post. It's prefilled and influencers can't change it. You can also use here.
   

4. Under Design, use Choose Design to pick the card from Step 1. Only designs of the campaign's type are listed.

5. Under Awards, set how many coins each action earns:
   o Engagement Points – for publishing the post.
   o Conversion Points – for each opening of the influencer's link.
   o Ticket Sold Points – for each ticket bought through the link or voucher. Make this the highest value.

6. Select Save. Two new tabs appear: one for your audience (Attendees, Speakers or Sponsors) and Vouchers.

Step 3: Choose who receives the campaign

1. Open the audience tab – Attendees, Speakers or Sponsors, depending on the campaign type.
2. In Targeting, define the target group. For example, include only attendees with a specific ticket type, or from selected countries.
3. Select Save.
   You can't send the campaign until a target group is defined.

Step 4: Add vouchers (optional)

Vouchers give each influencer a personal discount code to share with their post. They're worth adding if your tickets are paid; for a free event, skip this step.
Before you start, create a voucher template under Tickets and Attendees → Vouchers.

1. Open the Vouchers tab.
2. Enter a voucher prefix.
3. Select the voucher template.
4. Under Voucher Usage, set how many times each voucher can be used and the days it's active.
5. Select Save to save all campaign settings.

Every influencer gets a unique voucher code. An order placed with it counts as a ticket sold for them, just like an order through their link.
The campaign now appears in the Influencer Campaigns list with the status Preparing.

Step 5: Send the campaign

1. In the Influencer Campaigns list, select the envelope icon in the campaign's row. The Send Campaign flyout opens.
   

2. Choose how to invite people – turn on one or both:
   o Send by email (under Email)
   o Send notification (under Push notification)
   

3. Select Send. The button stays disabled until at least one option is on.
   If the flyout says The target group has not been defined for this campaign, go back to Step 3.

What happens after you send it

From here on, everything happens outside the organizer portal:

1. The influencer receives the invitation by email, push notification or both.
2. The invitation link opens the social portal, with a preview of the post and a Post to LinkedIn button.
3. Post to LinkedIn opens the LinkedIn sign-in in a pop-up window.
4. After signing in, the influencer sees Create a LinkedIn post: the card (with Edit), the editable post text and Post to LinkedIn again.
5. Publishing the post records an engagement. In the published text, is replaced by the influencer's personal short link.
6. Each opening of the short link records a conversion and sends the reader to your target link with utm_source=runevents, utm_medium=social and utm_campaign=<campaign name>.
7. An order placed through the short link, or with the influencer's voucher, counts as a ticket sold.
   Don't open a live short link to test it. Every opening records a real conversion.

Step 6: Track the results

The Influencer Campaigns list shows totals per campaign in the Engagements, Conversions and Tickets columns. For detail per influencer, go to Event level → Marketing → Reports:
• Influencer Engagements - Search for an influencer by name to see the campaign they joined, their unique voucher, the conversions and tickets sold through their post, and the posting date.
• Missing Engagements - Influencers and campaigns that got no engagement – use it to see who needs a follow-up.
• Influencer Leaderboard - Influencers by name and campaign, ranked by engagements, conversions and ticket sales, with the total points each has earned.

Points are the campaign's award values multiplied by each person's results. Every report can be exported with one click.