The Total Economic Impact™ Of Kolsquare

Influencer Profile Search Time Savings

Evidence and data. Interviewees noted that before Kolsquare, identifying and vetting influencers was a time-consuming and inconsistent process. Teams relied on manual social media searches, basic metrics like follower counts, superficial engagement checks, and personal judgment to select influencers. This approach resulted in lengthy efforts and misaligned creator selection, with suboptimal audience-brand affinity and inconsistent selection criteria across countries. After implementing Kolsquare, interviewees mentioned their teams could quickly discover relevant creators using advanced filters and search criteria instead of screening through social platforms manually.

• The head of PR and influence at a beauty company said: “In our field, the line separating personal and professional is thin. With Kolsquare, we made it much thicker. The profile search allows us to know who cited our brand, which helps us recruit new profiles and improve our performance. We can also filter content by earned media value (EMV), and we can find content we may have otherwise not have visibility into because it was not part our campaign or we didn’t have an influencer on our radar.”

• The same interviewee added: “There are a lot of filters to help us scan influencers. If we want content creators that have somewhere between 80 to 110,000 followers, we can select this. We can also filter the engagement rate, the interests of their community such as fragrance, healthy lifestyle, and so on. This helps us save a lot of time rather than doing a manual search directly on the social media platforms.”

• In addition to Kolsquare’s searching and filtering capabilities, the interviewees also mentioned the platform’s listening feature, which helped them see who their competitors engage with, further saving them time finding relevant creators. The influencer marketing manager at a retail organization said: “Kolsquare’s listening feature is very impactful. It helps us filter who our competitors work with. This helps us save time because competitors work with similar influencers to us.”

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• The composite runs 500 influencer marketing campaigns across 10 countries in Year 1, with campaign volume growing 10% annually as influencer marketing becomes more efficient and effective.

• Each campaign leverages an average of 15 influencers.

• Seventy-five percent of campaign influencers are discovered via Kolsquare’s profile search; 25% come from other sources.

• The composite saves 45 minutes of search and validation time per profile found via Kolsquare.

• The fully burdened hourly rate for a PR specialist is €46.

• The composite has an 80% productivity recapture rate, which means 80% of the time saved is used for productive work.

Risks. Several factors may impact the level of savings linked to influencer profile search, including:

• The number of yearly campaigns.

• The average number of influencers leveraged per campaign and their complexity to source.

• The share of influencers found via Kolsquare and the preexisting influencer database.

• The internal team’s skills and capabilities in influencer discovery.

• The salaries of PR specialists.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 15%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of €360,000.

Campaign Content Tracking Efficiency Improvements

Evidence and data. Interviewees mentioned that monitoring influencer campaigns across social media was previously labor-intensive and hard to scale. Before Kolsquare, internal teams had to check multiple social media platforms manually to see which influencers had posted, then collect and reconcile performance data from each platform’s native analytics — all of which use different metrics and formats. This manual process was slow and prone to data gaps. Kolsquare automatically collects and updates key social media metrics (e.g., posts, reach, engagement, EMV) in one dashboard, freeing teams from chasing data and enabling them to focus on campaign optimization.

• The head of communications at a fashion organization highlighted: “With Kolsquare, we can easily see how many people posted, what the EMV is, how much content was posted, and the reach. When we run campaigns, we don’t have to check manually who posted or not; we see exactly who posted and when, and we have direct access to the analysis. Without Kolsquare, we wouldn’t get that level of information. We’d need to look at social media every day to see who posted or not. ... This is a few hours per campaign saved.”

• The head of PR and influence at a beauty organization similarly noted: “The time spent on tracking influencers’ content during campaigns was about 5 to 10 hours of content search. Now, [with Kolsquare], it’s all automated.”

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• The composite runs 500 influencer marketing campaigns across 10 countries in Year 1, with campaign volume growing 10% annually.

• Using Kolsquare saves 5 hours of manual tracking per campaign.

• The fully burdened hourly rate for a PR specialist is €46.

• The composite has an 80% productivity recapture rate, which means 80% of the time saved is used for productive work.

Risks. Several factors may impact the level of campaign content tracking efficiency improvement savings, including:

• The number of campaigns per year and how extensively a team tracks influencer activity.

• Campaign complexity and the volume of influencer content to monitor.

• The team’s existing skills or tools for campaign monitoring.

• The salaries of PR specialists.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 10%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of €226,000.

Reporting And Analysis Time Savings

Evidence and data. Interviewees described a manual and fragmented approach to preparing influencer campaign reports and gathering competitive insights before Kolsquare. Each country team relied on separate processes and had to aggregate data from emails, spreadsheets, social media platforms, and different internal tools, which  made it time-consuming to assemble reliable reports or present a unified view of performance. By introducing a single source of truth for all influencer campaign data and listening insights, Kolsquare streamlined report generation and improved cross-team collaboration. Interviewees highlighted the following areas of time savings:

• Cross-country campaign report preparation. The head of PR and influence at a beauty organization explained that consolidating campaign data on one platform significantly reduced the effort required to prepare reports. They said: “Before, we had to mention the data source on each slide for each country. Now it’s all trusted sources from Kolsquare. About a dozen hours per report are saved from no longer investigating and indicating data sources.”

• Campaign statistics internal sharing. Interviewees previously used manual updates to share campaign performance internally. With Kolsquare, teams can share links directly with stakeholders, reducing back-and-forth communication and manual preparation. The influencer marketing manager at a retail company mentioned: “Today, product teams can ask us about influencers that are working on a campaign, and we can share a link to the casting. They can ask us about statistics on the campaign, and we can share with them directly without having to write [a summary] manually.”

• Competitive benchmark reports. Interviewees highlighted time savings from Kolsquare’s listening capabilities, which provide structured competitive benchmarks and rankings that were previously difficult to compile. The influencer marketing manager at a retail organization said: “Before, we were looking manually at what competitors were doing on their accounts and trying to understand which influencers were talking about our competitors. Today, we have a benchmark produced by Kolsquare that allows us to get a lot of useful insights.”

Modeling and assumptions. Based on the interviews, Forrester assumes the following about the composite organization:

• The composite operates in 10 countries, each preparing 12 campaign performance reports per year.

• Kolsquare saves the composite 10 hours per report by eliminating manual data gathering and reconciliation.

• Kolsquare also helps the composite save 30 minutes per campaign due to easier internal sharing of campaign statistics and results.

• Kolsquare’s listening module saves the composite 20 hours per country per year by streamlining competitive and brand positioning report creation.

• A PR manager prepares all reports.

• The fully burdened hourly rate for a PR manager is €93.

Risks. Risks that could impact the realization of this benefit include:

• The number and frequency of reports generated.

• The complexity of internal reporting processes before Kolsquare.

• The availability of competitive data.

Results. To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by 10%, yielding a three-year, risk-adjusted total PV (discounted at 10%) of €278,000.

Unquantified Benefits

Interviewees mentioned the following additional benefits that their organizations experienced but were not able to quantify:

• Enhanced brand salience and market positioning through social media listening. Interviewees reported that Kolsquare’s listening and benchmarking features gave their organizations a clear view of competitor activity and how their own brands ranked on social channels. With these insights, marketing and communications teams made more data-driven brand positioning decisions and adjusted strategies based on benchmarked competitive performance. The influencer marketing manager in retail said: “The listening feature helps us position against our competitors and understand if we are well positioned or not.  … This was very difficult to do before.” By surfacing competitive visibility that was once hard to obtain, Kolsquare’s listening insights have become an input for strategic planning and internal brand health presentations.

• Improved campaign performance and strategic agility through integrated analytics. Interviewees said that Kolsquare’s integrated view of campaign KPIs, influencer content, and brand mentions improved their ability to monitor performance and adapt influencer strategies throughout the year. With real-time access to metrics such as engagement, reach, and EMV, teams could identify which creators and tactics drove results, allowing them to make timely adjustments. As a result, interviewees noted improved campaign effectiveness and greater confidence in achieving, and often exceeding, performance objectives. The regional influence, PR, and events manager at a beauty and skincare organization described how these insights helped teams refine gifting and activation strategies by focusing on creators who consistently performed and quickly identifying those who did not deliver expected outcomes. They said: “Kolsquare helps us adjust our strategy in terms of creators we gift to make sure they will post more organically later on. … It also helps us see creators who we gifted and didn’t post. Ultimately, it helps us select creators who performed better in terms of EMV to improve our ranking and visibility.”

• Professionalization and increased credibility of the influencer marketing function. Interviewees consistently reported that Kolsquare helped transform influencer marketing from a disjointed, manual set of tasks into a structured, strategic function within their organization. By centralizing reporting and performance metrics in a dedicated platform, Kolsquare introduced standardized workflows and a single source of truth for influencer data. This improved transparency and consistency across teams and regions, which the interviewees said strengthened the internal credibility of the influencer marketing function.
  The influencer marketing manager in retail explained, “Kolsquare professionalized the team and helped us analyze more by collecting more data and insights and [providing the] means to share those internally.”
  Interviewees also noted improvements in how they communicated influencer marketing results internally and externally. With Kolsquare, they generated reports in a consistent and professional format that stakeholders found easy to interpret, with underlying data viewed as more reliable. The head of PR and influence at a beauty company said, “Our reports are now more professional from having a single source.” Externally, the increased consistency and clarity supported a more data-driven approach to influencer campaigns when working with partner brands and agencies. The same interviewee added, “Our partners understand us better now.”
  In addition, interviewees described more efficient cross-team collaboration enabled by easier access to campaign information. The ability to share campaign dashboards and performance results via direct links allowed internal stakeholders, such as product or regional marketing teams, to access up-to-date influencer campaign metrics without relying on ad hoc manual updates. Interviewees said this reduced back-and-forth communication and supported clearer alignment across teams, further reinforcing the role of influencer marketing as a credible and increasingly strategic function across the business. 
   

• Reduced reputational risk and improved values alignment. Interviewees noted that Kolsquare’s access to influencer history, credibility indicators, and content context improved their ability to assess brand fit and reduce reputational risk. By enabling teams to review past content, detect questionable engagement patterns, and screen for topics that may conflict with brand or ethical guidelines, the platform supported more responsible influencer selection. Interviewees said this increased due diligence provided greater confidence that partnerships aligned with corporate values and regulatory requirements, helping protect their brand from potential reputational or compliance issues.
  The regional influence, PR, and events manager at a beauty and skincare organization said: “With Kolsquare, we are more informed. It evaluates the risks for us. The keyword search specifically helps us search for topics that our group considers potentially risky, and [then we can] avoid [influencers who post about those topics].”

• Improved employee experience for influencer marketing teams. Interviewees reported that automating manual tasks and centralizing workflows with Kolsquare improved the daily experience of influencer marketing teams. Activities that previously required repetitive effort or off-hours work, such as manual content screening or weekend monitoring, were handled automatically within the platform. Prior to using Kolsquare, interviewees mentioned that their teams often relied on manual checks across social platforms, including reviewing content on personal devices outside of working hours. With Kolsquare, these practices were no longer necessary, helping reduce workload strain and support better work-life balance.
  Interviewees also described improvements in usability due to the platform’s intuitive interface, allowing team members to become productive quickly and spend more time on strategic and creative work rather than manual administrative tasks. The influencer marketing manager in retail noted, “The tool is very intuitive; it’s very easy to use and learn for every new team member.”
   

Flexibility

The value of flexibility is unique to each customer. There are multiple scenarios in which a customer might implement Kolsquare and later realize additional uses and business opportunities, including:

• Brand strategy and marketing tactic budgeting mix optimization. In the context of deeper marketing budget scrutiny, marketing teams plan to use Kolsquare to gain a granular understanding of the type of engagement their marketing content drives — fast, measurable results or compounding long-term traffic — which will help them decide how to optimize budget allocation to brand strategy and campaign tactics. The regional influence, PR, and events manager at a beauty and skincare organization mentioned: “Kolsquare anticipates our needs. For instance, one of the latest functionalities released gives you a split view of paid versus organic marketing, which is something we were looking for.”

• Cross-country collaboration and optimization. The centralized view and cross-country tool and process standardization allows for more informed decision-making on country-specific needs and for more fruitful cross-country collaboration. The regional influence, PR, and events manager at a beauty and skincare organization also noted, “Having a central view across different countries allows us to have more visibility on trends in different countries and take them into account during our regional strategy [planning].”

• International expansion support. As interviewees’ organizations expand or plan to expand internationally, their marketing teams need to scale operations quickly and effectively to drive growth. They rely on Kolsquare to do so in fully new contexts where they lack knowledge. The head of communications at a fashion company said: “Kolsquare helps us on the international expansion of our brand because we’re working with profiles that we know less about. It helps us ensure we’re engaging with the right profiles in new countries where we sell our products.”

Flexibility would also be quantified when evaluated as part of a specific project (described in more detail in Total Economic Impact Approach).