Influencer marketing enabled McDonald’s to reach a new audience segment of 95k unique new users that had not been targeted previously and also garner 185 million+ reach.
This case study explores how McDonald’s increased the flow of direct orders on their application and website and how the campaign that began on 1st June 2022 reached 185 million+ users by April 2024, by leveraging influencer marketing, and more.
McDonald’s introduction (in case you still don’t know the brand!)
In the rare case that you still don't know about the brand, McDonald’s is an American fast-food chain that began in 1940 as a car hop drive-in. Today the brand is known worldwide and has around 36899 outlets in 120 countries* (www.worldatlas.com)
McDonald’s has been present in India for nearly 28 years. With the passage of time, the competition intensified in the Quick Service Retail (QSR) industry with brands entering the market. The golden arches have gained popularity on the back of their service, prime locations, and traditional and modern marketing methods.
How did DRIM’s influencer base help McDonald’s?
DRIM, performance influencer marketing platform, in a recent campaign with Madison World, delivered over 95k orders for McDonald’s South and West while reaching an online audience of over 185 million. Over 7200 Instagram reels and YouTube shorts were floated around social media and received 73,000+ positive comments, increasing brand call exponentially.
What were the objectives of McDonald’s when reaching DRIM for an influencer marketing campaign?
The campaign’s goals have been clear since the beginning.
- To increase the flow of direct orders on McDonald’s application and website.
- To track the performance of influencer campaigns to assess their effectiveness
- Strengthening the brand image in the South and West of India
- Reaching a new audience segment that had not been targeted previously
The success criteria of the campaign was an order placed by a user on the app or the website.
Description of the campaign: from idea to first results
From the brainstorming to execution and tracking, let’s check out how we planned the actions for this campaign along with McDonald’s India.
Brief of the campaign
The goal was to identify the right mix of influencers who could drive awareness for the brand in the South and West while also driving paid actions. In total, over 21,000 influencers applied for the campaign, while only 11,000 of the best influencers were approved initially based on engagement rates, relevance and blog niche.
Creative Idea
The creative idea behind the campaign was to leverage the power of influencers to create meaningful relationships with their audience, drive sales, and increase direct sales for the brand via the app for McDonald’s India (South and West).
The focus was to find and optimize for the influencers that resulted in the best ROI. The main messaging revolved around pitching McD as a beloved food joint which has made ordering with app more convenient. The same was delivered by a variety of different ways depending on the influencers and their niche. Keeping the brand safety and sanctity intact.
Challenges
1) Filtering and approving the best influencers out of a large pool of applicants
With over 21,000 influencer applications received, DRIM had to refine a screening and moderation process to identify and approve the best-performing influencers for the campaign. Using a continuous machine learning algorithm, the brand was able to analyze and identify look-alike influencers to improve audience targeting and find the best-performing creators online. 3300 new bloggers were again added to the project at a later stage to scale it seamlessly.
2) Conducting a regional campaign for a specific geographic area (South and West India)
The company had to carefully identify and work with influencers whose audiences were predominantly based in these target geographies. This was a challenge as it had no control over the geographic distribution of the influencers’ followers, and it required a highly strategic approach to ensure effective reach and engagement with the target audience.
3) Educating and training influencers on creating engaging content
The company educated the influencers on intriguing methods to create captivating content that would engage their audience and, as a result, increase sales.
4) Regularly optimizing the campaign using in-built analytics tools
The brand utilized in-built analytics tools within its platform to regularly optimize the campaign and improve its efficiency. This approach helped the brand to track and measure the success of the campaign based on actual results, such as conversions and sales, rather than just metrics such as likes and followers.
5) Ensuring brand alignment with influencer content
There was also the challenge of ensuring that influencers followed the campaign guidelines and produced content that aligned with the brand’s values and messaging. To overcome this, it provided clear guidelines and maintained regular communication via the influencers talent managers team efforts with the influencers.
6) Overcoming budget and resource constraints
With a large number of influencers across different segments, it was important to carefully allocate the resources and budget to ensure maximum efficiency. Despite these constraints, the campaign achieved impressive results, generating over 185 million video views and a 7x return on ad spend.
Also read about the award: DRIM Global wins Gold at the Maddies Awards for Influencer backed Performance Marketing Campaign
Execution:
1) Planning
The DRIM team worked with McDonald’s to plan the influencer marketing campaign. The team identified the target audience, campaign goals, and the types of influencers to work with.
2) Onboarding of influencers
A continuous learning tool helped to identify and recruit a diverse and large number of influencers across different channels online in the geographies that the campaign demanded. The goal was to identify the best-performing channels and get the best results out of them. In total, over 21,000 influencers applied for the campaign; however, via its content moderation method, only 11000 of the best influencers were approved in the initial phase.
3) Segmentation of influencers:
The team segmented influencers into mega, micro, and nano influencers. This segmentation was done to reach a new audience, minimize overlap and maximize the campaign’s impact.
4) Approval of influencers:
The team approved the influencers based on their relevance to the campaign goals and their ability to reach the target audience effectively. Brand safety is of utmost importance and it ensured that the influencers followed the campaign guidelines and produced content that aligned with the brand’s values and messaging.
5) Execution:
Influencers were provided with a unique link to McDonald’s application, which they shared with their followers. In the CPA (cost-per-action) model, the influencers got paid whenever a follower performed a desired action, in this case, an order placed via link which leads to the website or application. This model was beneficial for both parties, as the advertisers only pay for actual results, and the influencers get paid for actions instead of just followers, which is beneficial for measuring efficiency.
6) Optimization of the marketing campaign:
The team regularly optimized the campaign using in-built analytics tools within the platform. This optimization ensured that the campaign was delivering the desired results and that the budget was being utilized effectively.
7) Measurement
The team tracked and measured the success of the campaign based on actual results (i.e., conversions and sales) rather than just metrics such as likes and followers. This helped to determine the campaign’s ROI and its impact on the target audience.
8) Reporting
We provided McDonald’s with regular reports on the campaign’s progress, including metrics such as:
- Sales
- Engagement
- Reach
These reports helped McDonald’s to understand the campaign’s effectiveness and make informed decisions for future marketing strategies.
By leveraging the power of influencer marketing and the CPA model, the brand was able to drive real business results for McDonald’s while ensuring that the campaign was efficient and effective.
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https://www.instagram.com/reel/CltFdvMMrEW/?utm_so...
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CpHUyI8AFy2/?utm_so...
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CpNdOPhIiWr/?utm_so...
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CiXcWgUgA63/?utm_so...
After the initial few weeks, it was identified that the most relevant blogger niches bringing the highest conversions were Food & Cooking, followed by Life Hacks, reviews and guides and lifestyle as shown below in the infographic:
The selected bloggers covered 7200+ publications across social media platforms like YouTube, Instagram, Telegram and Meta (Facebook).
Within these platforms, the algorithm identified that Instagram was the one that delivered the best results. It also determined the type of Instagram layout that worked best for the campaign and then used this knowledge to grow it further. Among reels, stories, shorts, and IGTV, the algorithm identified IG and Facebook stories and YouTube shorts as the best-performing type of publication that brought the highest number of CPAs (see Fig. below). While these formats performed the best due to the nature of the content, the next followed reels+stories and reels which bloggers used to reshare. This increased the number of times a user interacts with a brand. With every interaction that a user had with the brand, the propensity to make a purchase the next time increased.
With constant campaign optimization and data being added to the system, the publications on the campaign received over 3.8 million likes, more than 73,000 comments and a reach of over 185 million.
9) Factors that maximized the CPA
What made the campaign stand out from other influencer marketing campaigns, was the human touch. While DRIM’s operations team took care of the end-to-end execution of the campaign, Madison World could shift its focus to other campaigns that needed their attention.
Results
- 7000+ social influencers have worked on the campaign
- with a cumulative follower base of 596 Million users
- delivered an average reach of 30% of their follower count
- Considering the industry standards and average engagement rate of approximately 2%, the 30% engagement rate was the primary driving factor for new users to the platform.
The campaign converted 95,000+ new paying users. Influencers also received compensation for every order they brought in.
- Orders delivered: 95,000+ in South and West
- Reach of over 185 million achieved through over 7200+ publications.
- Acquired 95k unique new users for McDonald’s.
Yulia Aslamova, Head of Asia, DRIM Global, said, “As social media becomes increasingly prevalent, influencers have become a trusted source for product recommendations among their followers. DRIM has been able to bridge the gap between influencer marketing and ROI, as demonstrated in our successful partnership with McDonald’s India (South and West). By utilizing DRIM’s powerful ML technology, we were able to analyze a large amount of data to identify the most effective content types and virality factors.
Through our approach of paying influencers only for successfully delivered, paid orders via the app, we ensured that McDonald’s received a significant return on their investment while providing micro-influencers and top food creators with an opportunity to promote a beloved brand and earn unlimited earnings. Our focus on data-driven optimization and continuous learning sets us apart in the industry and we are excited to continue delivering exceptional results for our clients.”
Sandeep Jagadale, Associate Director at Madison India said, “The learning capability of DRIM’s performance marketing technology has given the campaign a full-funnel benefit. Their data driven decisions, analytical dashboard, huge influencer database and manual checks to ensure top quality content have brought the campaign over 95k new users and over 185 million reach. We look forward to doing even more brilliant work together!”
Other business cases:
https://drim.one/blog/article/how_we_attracted_more_than_55thousand_new_customers_to_kfc
https://drim.one/blog/article/60k-first-orders