Examples of Influencer Marketing: Treating It Like a Paid Social Channel

Micah Whitehead, CMO at 0 to 1, a performance and influencer agency, breaks down why most brands fail at influencer marketing before they ever give it a real chance.

His core argument is blunt: influencer is a channel, and no channel is profitable on day one. Brands should treat it exactly like paid social on Meta, where performance comes from iterating on creative, refining hooks, improving calls to action, and lowering CAC over time. Micah maps influencer outreach to a marketing funnel with distinct stages: open rate, interest, opt-in, action, conversion, and top converter, and argues the only path forward is flooding the system with volume to find winners, cut losers, and optimize each stage. The timeline is honest: three to six months for the most aggressive brands, up to twelve for others. The payoff is real too, as influencer can become five percent of total revenue and a powerhouse for new customer acquisition.

Watch to see exactly how Micah sequences that funnel and what most brands skip that costs them everything.