Haarlem-based tech startup Join Marketing wants to disrupt influencer industry

The Haarlem based startup Join Marketing wants to make the market for influencers more transparent. That is why the influencer platform matches influencers and brands by using Artificial Intelligence (AI) and is the first in Europe to do so. Join now launches a new self-learning algorithm, that tells you whats the right price of an influencer post. Join Marketing is founded in 2017 by Paolo Martorino and Edwin Knip.

Join launches the algorithm since it has found out that two out of three messages that influencers post on behalf of brands have a price tag that is inaccurate. Brands and influencers, according to Join, often do not know what the posting of a message is worth.

“As an independent platform, we have been linking companies to influencers for some time. We are the first in Europe to use Artificial Intelligence (AI). As a result, brands choose relevant- and not necessarily the most famous influencers. Now we are launching an algorithm that shows what a post is really worth. This algorithm takes into account the reach, engagement, market and available data from influencers. This is how we want to make the influencer market more transparent”, Paolo Martorino, co-founder and CEO of Join, states.

Insight into marketing efforts

It needs no explanation that the influencer marketing market is a growth market. 67 percent of marketers want to make more budget available for influencer marketing this year. Yet this form of marketing has its challenges. While Google shows how many thousand clicks cost, it is often unclear how much a message from someone with 100,000 Instagram followers should cost.

Martorino: “Join was founded to make the market more professional and transparent and to enable better partnerships. That’s why we first automated the selection process of influencers. We now also do that by determining the price of, for example, a tweet, Youtube video or Instagram-story. The algorithm that determines the price is based on hundreds of campaigns running through our platform. The technique is self-learning: with every purchase, the algorithm gets even smarter.”

Influencer deserves a better image

Paolo Martorino, one of the two founders of Join, states that there is not enough respect for ‘the craft of influencers’. “They create and distribute authentic and relevant content in a very efficient way. Consider a good influencer as a one-man advertising agency, instead of a hobbyist.” Join is active in the Benelux, Germany, France and the United Kingdom. The influencer platform connects brands with 15,000 different influencers, which together reach half a billion people.