– Real-time analysis of 16 million channels to filter out invalid audiences
– From audience clustering to performance prediction… Realizing work efficiency
– AI agent function launched in the second half of the year… Find the influencer you want with natural language search
As the influence of social media grows, direct communication between influencers and the public is becoming more active. Consumers trust influencers and pursue rational consumption through social media. Companies that have noticed this change are focusing on influencer marketing. Influencer marketing naturally delivers messages to accurate target customers and is recognized as an effective marketing method for companies because it has high cost-effectiveness and emotional satisfaction (cost compared to emotional satisfaction) compared to existing advertising.
However, influencer marketing has the disadvantage of being difficult to measure results. Even if the number of views or participation rates increases, it is difficult to analyze whether it actually leads to increased sales, and the measurement criteria are vague. Another problem is that the influence of influencers is uncertain. A large number of followers does not necessarily mean high influence. Some influencers provide exaggerated or false information, which reduces credibility, and in many cases, the actual relationship with followers or participation is low. As a result, influencer marketing had no choice but to rely on 'feeling'.
There is a company that does influencer marketing based on 'data'. Founded in 2019, Featuring has brought innovation to the influencer marketing market with 'Featuring AI', which analyzes 16 million domestic and international influencer channels and over 300 million social media contents in real time.
We met with Jang Ji-hoon, CEO of Featuring, who built a comprehensive influencer marketing solution by starting from solving the problem of fake follower filtering and developing AI-based audience clustering and performance prediction technology, to hear about the present and future of influencer marketing transformed by data.
Featured by 15,000 companies, racing towards 10 billion in sales
CEO Jang Ji-hoon predicted that influencer marketing would become a trend even before it became mainstream in 2019. His prediction was correct.
“Although the advertising marketing market as a whole is in difficult circumstances, influencer marketing has grown without being greatly affected by the economy. Companies are gradually increasing their budgets as they recognize it as an effective marketing tool, and the beauty industry is increasing its budget share by almost 50%.”
As influencer marketing has become more than just a trend and has become an essential marketing tool for businesses, the growth of featuring is also accelerating. The cumulative number of clients has exceeded 15,000, and a wide range of customers have been secured, from large corporations to small and medium-sized businesses in various fields such as fashion, beauty, travel, and entertainment.
Based on this success in the domestic market, Featuring has also entered the overseas market. It made a full-fledged entry into the Japanese market by launching 'Featuring Japan' at the end of last year, and is currently in the process of establishing a local Japanese corporation. This growth is also confirmed in sales. Featuring, which recorded sales of 5 billion won last year, is aiming to achieve 10 billion won this year, and it seems likely to achieve its goal, having achieved 80% of last year's sales in the first half alone.
Analyze 16 million channels in real time and filter out audiences that are not effective for marketing.
The core of data-driven influencer marketing is ‘Featuring AI.’ This AI engine analyzes 16 million domestic and international influencer channels in real time, and covers almost all global influencers with actual marketing value.
The analysis targets major social media platforms such as Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, X (formerly Twitter), and Naver Blog, and is based on channels with more than 1,000 followers. In terms of platform composition, Instagram is the largest at about 40%, followed by TikTok, X, and YouTube. Regionally, Korean, Japanese, and English-speaking channels are the main ones, and other regions such as Southeast Asia are also included.
It is important to note that the influencer channel range is not fixed. Featuring flexibly expands the analysis area according to corporate demand. While domestic beauty companies used to look for only Korean influencers, recently, as the number of requests for influencers from new markets such as the Middle East and Africa has increased, additional regional channels are being collected.
Just as important as collecting such a vast amount of data is quality control. Featuring systematically filters out audiences that are “not valid for marketing.” It filters out not just simple fake followers, but also accounts created with fake patterns learned by AI, dormant accounts that are not active, accounts that show unusual behavior patterns, and business accounts operated by brands.
CEO Jang Ji-hoon explained, “At the time when services for purchasing fake followers were rampant, especially on Instagram, ‘abusing’ was a serious problem, with people who were not influencers purchasing fake followers and pretending to be influencers, but with no actual advertising effect.” However, the solution that started from this small problem eventually developed into an innovation that changed the entire paradigm of influencer marketing.
Find real customers
Featuring's second core technology is "audience clustering." Traditional influencer marketing relies solely on simple metrics like follower counts and likes. However, it's difficult to know who the influencer's audience is or whether they align with the brand's target audience. To address this fundamental limitation, Featuring embarked on systematic audience analysis.
Beyond basic demographic information such as gender and age, we analyze real interests that can influence actual purchasing decisions. Even among women in their 20s, those who are genuinely interested in beauty products and are likely to purchase them have completely different values from a marketing perspective compared to those who simply consume influencer content.
Predicting Performance and Doing Influencer Marketing
The third core technology of featuring AI is performance prediction. Based on data refined and categorized through audience filtering and audience clustering techniques, this technology predicts the likely performance of a specific influencer or group of influencers before a campaign is launched. This technology introduces predictability into an area where marketers have traditionally had to endure uncertainty, believing they'd have to try to find out.
There are many predictable performance indicators. Any indicator that a company considers important, from content exposure to engagements such as likes or comments, to conversion rates such as actual purchases or membership registrations, can be predicted in advance. What’s more important is that it doesn’t end with predictions. Through a virtuous cycle structure that continuously compares and analyzes actual campaign results with predicted results to improve the model, the accuracy of predictions continues to increase.
CEO Jang explained the innovation of this technology, saying, "It's something that's so obvious in general adtech, but in the influencer space, it's been considered a qualitative area, so performance prediction has been difficult." Performance prediction, already a standard feature in digital advertising, has become possible in influencer marketing as well. This is a significant innovation that elevates influencer marketing from a field reliant on intuition and experience to a systematic marketing field based on data and science.
All about influencer marketing in one place… Improving work efficiency
Featuring operates an all-in-one influencer marketing platform called ‘Featuring Solution’. This platform is designed to manage the entire influencer marketing process in a single integrated system, and is a service that integrates all three core technologies of the Featuring AI engine.
The biggest strength of the featuring solution is efficiency through automation. All processes, from influencer candidate selection to outreach, campaign proposal, contract, and performance analysis, are automated, realizing resource savings of approximately 90% compared to existing processes.
Another key feature is the search system based on a database of 16 million influencer channels. You can search for unlimited optimal influencers by filtering with various conditions through advanced filter settings.
Recent influencer marketing trends have shifted from focusing on a small number of mega-influencers to leveraging hundreds of micro-influencers simultaneously. This shift has dramatically increased the need for mass messaging, replacing traditional individual contact methods. Focusing on this, Featuring recently launched its DM and email bulk messaging features.
By linking team members' individual email addresses and official accounts to the system, you can schedule and automatically send messages while still using their own email addresses. Influencer responses can be shared and reviewed by the entire team, allowing for integrated management of overall progress. Furthermore, personalized messages delivered through name variables can achieve a high success rate despite mass messaging.
We also offer a systematic solution for campaign management. Influencer management groups can be created to systematically categorize your list, and existing management data can be easily transferred to the system via social media profile links or Excel file uploads. During campaigns, you can monitor progress in real time, and performance analysis is also performed automatically. Specifically, we compare and analyze expected and actual performance in real time during the campaign process, enabling immediate strategic adjustments when necessary.
The featuring solution is an innovative tool that transforms influencer marketing from an 'art' that relies on senses and experiences to a 'science' based on data and AI technology. Through this, it is creating an environment where anyone, not just large corporations but also general companies and those with little marketing experience, can execute effective and systematic influencer marketing.
Over 100 accounts in one… Integrated management of corporate-tailored social media
Large corporations typically manage separate social media accounts by brand and country. Adding the need to monitor competitor accounts, the number of accounts a single person is often well over 100. It's practically impossible to comprehensively understand and analyze the performance of such a vast number of accounts.
To address the complex needs of these large companies, Featured developed a customized social media data analytics solution called "Featuring Enterprise." The core of this service is the ability to monitor all accounts in real time from a single, integrated dashboard, allowing for free comparison and analysis of performance by brand, region, and time period. CEO Jang describes this as a "Lego block" concept: utilizing the same basic modules, the system is customized to meet each company's unique needs.
For example, customized learning is also possible for companies. If a company has its own influencer evaluation criteria, it can train the system to incorporate these criteria to measure company-wide marketing effectiveness. Based on this, it can automatically classify potential influencers and competitor influencers based on the same criteria to develop strategies. It's also possible to predict industry trends by analyzing the vast number of conversations and content on social media.
Featuring's core competitive edge lies in its comprehensive service coverage. CEO Jang explained, "Large corporations don't necessarily have a single, unified set of needs. Field staff and decision makers view services from completely different perspectives." Accordingly, Featuring offers two solutions: Feature Solutions, which enhance daily work efficiency for field staff, and Enterprise Solutions, which provide strategic insights to executives. A unique strength of Featuring is its ability to combine these two solutions into an integrated package, if necessary.
Vision toward a ‘SNS Marketing Super App’
Featuring aims to be a ‘SNS marketing super app’, meaning it will go beyond the current influencer marketing platform and integrate all areas of social media marketing.
Social media marketing organically connects three areas: owned media (self-operated channels), earned media (influencer marketing), and paid media (advertising) to create synergy. CEO Jang explained, "Currently, featuring has secured sufficient coverage in the earned media space, but the same customers are still struggling in other areas. Expanding support for these areas is key to the super app model."
As the first step in this concrete roadmap, a content tracking service will be launched in September. This feature allows companies to continuously track and compare the performance of their own content over a set period, marking the beginning of a strengthening of their owned media business. Furthermore, commerce integration features are also being developed, further strengthening the link between marketing and sales.
The most innovative change is the AI agent-based natural language search service, scheduled to launch in the fourth quarter of this year. This completely breaks away from traditional keyword input and filtering methods, enabling precise searches using natural language commands like "Find influencer accounts of women in their 20s in the US who post about their daily golfing lives." An image search function is also provided, supporting influencer discovery based on visual content.
This is an innovation that goes beyond a simple user interface improvement and changes the very paradigm of influencer discovery. It will enable the effective discovery of ‘hidden influencers’ that were difficult to find using existing methods, and this innovation is not limited to the domestic market but is equally applicable on a global scale.
“We have created small but meaningful innovations and are recognized as a leader in influencer marketing. Our goal is to be recognized as such by more companies and recognized globally.”
Indeed, the data-driven approach proposed by Featuring is now becoming the market standard. It has elevated influencer marketing, previously reliant solely on intuition and experience, to a scientific and predictable realm. This innovation goes beyond a simple tool improvement and is a paradigm shift for the entire industry. CEO Jang added, "In the vertical AI race, we aspire to become the leading company in influencer marketing and social media."
Featuring's challenges are ongoing. It continues to evolve beyond the single domain of influencer marketing to become a "social media marketing super app," expand beyond the domestic market to the global stage, and become a company that pursues continuous innovation rather than resting on its current success. The AI agent-based service scheduled for launch in the fourth quarter of this year is expected to mark another turning point. It remains to be seen what the next evolution of Featuring will be.
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