INDONESIA NATIVE

ADVERTISING AND
INFLUENCER MARKETING
REPORT 2018
TABLE OF CONTENTS

I Executive Summary

II Key Findings

III Industry Overview

IV The State of Native Advertising in Indonesia

Finding 1: Native ads have overtaken display ads in
Indonesia
Finding 2: Social media prevails even among native
ads
Finding 3: Quality of content is the top challenge
among Indonesian brands
Finding 4: Brands still use native ads primarily for
awareness

V Influencer Marketing Deep Dive

Finding 1: Influencers expect their revenue to at
least double in 2018
Finding 2: Social media is the influencer platform of
choice, but blogs persist
Finding 3: Influencers struggle with payments and
revisions

VI References

VII About GetCRAFT

GetCRAFT.com 1
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
In our Digital & Content Marketing Report in May,
we found that brands seem to have lost their gusto
for display ads. Marketers we polled placed display
at the bottom of their digital priority lists. This new
report—based on three separate surveys sent out to
43 brands, 30 publishers, and 30 influencers, as well
as email interviews with experts—confirms those
findings.
The results of our survey suggest that native ads have
overtaken display ads in Indonesia, taking 20-30% of
brands’ total media budgets this year. Considering
our earlier findings that digital takes about a third of
media budgets, these new results reveal that bulk of
the digital budget now goes to native ads.
The median native ads spend will not move outside
of the 20-30% range in 2018, but a bigger portion
of brands will be spending majority of their media
budgets on native. The increasing in native ads spend
will be driven by the global digital rush coupled with
the fact that consumers are getting more cautious in
their online activities.
Although tens of millions of Indonesians are online
and on social media, the country is one of the hotbeds
for ad blocking. Its ad blocker penetration rate is
more than five times that of the global average.
Further, whereas adblock use is limited to desktop
in other countries, in Indonesia, mobile ad blocking is
extremely high.
This GetCRAFT report asserts that native ads are
effective means by which brands can reach out to
an audience that is both weary and wary of online
ads. Native ads cut through the advertising clutter
by mimicking the form and function of content in
its environment and, more effectively, by providing
content that is valuable to clients.
GetCRAFT.com
Social media remains the platform of choice for brands
doing native ads, but more of them are planning to
ramp up their investments on sponsored content—
particularly branded content on publisher platforms
and influencer marketing. Paid social media posts,
branded content, and influencer marketing are the
most popular and most effective native ad types.
Brands seem reluctant in letting go of control over
messaging, however, prompting complaints about
quality of content on their end and remarks among
publishers that advertisers don’t really know how
native ads work. Measuring success is a key issue,
impacted heavily by the fact that most brands still use
native ads primarily for awareness.
This report also dives deep into influencer marketing,
an exciting subcategory of sponsored content.
Influencers expect their income to at least double
next year, with some projecting growth of up to
five times. An interesting insight is that although
influencers thrive on social media, they still keep their
blogs, making them more like publishers.
Late payments and last-minute revisions are the top
complaint among influencers, issues that can both be
solved by more organized processes or intermediaries.
These challenges nonetheless highlight a need for the
industry to promote a greater appreciation of the
value of content.
GetCRAFT believes that when doing native ads—or
any marketing campaign, for that matter—brands
must always be guided by their business objectives.
Only when they keep to their goals can brands truly
target, measure, and achieve success.
2
KEY FINDINGS

The State of Native Advertising

in Indonesia

1. 3.
Native ads have Quality of content is the
overtaken display ads in top challenge among
Indonesia Indonesian brands

2. 4.
Social media prevails Brands still use native ads
even among native ads primarily for awareness

Influencer Marketing Deep Dive

1. 3.
Influencers expect their Influencers struggle with
revenue to at least double payments and revisions
in 2018

2.
Social media is the
influencer platform of
choice, but blogs persist

GetCRAFT.com 3
INDUSTRY OVERVIEW

262 MILLION 123 MILLION

Total Population Active mobile internet users
Urbanisation : 55% Penetration : 47%

133 MILLION 92 MILLION

Internet users Active mobile & social users
Penetration : 51% Penetration : 35%

AVERAGE DAILY USE

8H 44M 3H 55M 3H 16M 2H 23M

INTERNET INTERNET SOCIAL MEDIA TELEVISION
(Desktop & (Mobile phone) (Any device) VIEWING TIME
Tablet)

MOST ACTIVE SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORMS

YouTube 49%

Facebook 48%

Instagram 39%

Twitter 38%

Whatsapp 38%

FB Messenger 31%

Line 30%

Linkedin 28%

BBM 26%

Pinterest 22%

WeChat 21%
Source: GetCRAFT; United Nations, U.S. Census Bureau, Internetworldstats, ITU, Internetlivestats, CIA World Facebook, National Regulatory Authorities, Tencent,
Ckontakte, Kakao, Naver, Niki Aghaei, Similarweb, Ding, Extrapolation of TNS data, GSMA Intelligence, Extrapolation of Emarketer and Ericsson data

GetCRAFT.com 4
 THE STATE OF
NATIVE ADS IN
INDONESIA

GetCRAFT.com 5
 Native
Ads
Programmatic Native Ad
Native Ads Unit
e.g. Taboola, e.g. Facebook,
Outbrain Google Ads
Less
Native 0.2 - 0.3% 0.4 - 0.8%
Click-through rate
Indonesia is unquestionably at a digital turning
point. About half of its massive population is
already online, most of them also active users of
social media. The remaining half is a promising
frontier not only for the digital revolution but
also for brands, who are increasingly relying on
the internet for audiences.
The Digital & Content Marketing Report that
GetCRAFT released May 2017 showed that
brands had allocated about a third of their overall
marketing budget this year on digital.[1] They
are likely to spend more on the channel moving
forward, spurred by excitement in paid social
media posts, influencer marketing, paid search,
and sponsored content—all deemed native ads.
For the purpose of this report, we adopt the
definition of native ads put forth by the Native
Advertising Institute and the International News
Media Association:
Native advertising is paid advertising
where the ad matches the form, feel,
function, and quality of the content of the
media on which it appears. Frequently this
advertising content topic is not directly
about the advertiser’s brand, but rather is
about a tangential or supporting topic or
topics that may create a “halo effect” on
the brand.[2]
GetCRAFT.com
Sponsored
Content
Branded Influencer
Content Marketing
e.g. Branded e.g. Influencer
Article Video
More
1 - 2% 2 - 4% Native
We divide native ads into three categories:
programmatic native ads, native ad units, and
sponsored content. Programmatic native ads
target consumers based on metadata collected
by websites. They are commonly placed on
platforms through widgets like Outbrain or
Taboola, linking to paid content outside of where
they are found.
Native ad units are capabilities embedded on
platforms that allow advertisers to promote
content. Examples are options to boost Facebook
posts, paid search ads found on Google search
results pages, and promoted listings on eBay.
Sponsored content is split further into
subcategories: branded content and influencer
marketing. Branded content is when an advertiser
pays a publisher to have its name, message, or
both associated with a particular story. Branded
content appears on publisher platforms—news
websites, online magazines, among others—
mimicking editorial content.
Influencer marketing involves identifying,
researching, engaging, and supporting individuals
or groups who create high-impact conversations
with customers about your brand, products or
services. Influencer posts may include those on
social media, blogs, or video channels.
6
 FINDING 1
NATIVE ADS HAVE OVERTAKEN DISPLAY ADS
IN INDONESIA

% of Native Ads Spending (2017 vs 2018)

26%

23% 2017 2018

21%
19% 19% 19%

14%
12% 12% 12%

9%
7%
5%

2% 2%
0%

0 - 10% 11 - 20% 21 - 30% 31 - 40% 41 - 50% 51 - 60% 61 - 70% 71 - 80%

Indonesian brands in our survey allocated a Another 7% say a quarter to half of their revenues
median of 20-30% of their total media budgets will come from native. The remaining 17% of
this year to native ads. publishers said native ads will form less than 25%
of their revenue.
Although the median share of native ads will
remain the same in 2018, 16% of brands will
allocate more than 50% of their media budgets
to native ads. Only 9% of brands had the same
allocation this year.

Considering our findings in May that 31% of total

media budgets are going to digital, this new data
suggests that bulk of digital’s share now goes to
native ads, a trend matched by optimism among
publishers and influencers.
Some 90% of the influencers expect their income
to at least double in 2018, following the growth
they reported this year.
Meanwhile, an overwhelming majority of the
publishers we polled expect native ads to
contribute more than half of their revenues next
year.
[Native ads] will continue to grow and
flourish in line with further integration
of digital as an information and
entertainment source, utility, and brand
experience into the lives of the target
audience.
Eka Sugiarto
Head of Media – Indonesia and SEAA
Unilever

GetCRAFT.com 7
 Projected Native Ads Share in
Publisher Revenues
6.6%
16.6%
76.7%
More than 50% 26% to 50%
Less than 25%
Native ads have overtaken display as the most
effective revenue stream for publishers. Our
publisher respondents gave native ads an
effectiveness score of 3.1 out of 4 points.
Display ads were ranked a far second with an
effectiveness score of 2, followed by affiliate
links, 1.37, and recommendation widgets, 1.28.
Some Indonesian publishing firms, in fact, report
that the demand for native ads has gone beyond
capacity of their teams. Dian Gemiano, GM
Marketing Group of Digital Kompas Gramedia,
notes that their native ads revenue has grown by
10% year-on-year over the past three years.
“If we can expand our capacity, I believe the
growth can be even much higher,” Dian says,
estimating that Kompas’ native ads revenue can
grow by 70-80% in 2018.
Most of the publishers we’ve approached seem
to have the same sentiment.
To accommodate more business in terms of
native ads, some 63% of our respondents have
put together dedicated teams. Another 30%
of the publishers in our poll said they will have
native ads teams in the near future.
GetCRAFT.com
Publishers with Dedicated Native Ads Teams
7%
30%
63%
Yes No - but we plan to, in the
near future
No - and we don’t plan to
anytime soon
These data points cement native’s supremacy over
display, earlier signaled by our May findings that
put display ads at the bottom of digital priority
lists. Brands in May gave display a priority score
of some 2 out of 5, way below paid social media,
influencer marketing, paid search, and sponsored
content, with scores between 3 and 4 points.
Native ads provide more context to
readers and are very useful for campaigns
in the educating phase. They require a
more personal and unique approach, as
a lot of creative and brand message are
involved.
William Utomo
Chief Operating Officer
IDN Media
8
 Effectiveness of Publisher Revenue Streams
(Effectiveness Score, 0-4)
Native ads
3.1
Display ads
2 “[Growth of native ads] is also accelerated by the
Affiliate links
1.5
Recommedation widgets
1.37
Others
1.28
Lack of enthusiasm for display comes as no
surprise, given that brands appear to consider
display ads a less effective digital marketing
channel. Display got an effectiveness score of
some 2.5 points, making it the channel with the
lowest score in our May survey besides webinars
and podcasts, which score around 1 point.
By contrast, paid and owned social media both
had effectiveness scores above 4 points, while
paid search, content marketing, influencer
marketing, SEO, sponsored content, and email
marketing, had scores between 3 and 4 points.
Publishers, however, recognize that both native
and display have roles to play in the customer
journey. “Native ads came to the surface to
provide an alternative way for brands to engage
with the readers in digital. However, it is still
important to [combine] it with banners for
awareness and call-to-action sake,” Andrias
Ekoyuono, Chief Marketing Officer at Kumparan.
com, says.
We expect native ad spend to grow further,
riding on the back of a global shift toward digital
from traditional media. In its latest Global
Media Report released in 2016, consulting firm
McKinsey projected a global digital spend of
some USD198 billion this year, surpassing that
for television (USD196 billion).[3]
GetCRAFT.com
The digital uptrend is set to continue at a
compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7% to
some USD273 billion by 2020, further outpacing
TV spending, which will grow at a CAGR of 4.9%
to USD229 billion.
fast adoption by younger consumers with entry-
level smartphone,” Eka Sugiarto, head of media –
Indonesia and SEAA at Unilever says.
Cisco last year forecast that mobile data traffic in
Indonesia will grow by some 8 times from 2016
to 2021 at a CAGR of 53%. This, after it reported
a 142% growth in mobile traffic in 2016.
Indonesians also spend an average of 3.5 hours
online using mobile devices, 2.9 hours of which
are spent on social media, McKinsey reported in
October 2016.
“Furthermore, Indonesia is a mobile-first nation;
approximately 75% of the online purchases are
made via mobile devices,” the consulting firm said.
Native ads will continue to carve out a bigger
share of the digital budget compared to display
ads, as consumers grow more and more conscious
of the value of their clicks and eyeballs.
“The rise of ad blockers and ad fraud make native
ads an obvious option for advertisers to avoid
inefficiency and create a more delightful ads
experience,” Dian Gemiano says.
Ad blocking consultancy PageFair reported 615
million ad blockers globally as of December 2016,
a 142 million increase from the previous year. [4]
Some 58% of Indonesians use ad blockers, more
than five times the global ad block penetration
rate of 11%.
Even when they are not using ad blockers,
audiences may not be receptive to brand
messages. In a recent Kantar Millward Brown
study, 72% of respondents said they skip ads.
Some 56% use blocking technology, while 49% do
something else or look away from the screen. [5]
9
 FINDING 2
SOCIAL MEDIA PREVAILS EVEN AMONG NATIVE ADS

Types of Native Ads Used

Paid social media posts 70%

Influencer marketing 51%

Branded content 49%

Paid search ads 44%

Promoted listings 16%

Not using any kind

of native ads 12%

Recommendation
9%
widgets

The Kantar study however suggests that

Indonesians have slightly more positive attitudes
toward native ads than display ads. Across Gen X, Effectiveness of Native Ads for Brands
Y, and Z, positive reception averaged at 41% for (Effectiveness Score, 0-4)
desktop display and 37% for mobile display. By
contrast, there was an average positive reception Paid social media posts
of 53% for both branded content and paid social 2.5
media ads.
Influencer marketing

This could explain why 70% of the brands we 2.5

surveyed use paid social media posts. Paid social
Branded content
ads are followed in popularity by influencer
marketing, used by 51% of our respondents, 2.4
branded content (49%), paid search ads (44%),
Paid search ads
promoted listings (16%), and recommendation
widgets (9%). 2.4

Promoted listings
The high user base also supports advertising
2.0
on social media. The number of active social
media users in Indonesia ballooned by 34% to Recommendation widgets
106 million in January 2017. Indonesians have
1.3
also been spending more time on social media
daily—3 hours 16 minutes—than on TV—2 hours
23 minutes.

GetCRAFT.com 10
 “The digital consumer journey becomes more
diverse with increasing nodes where conversion
can be executed,” Unilever’s Eka says. Not only
are search ads nodes close to conversion, they
also allow for attribution.

Influencer marketing is the biggest priority

[Measures of success] will highly depend
on the role of the communication
which at PHD we identify into three
dimensions: the message focus (explicit
or implicit); the warmth toward the
brand and the level of interest on the
message and brand itself; and on the
medium where we choose to distribute
the content (e.g. social media, publisher)
with the form of the content itself (e.g.
video, image, text or mixed).
Roy Simangunsong
Managing Director
PHD Media
next to paid search ads. Some 51% of brands in
GetCRAFT’s survey said they plan to engage
influencers more in 2018.
Branded content is surprisingly relatively low in
the brands’ priority lists, with only 40% of our
respondents planning to do more of it.
This places branded content lower than paid
search ads, even when it is deemed a more
effective native ad type.
A little more than a quarter (25%) of brands in
our survey plan to do more promoted listings in
2018. An even smaller portion (14%) will do more
recommendation widgets.

How Brands Will Do Native Ads in 2018

Social media’s continued dominance might also
Paid social media posts
explain why influencer marketing, which also
heavily uses social media, emerged as the second
most popular native ad option, used by 51% of
Paid search ads
respondents. Branded content is ranked third,
used by 49% of brands.
Influencer marketing
Paid social media posts, influencer marketing,
and branded content are also deemed the most
effective types of native ads, with effectiveness Branded content
scores of 2.51, 2.49, and 2.4, respectively.

In 2018, brands will continue to prioritize paid Promoted listings

social media posts. Some 65% of our respondents
plan to do more paid social media posts next year.
Recommendation widgets
Interestingly, 53% of brands we surveyed intend
to do more paid search ads next year, making this
0% 25% 50% 75% 100%
native ad type the second top priority among
brands. Preference for paid search ads could be
explained by the fact that they reach audiences Plan to do more Plan to do about the same
who are already at the interest or desire phase of
the marketing funnel. Plan to do less Don’t plan to do any

GetCRAFT.com 11
 FINDING 3
QUALITY OF CONTENT IS THE TOP CHALLENGE
AMONG INDONESIAN BRANDS

Top Native Ads Challenges for Brands

Ensuring content is good 61 %

Ensure ROI 59 %

Lack of proper measurement 41 %

High cost; budget restraint 32 %

Not enough reach/impression 32 %

Lack of specific
30 %
audience targeting

Collaborating with the

publishers’ editorial team 27 %

Hard to do more;
11 %
not scaleable

The apparent reluctance for branded content

might stem from the fact that Indonesian
marketers are most concerned about quality of
content when doing native ads.

A majority of brands in our survey said they

struggle with ensuring content is good (61%)
and with measuring ROI (59%). Lack of proper
measurement is another challenge brands
identified (41%).
There appears to be a lingering desire for control
over brand messaging. Branded content allows
advertisers to work with publishers in crafting
content, yet unlike traditional advertising, the
control it offers is not full. As brand managers
endeavor to maintain their brand essence as
much as possible, publishers check that the
content still offers value to their readers.
On the other hand, paid social media posts offer
advertisers full control in terms of messaging.
As the attention of audiences becomes
more difficult to capture, brands
must increasingly lend themselves to
conversation rather than impose their
brand messaging. They must learn
to let go of brand essence and trust
content partners in creating around
their brands stories that resonate with
their target markets.
Patrick Searle
Co-Founder and Group CEO
GetCRAFT

GetCRAFT.com 12
Although brands would have to keep in mind that
social media audiences might get turned off by
hard sell, pushing ads on social media nonetheless
eliminates editorial limitations that brands would
otherwise encounter with publishers, identified
as a challenge by 27% of respondents.
The debate on brand essence leads back to the
definition of native ads as the use of content that
is “not directly about the advertiser’s brand, but
rather is about a tangential or supporting topic
or topics that may create a ‘halo effect’ on the
brand.”
“Brands must also realize the value offered by a
publisher’s voice, credibility and even authority
that resonate among audiences,” GetCRAFT Co-
founder and Group CEO Patrick Searle says.
In Nielsen’s latest Global Trust in Advertising
Report released in 2015, 66% of respondents
said they trust editorial content. Trust drops to
46% when it comes to paid social media posts.
The tug of war between brands and publishers
takes its toll not only on clients. Some 27%
of publishers we surveyed also identified
limited editorial independence as a challenge.
“Credibility is our priority,” Kumparan’s Andrias
Ekoyuono says. “Although some of [the content]
are possibly collaborated, we still refer to
journalistic standards.”
This issue of collaboration is related to the
primary complaint among publishers that clients
who reach out to them for native ads lack a clear
understanding of how native ads work. Some
43% of our respondent publishers identified this
as an issue, highlighting a mismatch between
what advertisers expect of native ads and what
native ads can strongly deliver.
“Shifting this behavior cannot be done overnight...
It is important for publishers to actively educate
their clients,” Andrias explains. KPIs must be
clear at the onset, for example, before they can
formulate a strategy that will define their content.

Top Native Ads Challenges for Publishers

Clients don’t know how

native ads should work 43%

Not getting paid on

time 33%

Unclear brief
27%
from clients

Limited editorial
independence 27%

Not achieving
27%
click-through KPIs

Others 17%

Finding the right talent to 17%

produce content

Not achieving
13%
views KPIs

Difficult to do more of it 13%

Don’t know how to

measure performance 7%

GetCRAFT.com 13
 FINDING 4
BRANDS STILL USE NATIVE ADS PRIMARILY FOR
AWARENESS

Brand Objectives in Doing Native Ads

Brand awareness 88%

Sales or leads
generation 58%

Brand building 51%

Traffic generation for

my own website 47%

SEO boost 35%

When we asked brands about their objectives
for doing native ads, 88% answered brand
awareness. Sales or leads generation was a far
second, identified as an objective only by 58% of
our respondents.
The next most common objective by brand
building (51%), followed by drive traffic to
website (47%), SEO boost (35%).
Brand focus on awareness limits native ad
campaigns to the use of awareness metrics to
measure campaign success. True enough, some
77% of the publishers we surveyed report on
reach or views.
A significantly smaller portion use cost per view
(50%), cost per article (40%), social metrics (27%),
internally developed metrics (23%), or cost per
action (3%).
An awareness-centric mindset also means that
brands are likely to compare the reach publishers
can offer with the reach they can achieve by
using other platforms. On Facebook, for example,
brands get guaranteed millions if calibrated
correctly.

Publisher Metrics for Native Ads

Reach/Views 77%

Cost per View 50% Before a native ad is produced, key

performance indicators must be set—
Cost per Articles 40% whether they are views, clicks, virality,
etc. Only after that [can we] detail a
Social Metrics 27% campaign strategy.

Your own metric 23% Andrias Ekoyuono

Chief Marketing Officer
Cost per Action 3% Kumparan.com

GetCRAFT.com 14
Can publishers guarantee the same audience?
Brands might even argue that publisher markets
are also contingent on social media.

But William Utomo, Chief Operating Officer at

IDN Media, finds it unfair for brands to judge the
performance of branded content by the same
yardstick as other platforms. A view on publisher
platforms should not be considered in the same
light as a view on a social media platform, he says,
“in the same manner that a Facebook video view
is not equal to a YouTube video view.”
It falls upon publishers to educate their clients
about how native ads work. They can do this by
providing simple case studies, advocating for
native ads, and continuing to push for excellence
in doing native ads, Utomo says.
They must also explain to clients that native
advertising “is not equal performance marketing;
it offers intangible benefits that are valued
subjectively,” he adds.
I think the problem is happening on
both sides… Publishers’ arguments
are too focused on their point of view;
advertisers don’t really elaborate their
real challenges and goals well. We have
to remind ourselves continuously that
we should see all issues from customer
point of view.
Dian Gemiano
GM Marketing Group
Digital Kompas Gramedia

GetCRAFT.com 15
 INFLUENCER MARKETING
DEEP DIVE

GetCRAFT.com 16
 CPV (Cost per View)
(in IDR)
4,000
3,500
3,000
2,500
2,000
1,500
1,000
500
0
10,000 20,000 50,000
Number of Influencers’ followers
Word of mouth remains the most credible form
of advertising, the Global Trust in Advertising
Report published by Nielsen in 2015 revealed. [6]
Some 83% of Nielsen’s respondents completely
or somewhat trust the recommendations of
friends and family. Trust is still high at 66% when
online reviews come from strangers but who are
nonetheless actual users of products or services.
This trust is what advertisers tap into when they
ask influencers to post on their digital channels
content related to their brands. Influencer
platforms then become host to native ads—a
Facebook status, a product photo on Instagram,
a live video, a blog post, or even a tweet.
“Influencer marketing may be viewed as an
evolution of word of mouth, amplified by the
lightning speed by which information travels and
the diversity of ways by which stories may be
told,” says Anthony Reza, GetCRAFT Co-Founder
and CEO for Indonesia.
GetCRAFT.com
CPV
CPV trendline
100K 500K 1mio 10mio
Influencer marketing emerged as the second
top priority among native ad types, with 51%
of brands in our survey saying that they plan to
invest more in it next year.
It is rivaled only by paid social media posts, which
65% of brands said they would do more of in
2018.
Besides the fact that consumers are likely to
be more confident in brand messaging from
influencers than from other channels, cost
efficiency could be another reason that brands
are setting their eyes on influencer marketing.
At GetCRAFT, we found that an average of 10%
of an influencer’s total followers on Instagram
get to view a post.
Using that formula, we can estimate an average
of 37,270 Instagram views for influencers in our
network. This results in an average cost per view
of IDR 590.
17
 FINDING 1
INFLUENCERS EXPECT THEIR REVENUE TO
AT LEAST DOUBLE IN 2018
Projected Increase of Influencer Revenues in 2018

10%

13%

2x 3x 4x
47%
5x No increase/decrease
13%

17%

Influencers are upbeat about their income in

2018, validating our findings that advertisers
will do more influencer marketing. Almost half
(47%) of the influencers we surveyed expect Volume of Influencer Projects in 2017
their income to at least double next year. Other (vs 2016)
influencers have higher expectations. Some 13%
of our respondents, in fact, see their revenues
growing by as much as five times. 10%
This projected growth builds on the traction
influencers have gained this year. Some 60% of
influencers reported they had more projects in 30%
2017 than in 2016.
60%
The fast-paced influencer marketing boom
has given birth to a sub-economy that
straddles showbiz, public relations, and events
management. While many influencers continue
More than last year
to deal with clients directly, some have enlisted
the services of talent managers or even agencies. Less than last year
These individuals or firms operate revenue
sharing or commission-based business models to Pretty much the same as
capitalize on the income of influencers. Smaller last year
influencers, in return, get bargaining power

GetCRAFT.com 18
 FINDING 2
INSTAGRAM IS THE INFLUENCER PLATFORM OF
CHOICE, BUT BLOGS PERSIST

through a middleman. Most Popular Influencer Marketing Services

Social media is arguably where influencers Sponsored post on social media
derive their power, so it comes as no surprise
that sponsored posts on social media are the 97%

most sought-after influencer service. Almost Event attendance

all influencers (97%) in our survey said they get
enlisted to do social media posts.
Some 67% of our respondents said they get
asked to do sponsored videos on social media,
while 60% do sponsored articles on their blogs.
Influencers are however not limited to the digital
sphere, with 80% asked to attend events.
Online, almost all our respondents (97%) use
Instagram as a platform. Some 67% of influencers
in our survey use Twitter, while 33% have
YouTube channels, and 30% engage followers on
Facebook.
Preference for Instagram highlights the
dominance of visual content. This could also
explain why Twitter, which also supports visual
80%
Sponsored video on social media
67%
Sponsored article on blog
60%
Other
10%
content, is the second choice.
Visual content goes beyond static photos. “The
extensive development in Instagram allows us to
explore so many possibilities. It used to be rather
monotonous, but now, it’s all so fun and dynamic,”
comedian, writer, and actor Ernest Prakasa says.

Main Influencer Platforms

Instagram

97%

Blog
67%

Twitter
Mobile apps revolutionized the process by
67% which content is published and consumed.
YouTube Influencers tend to rely on social media
33%
because they know that for most of their
followers who use smartphones, checking
Facebook social media apps is almost second nature.
30%
Anthony Reza
Others
Co-Founder and CEO-Indonesia
10% GetCRAFT

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 FINDING 3
INFLUENCERS STRUGGLE WITH PAYMENTS AND
REVISIONS
Top Influencer Challenges
I don’t get paid on time
Clients change requirements
at the last minute
Clients don’t have a
clear brief
I don’t know how to
properly price my services
Clients are stifling
my creativity
I don’t have an updated
work porfolio
I don’t have an
updated rate card
I don’t know how to measure the
performance of my projects
I miss deadlines
An interesting finding is that the rise of social
media has not driven influencers out of blogs.
Some 67% of the influencers we polled publish
content on blogs. The persistence of blogs
highlights a similarity between influencers and
publishers: They use social media as distribution
channels but still drive audiences to channels
that they own.
Another similarity among publishers and
influencers is that they both tend to have issues
when it comes to coordinating with clients about
content and getting paid on time. Half of the
influencers we surveyed said they don’t get paid
on time, while 47% complain about last-minute
changes from clients.
Other problems include unclear briefs (37%),
GetCRAFT.com
50 %
47 %
37 %
37 %
33 %
20 %
17 %
13 %
10%
pricing (37%), and creative limitations (33%).
The payment issue is something that a middleman
can solve. Asked to comment on our finding that
influencers struggle with pricing, Prakasa quips:
“[I’m not going to] spend my time and energy
worrying about that. Let my management take
care of it.”
For influencers who don’t have managers,
platforms like GetCRAFT are an option.
Advertisers are more likely to follow payment
schedules when they deal with an agency or a
platform than when they deal with individual
suppliers, GetCRAFT’s Reza says.
He adds that even when clients intend to pay on
time, the paperwork involved in paying individual
content creators, for example, can be tedious and
tend to fall through the cracks.
20
 Metrics Influencers Use

Number of comments

67%

Client feedback

63%

Number of likes

63%
Influencers are often asked to achieve
Number of shares engagement the “old corporate way,”
47% when in fact letting influencers do it their
way would generate better engagement
Tone of comments (positive/negative) because they know their audience better.
33%
Edho Zell
I don’t measure
Influencer
3%

Some 67% of influencers in our survey said they
measure campaign success based on number of
comments. Client feedback (63%), number of
likes (63%), and number of shares (47%) are other
popularly used metrics.
Most influencers also tend to use content quality
(83%), personal brand (77%), and number of
followers (53%) as main determining factors for
pricing. These data highlight how there could
easily be a debate around price because of the

The consideration of engagement metrics signals

maturity among influencers. They now seem Main Determining Factors for Pricing
to understand that they offer more than just
brand awareness and the value they offer should Content quality
therefore be measured beyond views or reach.
83%

“Brands need to be concerned with the number My personal brand

of likes and engagement, more than just views,” 77%
YouTuber Edho Zell says. He adds that, like
publishers, influencers should be allowed Number of my followers
freedom when it comes to content for them to 53%
create engaging content.
Client’s budget
This is unfortunately not always the case. Edho 43%
cites as an example instances when brands ask him
Deadline
to host “complicated competitions or contests”
for his largely millennial audience, whom he 17%
describes as “a generation that is very ‘instant’
Other
and self-centered.” Keeping his demographic in
mind, Edho often simplifies such campaigns to 7%
selfie contests featuring brands.

GetCRAFT.com 21
subjectivity of these measures.
Ernest admits that it is difficult to pinpoint the
value of an influencer. What he’s sure about is
that it should account for more than the number
of followers.

Brand fit is a measure that Ernest seems to

highlight, noting that both advertisers and
influencers have perceptions that they need
to develop and maintain among their shared
audiences.
When in doubt, brands must refer to their
objectives in doing not only influencer marketing
or native ads but any marketing campaign in
general.
An influencer is a brand… This is why
number of followers or even engagement
statistics cannot determine price… The
key factor is brand. I know the value
of my brand. If your brand wants to be
associated with mine, here’s my price.
That’s the way I look at it.

When brands are clear about what they want to Ernest Prakasa
achieve, it will be easy for them to identify the Comedian, writer, actor
channels they need to use, the execution they
want to see, and the performance indicators they
need to measure.

GetCRAFT.com 22
REFERENCES

GetCRAFT (July 2017). Philippines’ Digital and Content

[1]

Marketing Report 2017.

Laursen, J. and Stone, M. (2016). Native Advertising

[2]

Trends 2016: The News Media Industry. The Native

Advertising Institute and the International News Media
Association.

McKinsey & Company (December 2017). Global Media

[3]

Report 2016.

PageFair (2017). The State of the Blocked Web: 2017

[4]

Global Adblock Report.

Kantar Millward Brown (January 2017). AdReaction:

[5]

Gen X, Y, Z.

[6]
Nielsen (September 2015). Global Trust in Advertising.

GetCRAFT.com 24
About
GetCRAFT is Southeast Asia’s premier content marketing network. The company helps connects brands with
more than 4,000 vetted creators and publishers for their content marketing, influencer marketing & bespoke
native advertising needs. The company has worked with more than 150 brands for more than 2,000 projects,
with clientele including Facebook, Samsung, Microsoft, Unilever, Schneider Electric, Pond’s, Uniqlo, Nestlé,
Ayala Land, and many more. GetCRAFT is now present in Indonesia (HQ), Philippines, and Singapore.

Patrick Searle Anthony Reza

Co-founder and Group CEO, GetCRAFT Co-Founder and CEO-Indonesia, GetCRAFT

Patrick has spent the last 10 years in three different
countries helping some of the world’s largest brands
with digital. He is now on a mission to help Southeast
Asian brands and agencies tell amazing stories that
both educate and inspire people to take action.
Passionate in helping brands and companies tell
meaningful stories and give real impact to people’s
lives, Reza has had 7 years marketing and advertising
experience where he set up and led teams in McCann
Erickson, McCann Digital, Sampoerna Foundation,
and Social@Ogilvy.

This report is based on three separate surveys sent out to the following respondents:

43 brands and agencies, ranging from brand managers to vice presidents

30 publishers including online news outfits, media networks, and multi-channel networks
30 influencers, with experience ranging from six months to more than five years

Interviews have also been conducted with key respondents within the same population as those of the surveys,
to gather insights on the results. We are grateful to the following for their invaluable input to this report:
Eka Sugiarto, Head of Media – Indonesia and SEAA, Unilever
William Utomo, Chief Operating Officer at IDN Media
Roy Simangunsong, Managing Director, PHD Media
Andrias Ekoyuono, Chief Marketing Officer, Kumparan.com
Dian Gemiano, GM Marketing Group, Digital Kompas Gramedia
Edho Zell, YouTube and social media influencer
Ernest Prakasa, comedian, writer, actor

For more information, visit our website : http://getcraft.com

Or contact us at hello@getcraft.com.

GetCRAFT.com 24