This is the question that’s been keeping me up at night for the past month, and I’m guessing I’m not alone.
Context: I work at a Russian fintech company that’s aggressively moving into the US market. My leadership is excited about using influencer partnerships to build credibility, but they want clear ROI projections before we commit serious budget. The problem? We don’t have US market benchmarks for fintech influencer campaigns yet. We have solid data from Russia, but the dynamics are completely different.
When I tried to present our Russian KPIs and say “we expect similar performance in the US,” the response was basically: “That’s not a business case. That’s a guess.”
They’re not wrong, but I’m also not sure what they actually want from me. Build the case first, then run the campaign? That doesn’t make sense. Learn as we go and adjust? That sounds like we’re just hoping it works.
I’ve heard people talk about using industry benchmarks and case studies from similar companies, but when I started researching, fintech influencer campaigns don’t have great public data. The companies that are winning aren’t publishing their playbooks.
So here’s my real question: How do you actually build a data-driven business case for a cross-border campaign when you’re essentially operating in uncharted territory for your company? Do you find competitors’ case studies and extrapolate? Do you run a small pilot first and use that to justify the full push? Do you just pick conservative assumptions and hope they don’t bite you later?
This is exactly what I deal with constantly, and I’ll be direct: you build the case using available benchmarks from adjacent categories, then you layer in conversion logic specific to your company.
Here’s what I did for a similar situation: I found case studies from US fintech companies, extracted their influencer campaign metrics (engagement rates, conversion rates if available), then stress-tested those numbers against our historical conversion data from other channels. If traditional digital advertising converts at X% in our funnel, I set expectations for influencer campaigns at 0.6-0.8X of that until proven otherwise.
The key insight your C-suite needs: you’re not asking for certainty. You’re asking for permission to test, measure, and optimize. Frame it as a learning investment. Propose a pilot budget (maybe 20-30% of what you actually want to spend), set clear KPI targets based on available benchmarks, commit to weekly reporting, and build the business case during the campaign, not before it.
Your leadership will respect that way more than a guess dressed up as analysis. And honestly, it’s more honest.
Also—and this matters—separate your pitch into “what we know” and “what we’re assuming.” Show your work on both. Make the assumptions explicit: “We’re assuming US fintech audiences will engage at 80% of the rate we see in Russia because of market maturity differences.” This gives your C-suite the information to either challenge the assumption or accept the risk. Most of the time, if you show you’ve thought through the logic, they’ll let you test it.
When we launched in Europe, we faced the same problem. Leadership wanted proof, we had no proof. Here’s what actually worked for us:
- We found 2-3 companies in our space that had publicly shared case studies about influencer campaigns (even if they were different markets).
- We extracted the conversion ratios and engagement metrics from those case studies.
- We built a financial model that said: “If we achieve 50% of the performance shown in these case studies, here’s what the ROI looks like.” And “If we achieve 100% of those benchmarks, here’s this scenario.”
- We asked for a 90-day pilot budget, not a full-year commitment.
The key was making the model transparent enough that leadership could see where the numbers came from and what would have to happen for them to be wrong. We also committed to hitting specific metrics or pausing the program.
We actually hit about 75% of our optimistic projections, which was good enough to justify expanding. But the important thing was that we showed our assumptions clearly and committed to measurement.
I’ve done this dance with dozens of clients, and here’s the pattern I’ve noticed: C-suite doesn’t actually want perfect prediction. They want risk mitigation.
So instead of saying “Here’s the ROI we expect,” say: “Here are three scenarios. Worst case, we generate X ROI. Base case, we generate Y. Best case, we generate Z. Here’s what we’re measuring to determine which scenario we’re in. Here’s the pause point if we’re headed toward worst case.”
Also, and this sounds tactical but it matters: use benchmarks from US-based fintech influencer campaigns if you can find them. Even if they’re not perfect fits, they’re more credible to your executive team than Russia-adjusted projections. Your leadership is sitting in the US, they’ll trust US data more.
Last thing: propose a phased budget approach. Pilot budget for month 1-2, then a decision point with real data. This frame removes the “guess” problem because you’re building the case in real time, not theoretically.
Here’s what I tell CMOs who come to me with this exact problem:
You’re confusing two different questions. Question 1: “What’s the expected ROI of influencer marketing for fintech in the US?” You can’t answer that without data. Question 2: “Can I design a pilot program that generates reliable data to answer Question 1?” Yes, absolutely.
Propose a pilot with clear success metrics. $X budget, targeting Y conversions, willing to measure Z engagement metrics weekly. At the end, you’ll have real US fintech data. Then you can build the full business case with evidence instead of extrapolation.
Your leadership wants proof before committing budget. You’re asking them to commit enough budget to generate proof. The way out: propose a small commitment that generates large learnings. That’s how you get buy-in from a skeptical C-suite.