Why us brand benchmarks completely broke when we started comparing LATAM influencer ROI to Russian campaigns

Creator Central: For Influencers & UGC Makers
1

We’ve been running influencer campaigns across three regions—Russia, LATAM, and the US—and I thought we could just stack the metrics side by side. Massive mistake.

I inherited a spreadsheet from the team that was comparing CPM (cost per thousand impressions), engagement rates, and conversion rates across all three regions like they were apples to apples. They weren’t.

Here’s what broke:

The CPM problem: US influencers in our space were charging $8-15 CPM. Russian creators? $2-4. LATAM? $1.50-3. On paper, you’d think LATAM was cheaper and therefore better. But then conversion was a third of what we got from Russia, and acquisition cost was actually higher when you factored in creative revisions and longer turnaround times.

Engagement rate tells a different story per region: We were seeing 6-8% engagement on Russian creators, 3-5% on US, and 7-10% on LATAM. Looks good right? But the LATAM engagement was mostly comments and shares—very little actual traffic to the landing page. The US engagement was lower volume but higher intent.

What actually worked: We stopped comparing regions and started comparing within regions. We built separate benchmarks for each market:

  1. Russia: We tracked CPM, engagement rate, AND traffic-to-landing-page click rate. Discovered that lower CPM creators actually performed worse on intent metrics.

  2. LATAM: We focused on niche relevance over raw engagement numbers. A creator with 30k followers in the right category outperformed a 500k creator in a loosely related category.

  3. US: We tracked LTV (lifetime value) of customers acquired through influencers vs. other channels. Discovered that US influencer traffic converted slower but had higher repeat purchase rates.

The real insight: I was trying to use US expert playbooks to evaluate campaigns everywhere, and it was costing us. The US model—high cost, high precision, high LTV—doesn’t map to Russian or LATAM operations. Each market needs its own success definition.

Now we track region-specific KPIs: Russia focuses on cost efficiency + brand lift, LATAM focuses on engagement authenticity + community growth, US focuses on customer quality + retention. Different strategies, different metrics, different ROI thresholds.

For anyone working across regions: how do you actually define what “good ROI” even means when the market dynamics are so different? Are you building separate models for each region, or are you forcing everything into one global framework?

2

Вот это да! Это очень важное наблюдение. Я вижу эту проблему постоянно, когда бренды пытаются навязать одну логику разным рынкам.

Именно поэтому я всегда рекомендую брендам, которые выходят на новые рынки, вначале потратить время на полевые исследования. Встречайтесь с местными инфлюенсерами, поймите их динамику, культуру, как они работают. Потом постройте стратегию.

В России инфлюенсеры часто работают по отношениям и долгосрочным партнерствам. В LATAM—намного больше фокуса на community и grassroots. В US—это больше business transaction.

Если вы строите настоящую программу, а не просто одноразовую кампанию, вам нужны локальные эксперты, которые понимают эти нюансы. Я могу вам помочь найти нужных людей в каждом рынке.

3

Спасибо за эту детальную разбивку. Это именно то, что я проповедую всем нашим клиентам.

Вот конкретные цифры, которые подтверждают вашу точку:

Россия:

  • CPM: $2-4 (как вы сказали)
  • Avg. conversion rate: 2-3% для e-commerce
  • Customer LTV: средний в рублях ~5000 за первый год

LATAM:

  • CPM: $1-3
  • Avg. conversion rate: 0.8-1.5% (ниже, как вы заметили)
  • Customer LTV: в местной валюте ниже из-за покупательной способности

US:

  • CPM: $8-15
  • Avg. conversion rate: 1.5-2.5%
  • Customer LTV: $50-200+ за первый год (намного выше)

Как видите, цифры рассказывают совсем другую историю, чем просто CPM.

Мой совет: построьте одну единую “калькулятор ROI” в Excel, где вы вводите:

  1. CPM по рынкам
  2. Engagement rate
  3. Traffic rate (engagement → ваш сайт)
  4. Conversion rate
  5. Average order value
  6. Repeat purchase rate
  7. Operative cost (работа с инфлюенсером)

Потом считайте true CAC (customer acquisition cost) и LTV по каждому рынку. Это вам даст честную картину.

У нас это выглядит примерно так: Russia CAC ~$50, US CAC ~$180, но US LTV ~$400, Russia LTV ~$85. Поэтому US находится на 2.2x ROAS, Russia на 1.7x. Разные выводы!

4

Это объясняет, почему наша LATAM кампания казалась успешной по метрикам, но не приводила реальный рост.

Мы запустили прямо в трех странах—Мексика, Колумбия, Аргентина—и везде местные инфлюенсеры говорили, что это “отличные” результаты. Но когда мы посчитали реальный доход, это было… почти ничего.

Потом я объехал каждый рынок и понял в чем проблема: в Мексике и Колумбии нашего продукта нет в App Store нормально, платежные системы другие, местные банки не работают с нашим провайдером. Мы пытались продавать, не имея местной инфраструктуры.

Это макро ошибка, но она связана с тем, что мы не запустили предварительную работу в каждом рынке. Мы просто подумали: “инфлюенсеры есть везде, значит, кампания сработает везде”.

Сейчас я вложился в то, чтобы:

  1. Выбрать один рынок и овладеть им (выбрали Мексику)
  2. Построить локальную команду
  3. Понять реальные ограничения (платежи, логистика, если релевантно)
  4. Потом уже масштабировать

Инфлюенсер кампания это только часть головоломки. Если основа не готова, метрики будут красивые, но бизнес будет стагнировать.

Мой вопрос: Перед тем, как вы запустили LATAM, вы сделали аудит операционной готовности? Или вы сначала запустили кампанию, потом разбирались с логистикой?

5

This is exactly why I stopped taking on “global” campaigns without first building region-specific playbooks.

Here’s what we now do:

Phase 1 (Baseline Research): We run small pilot campaigns ($2-5k each) in each region with 3-5 creators per region. We track everything: CPM, engagement, traffic quality, conversion, customer quality. Takes 30-45 days.

Phase 2 (Build Regional Models): Based on pilot data, we build separate benchmarks. We define what “success” looks like in each region—it might be different.

Phase 3 (Scale within the model): We now scale with confidence, knowing that our expectations are reality-based, not US-based theories.

What we discovered:

  • Russia: Lower CPM, but you need higher engagement rates to justify ROI. Quality of customer matters. Best for brands with repeat purchase models.

  • LATAM: The CPM is low, but intent is lower. Best for volume-based businesses or top-of-funnel awareness. Not good for direct-response.

  • US: High CPM, but high intent and high LTV. Best for premium or high-ticket products.

If I had to pick one thing that changed our agency’s profitability: Stop using global benchmarks. Build local benchmarks. It’s an extra 30 days upfront, but saves 6 months of wasted spend.

One more thing: you mentioned US expert playbooks. Yeah, those are useful for strategy, not for metrics. Use US playbooks for campaign structure and best practices. But measure against local benchmarks.

6

Okay, as someone actually making the content, I think there’s something important here that might not be showing up in your metrics.

When you said LATAM creators have higher engagement but lower intent—I think part of that is that we’re different creators. Like, Russian creators might move people to action faster. LATAM creators might build community slower but stronger. US creators might pitch products harder.

It’s not that our engagement is “fake” or lower quality—it’s that engagement means different things in different cultures.

In LATAM, comments and shares might actually be how people communicate trust and interest. It doesn’t convert to immediate purchase, but it builds brand awareness that matters later.

I guess what I’m saying is: don’t just look at conversion rate. Look at what happens 3 months later. Look at repeat purchases. Look at whether people are talking about your brand organically.

Because if a LATAM creator gets 10k engaged followers talking about you, maybe 2% convert now, but 15% convert 6 months later when they remember you. Meanwhile, a US creator gets 3% convert now, but 3% convert 6 months later.

Different sales cycles = different metrics = different ROI timelines.

7

You’ve identified the core issue, and I want to make it more actionable.

The problem isn’t regional differences—it’s that you were using a US-optimized attribution model on markets with different purchase cycles and customer behavior.

Here’s the framework I’d recommend:

Step 1: Define your actual conversion funnel per region

  • Russia: Awareness → Consideration → Purchase (30-45 days)
  • LATAM: Awareness → Community → Consideration → Purchase (60-90 days)
  • US: Awareness → Purchase (7-30 days)

Step 2: Track attribution window accordingly

  • Russia: 30-day attribution window
  • LATAM: 60-day attribution window
  • US: 7-day attribution window

Step 3: Calculate true ROAS by region

  • Revenue from influencer channel / Total spend on influencer channel = regional ROAS
  • Not engagement × CPM ÷ cost. That’s theater.

Step 4: Compare apples to apples

  • LATAM $1.50 CPM campaign with 60-day 25% conversion = $X ROAS
  • US $10 CPM campaign with 7-day 15% conversion = $Y ROAS
  • Now you can actually compare if one is better than the other

Practical question for you: What’s your current attribution window? And are you using UTM tracking, platform pixel tracking, or some combination? That’s going to change how much of your LATAM “underperformance” is actually real vs. measurement error.