Grin is benchmarking influencer activations.

Grin unveils activation benchmarking tool for scalable influencer marketing

Grin has unveiled its Activation Benchmarking tool, empowering brands to launch measurable and scalable influencer marketing programs.

Sacramento, California-based Grin has built a creator management platform. And today it announced the launch of Activation Benchmarking, its data-driven tool that takes the guesswork out of evaluating influencer marketing performance.

Powered by billions of data points, Grin’s proprietary customer performance data, Activation Benchmarking, helps brands better understand which areas of their influencer marketing program to prioritize by surfacing key performance metrics, custom recommendations, and their progress against similar brands. This is not a one-size-fits-all tool. Grin tailors each benchmark to a brand’s unique needs by considering campaign length, desired goals, company size and more.

Brandon Brown is CEO of Grin.

Activation Benchmarking arrives as more brands embrace influencer marketing, but still have uncertainty around how to reach their activation goals. In fact, 47% of social marketers say measuring the effectiveness of campaigns is one of their top influencer marketing challenges.

What the tool does

In just the past five years alone, GRIN has pulled benchmarking data from over 84,000 activations spanning various industries and brand sizes, which have collectively generated 786 billion impressions, 12 million content assets and $847 million in conversion revenue. With this proprietary data as a roadmap, Activations Benchmarking gives brands real-time insight into how their campaign-specific goals are progressing and shares precisely what they need to focus on to move the needle.

“Grin’s vision is to democratize influencer marketing expertise and support every customer, regardless of their size and program maturity, on their path to success,” said Brandon Brown, CEO at Grin, in a statement. “Benchmarking is the first of many solutions aimed at providing data-backed recommendations to customers to help run their programs more effectively and efficiently,” Brown said.

Grin’s customers include Uber, Macy’s and Skims.

After brands identify a specific goal for their activation, Activation Benchmarking provides the most impactful activity metrics to help them prioritize tasks to achieve that goal, enabling easier activation management.

It also tracks performance. Brands can have little indication of progress or whether their influencer efforts are paying off.

Activations Benchmarking automatically provides brands with the most impactful KPIs so the next step toward reaching their overall goal is always crystal clear. Activations Benchmarking tracks campaign metrics in real-time, helping users pinpoint performance gaps and monitor progress toward big-picture goals.

Activation Benchmarking also allows brands to monitor the effectiveness of their current strategy by comparing their progress to historical customer data from similar brands — ensuring they’re on the right track to outshine in their segment.

Grin has 300 employees, and it has raised $136 million to date.

Asked what the inspiration was for it, Brown said in an email to GamesBeat, “It’s more apparent than ever that the creator economy is here to stay. Where consumers used to watch TV stations, they now turn to people on social media as their trusted source for entertainment. Authenticity is critical in the creator economy, and that’s why we built Grin, a SaaS platform built for creator management that is trusted by thousands of the world’s leading brands. Grin provides the best overall solution for brands and creators seeking direct, authentic partnerships that will resonate.”

Dean Takahashi

Dean Takahashi is editorial director for GamesBeat at VentureBeat. He has been a tech journalist since 1988, and he has covered games as a beat since 1996. He was lead writer for GamesBeat at VentureBeat from 2008 to April 2025. Prior to that, he wrote for the San Jose Mercury News, the Red Herring, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, and the Dallas Times-Herald. He is the author of two books, "Opening the Xbox" and "The Xbox 360 Uncloaked." He organizes the annual GamesBeat Next, GamesBeat Summit and GamesBeat Insider Series: Hollywood and Games conferences and is a frequent speaker at gaming and tech events. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.