Companies prioritize influencers based on historical and live performance data in several ways:

1. Historical Engagement Rates: Brands review an influencer’s past engagement rates such as likes, shares, comments, and views. This can help evaluate how much interaction the influencer’s content typically provokes.

2. Follower growth: A steady or rapidly increasing follower count can indicate growing popularity, potentially leading to higher returns for campaigns.

3. Authentic engagements: Analyzing the authenticity of engagements, such as genuine comments versus bot-like remarks, helps assess the influencer’s true influence over their audience.

4. Content Relevance: Brands also examine the relevance and quality of past content. If the influencer has promoted similar products or has a history with a similar target market, it can increase the probability of success for the campaign.

5. Conversion rates: For e-commerce brands, they often look at how well an influencer’s past campaigns have converted into actual sales or leads.

Influencer marketing platforms, like Flinque make it easier to understand and analyze this data, making objective comparisons possible. However, it’s important to remember that the ‘best’ influencer is not just the one with the most followers or highest engagement rates, as suitability heavily depends on business needs and campaign objectives. A niche influencer with a smaller but highly-engaged and specific audience might deliver better ROI, for instance. Brands must continuously monitor, adjust strategies, and optimize influencer partnerships to achieve the best results. Performance data helps in making these informed decisions.