Eleve Media wants to be 'Tesla of influencer marketing', bets on AI and automation

New Delhi: In a crowded influencer marketing industry where hundreds of players are jostling for attention, Prince Khanna, Founder & CEO of Eleve Media, believes his company has carved out a distinct path. His ambition is not just to run campaigns or manage influencer rosters; it is to reimagine how the entire ecosystem functions. By combining automation, authentic data engineering, and a deep focus on delivery, Khanna positions Eleve as a company that wants to do for influencer marketing what Tesla did for the automobile industry.

Dream of becoming the 'Tesla of influencer marketing'

Prince Khanna described his vision with characteristic clarity. "We're trying to become the Tesla of influencer marketing, aiming for human-less automation of the entire process. The idea is to reimagine how marketing ecosystems have been run till today."

He pointed out that while many companies liked to claim they were technology-driven, Eleve had taken a different route. "Now, in most companies, you'll find people claiming to be in tech. But we've innovated in very functional ways for marketers. In fact, in one of my last calls with a travel brand, the compliment I received was very common: 'What I was supposed to ask you, you've already covered in your demo.' Why? Because I built the product after going into the market. When a sales guy builds a product, they know the exact questions that get asked. So I built features in my CreatorTag influencer MarTech platform based on the requirements of marketers"

A major differentiator, he noted, lay in Eleve's approach to discovery. "One unique feature we have is outward search. Most platforms only give you inwards search, basically, the data they already have on their platform. CreatorTag’s USP is not just internal data. We access millions of  data externally through our Brand Intelligence feature."

Khanna explained that the company went a step further than traditional social listening platforms. "What social media listening and intelligence platforms do, we've built in two forms: one, helping brands understand what their competitors are doing, and two, finding influencers from the open internet, not just from our own database. So it's not just inward search, it's outward search too."

Equally important, he stressed, was Eleve's insistence on engineering its own data for CreatorTag. "We also have tools powered by AI for checking fake followers, creator authenticity, audience demographics, and data quality. And importantly, we take responsibility for our own data because we engineer it ourselves. Most Indian players don't."

This commitment to authenticity came after benchmarking against global leaders. "We compare ourselves with global competitors. We have subscribed to their platforms, compared, and built our own data engineering. In 2020, we also acquired Rankme.online, built by DCE & IIT Delhi computer science engineers. That acquisition boosted our data power immensely," Khanna said.

For Khanna, however, success in influencer marketing ultimately boiled down to reliability. "There's competition. In every small house, someone is trying to start something in this space. The differentiation comes down to delivery. Many can work, but only a handful deliver. For brands, delivery is everything. Brands ultimately want ROI. If they want a Diwali campaign, it must end five days before Diwali. If you miss deadlines, nothing else matters. That's where our SOPs come in. We've won contracts even when we weren't the lowest bidder (L2) because clients trust our delivery. Most of our business is retention-based, built on reliability. Given the sheer number of brands we work with, I believe scaling up solutions gives us the biggest growth opportunity. Around 92% of our work is direct with brands; we don't depend much on agencies."

CreatorTag: The comprehensive platform empowering creators

At the heart of Eleve's creator-first approach lies CreatorTag, a comprehensive platform that functions as both a standalone SaaS solution and an integral part of the Eleve ecosystem. Unlike traditional influencer marketing platforms that focus primarily on brand needs, CreatorTag addresses the day-to-day challenges faced by content creators.

"CreatorTag is our answer to the creator economy's pain points," Khanna explained. "It's part LinkedIn, part Tinder for creators, but with the operational tools they actually need to run their businesses effectively."

The platform offers creators invoice generation, revenue tracking, travel collaboration planning, and heat maps showing nearby influencers for potential collaborations. But its standout feature is Swift Reply, an automation tool that's transforming how creators handle engagement at scale.

Swift Reply: Turning engagement into conversions automatically

Swift Reply represents a breakthrough in creator productivity, addressing one of the biggest challenges for successful influencers and businesses: managing high-volume interactions while maintaining authentic engagement.

"Creators and businesses with substantial followings were spending 3-4 hours daily just replying to hundreds of DMs and comments," Khanna noted. "Swift Reply automates this process intelligently, allowing creators to be responsive while focusing on content creation."

The tool offers multiple automation features, including text-to-DM responses, image and link sharing directly to followers' inboxes, comment trigger responses, and story reply automation. A comprehensive dashboard provides creators with insights into message delivery, open rates, and conversion tracking.

"We've seen creators increase their conversion rates by 50-70% using Swift Reply during affiliate campaigns and brand collaborations," Khanna shared. "It's not just about saving time, it's about turning every interaction into a potential business opportunity while maintaining that personal touch creators are known for."

The impact becomes particularly evident during large-scale campaigns. "During our recent Lizol campaign with 602 influencers, Swift Reply helped creators manage the influx of questions about products and purchase links, contributing to the campaign's impressive 9% engagement rate," Khanna added.

Campaign excellence: The Lizol benchmark

Speaking of successful executions, Khanna highlighted the Lizol Micro Campaign as a testament to CreatorTag's effectiveness and Eleve's strategic approach to influencer marketing.

"Among all our campaigns, Lizol delivered the most balanced and impactful results," Khanna explained. "With 602 influencers, it scaled massively while maintaining authentic home-care positioning. The 9% engagement rate is among the highest we've recorded, proving strong relevance and content resonance."

The campaign achieved remarkable metrics: 2.3M reach, 309K engagement, 3M views, 5.3M impressions, and 1.2K meaningful conversations. What made it exceptional was the strategic alignment between category fit and creator authenticity.

"Home-cleaning influencers made the message believable. We encouraged user-generated reviews and cleaning demonstrations, which boosted relatability," Khanna noted. "Unlike campaigns that prioritise volume over quality, Lizol exemplified how micro-influencer campaigns can drive mass-scale awareness while maintaining personal credibility."

Fundraising and acquisitions on the horizon for Eleve 2.0

While the company had remained organically built, he admitted that conversations around acquisitions happened every year. "For the last 2 years, we have been growing 40-50% YOY. People often ask if we're considering an acquisition, but I feel it's still early to hand over the baton. Instead, we plan to raise funding ourselves and explore the acquisition of smaller companies across various regions in India, and enable them, particularly at the intersection of technology and leadership, to build a large-scale marketing tech company specialised in influencer marketing. If a VC/ PE team aligns with our vision, we're open to it," Khanna told BuzzInContent.com.

Khanna believes that Eleve 2.0 will mark a turning point for the company. "Scaling influencer marketing with AI, automation, and attribution is our ultimate goal. Traditionally, ROI has been a black box. In 2.0, we want influencers to become the next media, a credible, measurable channel for brands," Khanna asserted.

What's new and different with Eleve 2.0

At the heart of Eleve 2.0 is its commitment to end-to-end automation. He also pointed to Eleve's pilots in social commerce as proof of how automation could scale. "We've run full-fledged commerce pilots using AI agents, everything from influencer outreach to content improvisation to live attribution, all done without human involvement. For example, in one pilot, 535 influencers were onboarded, 404 posted content, and it all happened seamlessly through automation," said Khanna.

Beyond automation, Eleve also prioritises tools to support creators. "Beyond brands, we've also added value for influencers. We were the first to introduce caption generators, since India is not an English-speaking nation. We've also brought in map research, content AI, and other tools," Khanna asserted.

He added that the company's mobile-first approach was giving creators more control through CreatorTag's comprehensive suite. "We're empowering creators with a complete business management platform. CreatorTag isn't just about campaign participation—it's about helping creators build sustainable businesses with tools for financial management, collaboration discovery, and automated engagement."

India vs the world: the resource gap

When asked to compare India with global influencer markets, Khanna pointed to the structural limitations creators faced. "Now, about India versus the US in influencer marketing, there is a big difference. The challenge here is resources. Our creators don't have money. Half of them don't even own an iPhone. Even a decent 64GB camera phone is beyond reach. So yes, in metros, it looks like everyone is a creator. But in tier 2 and tier 3 cities, where most of India lives, resources are still a big challenge. And this is a full-time job."

Despite this, he acknowledged positive signals in the ecosystem. "Our mindset is evolving. The government is also recognising this. They've even announced a Rs 1 billion budget to create a university for influencers because they know the skill gap is real. If you look at all stakeholders, platforms, brands, influencers, companies like us, and the government, everyone is contributing to this ecosystem. Our mission is to bring all of them together so that the system works in harmony while maximising value for brands."

Khanna concluded that the future of influencer marketing lies in repositioning influencers as a credible channel for brands. "At the end of the day, brands want numbers, but numbers must come with the right narrative, audience fit, and delivery. That's what we are solving for brands. I want brands to use influencers as media. Fifteen years ago, a single TVC would be produced, edited, and paired with a radio voiceover. Today we've moved beyond that. Now a brand like Nestlé is democratising content by working with creators."

AI influencers: fad or future?

On the subject of AI influencers, Khanna offered a candid assessment. "AI influencers are another topic. Everyone talks about them, but I still believe there is a human aspect. AI influencers have their own niche, mostly in subscription models. If AI influencers were really growing in brand business, we'd have seen more cases. It's just a fad. PR-hungry people tried it. End of story. We don't see demand for it. Every year, we have reports. Out of seven trends, one is AI influencers. But I don't even have a single brand asking for them every month. Market feedback is that they lack humanness and rawness. People don't connect. They know it's AI-generated. Either they watch it for fun or skip it when looking for authenticity."