Here, Awin’s Sadé Weeden (influencer marketing specialist) explains how combining affiliate marketing and influencer marketing can increase the authenticity, measurement, and ROI of your digital marketing campaigns.
Influencer marketing has grown into a powerful force in the digital marketing mix, with few channels matching the authenticity of its promotional techniques and the way it builds trust in your brand or product.
Traditionally, influencer campaigns were primarily focused on generating awareness, but they have now shifted to more sophisticated and influential efforts that go beyond simply increasing reach.
According to data from Sprout Social, 49% of consumers make at least one purchase per month after seeing an influencer post. Whether subtly or overtly, our shopping choices have always been shaped by the stories we encounter and the individuals leading them. But there's no denying that more strategic and measurable influencer efforts are steadily emerging.
Are creators becoming more educated? Are marketers looking for clearer evidence of ROI? We are seeing scenarios where both developments apply. Let’s explore what has been missing in the influencer space and understand why the affiliate channel is everything the influencer space needs right now.
Synergy between influencers and affiliate platforms
Influencer marketing and affiliate marketing are each powerful on their own, but when combined, they create a dynamic combination that helps brands resonate with specific audiences and generate measurable results.
On one side, there's influencer marketing, a field brimming with creative talent that holds immense power in today's digital environment. By working with curated content producers, brands can break through the noise, access passionate communities, shift perceptions, and foster greater trust and credibility.
Then there's the affiliate channel, the bridge between creativity and data-driven marketing. Affiliates have become a useful answer to the stories of marketers facing challenges in measuring influencer ROI. By providing creators with affiliate links, brands can track every result, eliminating the question of how to measure success.
If harnessing the power of creativity seems like too far-reaching a benefit, here are some immediate benefits you can get by running your influencer activities through an affiliate platform:
Clear insight
Combining influencer and affiliate marketing is one way to apply the same ideas and resources to maximize measurable impact.
Even brands with solid campaign ideas can struggle with measurement issues, which impacts everything from ROI to recruiting. By leveraging data from affiliate platforms, brands can strategically allocate marketing budgets to the most effective creators that drive visible results. Affiliate channels offer an easy way to eliminate the guesswork, so brands can make calculated, effective investments that resonate powerfully with different audiences.
Marketers who have invested in the affiliate channel have additional clarity and control thanks to affiliate commission structures and reporting, turning influencer marketing’s troubling tendency for 30% of investors to not track ROI into effectively controlled and measurable influencer campaigns.
Recognize and reward influencers for their impact
While it’s still common for influencers to receive “collaboration” or “flat rate” compensation, and brands pay for posts rather than results, the affiliate performance-based commission model answers both challenges.
Brands can use campaign objectives to determine how to pay influencers. Paying a commission per click, impression, or sale can help lower the risk of engaging with new creators while building cost-effective partnerships.
As influencers grow in power and their affiliate channels reach levels far beyond the final click, they are recognized for their true impact and gain a greater claim to the revenue their activities generate. Structuring partnerships in this way clearly proves the influencer's contribution to your revenue and allows you to claim increased fees in a way that flat-rate fees don't.
Paying and rewarding based on performance ensures fairness in every interaction, creating a win-win scenario.
Laser-focused mining of expertise
As affiliate networks invest in technology, they are evolving into platforms, not only providing tools for brands and influencers to manage their partnerships, but also maintaining their inherent ability to connect marketers and creators.
This is a quality that is set to become increasingly valuable given talk of brands pivoting away from the old influencer strategy of paying top dollar to global celebrities to advertise to them, and instead shifting their focus to a wider range of micro- and nano-influencers.
Influencers themselves are moving away from the generalist label and diving deeper into their chosen niches, emerging as specialists in their chosen field, topic or passion. Whether it's gut-healthy recipes, sustainable fashion or the latest gadgets, niche influencers will be experts in their chosen area.
As influencer marketing becomes less of a numbers game of “who has the biggest audience”, brands will need additional support to find the hidden gem in their campaigns.
They will find value in partnering affiliate platforms with specialized influencer discovery tools to discover specific creators, allowing them greater precision in targeting specific audiences, while influencers can use the same networks to reach brands with overlapping audiences.
Embrace innovation and change
As the marketing landscape continues to rapidly evolve, staying ahead of the curve requires adaptability, innovation and a willingness to embrace new approaches, like combining channels to get better results.
Leveraging an affiliate model creates a roadmap for influencer success, benefiting both sides of the partnership with greater structure, clarity and consideration – not to mention the opportunity for ROI-driven brands to pay based on performance and influencers to earn based on results.
This is the best collaboration the influencer industry has ever seen, empowering creators, improving measurement capabilities and driving data-driven recruitment.
Explore how influencer marketing can add to your online marketing mix here.
