In the previous article, we have discovered the defining characteristics of influence market as an ecosystem. This time we are diving into the affiliate side of the matter: we are going to take a closer look at offer verticals and popular campaign flows. Let’s go!
What Verticals Qualify?
Besides watches, other tangible (and often luxurious) goods, and videogames, influencers can promote almost anything, as long as it complies with the rules of the platform they spread their influence at. Consequently, gray-hat and black-hat offers are severely inhibited. After all, account ban, monetization disabling, or audience loss is the nightmare for any influencer.
More precisely, the list includes, but not limited to: e-commerce (Nescafé), banking (Capital One), lead generation (Volvo), gaming (Cyberpunk 2077), health & beauty (Dove), nutra (Centrum). Cryptocurrency, the not-so white niche, is also being advertised with some dire failures, due to the volatile and barely established legislation. The influencer may not be aware of all the difficulties and dangers of executing a campaign, so you have to plan everything out for the campaign to pan out in your favor. Specify what to say, when to say, how to say, consider the local legislation, payout terms and conditions, deadlines etc.
In defense of the more questionable gray and black niches, the history is aware of the examples of selling the most bizarre stuff online, using the influencer marketing. As an example, Belle Delphine, a.k.a. “Gamer girl”, used to sell her bathwater for $30 per jar. This case example is imperfect, because at the end of the day the YouTuber was the one selling and advertising the product, yet the result is obvious: people did buy the jars and even drank them online.
How to Drive the Traffic?
The influencer posts some content in his blog for his audience to enjoy. Yet this is not done for free, so you have to pay for an integration. Payment types are roughly divided into the following categories:
- Product gifting – pay with the product your company makes (e.g, Gymshark).
- Large discounts – can barely be considered as payment, since the influencer is the one who pays at the end of the day. Still, if we talk about a brand-new Rolex watch, this might work out
- Giveaway entry – some people can be crazy about Apple products, and even the possibility of obtaining one for free might entice people to do your bidding.
- One-time payment – pretty straightforward, with the pros of simplicity offset by the cons of difficulties in estimating the influencer’s performance.
- Performance-based pricing – this is where the KPI start to matter. The subsets for this approach are: cost-per-engagement, cost-per-acquisition, cost-per-click.
- Revenue sharing – revshares are similar everywhere. A percentage of profit is deduced from the affiliate’s revenue, which contributes positively towards the influencer’s motivation.
The main problem with establishing the traffic flow is to pick the right influencer that has a grip on the audience you portray as the potential buyer. Then you will have to come to an agreement in terms of payment, the rest resides on the shoulders of the influencer. If you targeted the audience right, are aware of the psychological portrait of the influencer, and incentivized him well with the right payment mechanism – you can expect the integration to go smoothly. Make sure to check the biography of the influencer – slackers, scammers, and saboteurs have done no good to anybody.
How to Measure Performance
No matter how well crafted the influencer campaign is, at the end of the day the only thing that matters is your ROI. To estimate your revenue, include the following data in your calculations:
- Total number of conversions
- Total number of orders
- Total sales
Your costs reside on the following indicators:
- Product seeding costs
- Product discounts
- Cost of Goods Sold (CoGS)
- Shipping
- Influencer compensation
Your Profit = Campaign Sales – Campaign Costs
Your ROI = Campaign Profit / Campaign Costs
Conclusion
As a conclusion for the article, we would like to give the statistics with influence marketing growth projections, provided by the Influencer Marketing Hub:
The statistics above means one simple thing. The influencer marketing size of the global market steadily grows per annum by $3-4 billions, and the growth rate accelerates. Therefore, it is a good idea to include this advertising channel into your campaigns if you have not done so already.
If you want to reach new GEOs and audiences, maybe it is all waiting for you on Telegram? We’ve prepared some material about Telegram audiences. What are the messenger’s users like this year? How old they are, what they do, and what they are interested in!
