Best of Both Worlds: Affiliate and Influencer Marketing

TikTok started testing an affiliate program with creators as part of its TikTok Shop initiative that was launched a few months ago. Participating creators can showcase products from sellers in their videos and live streams and earn a commission (between 5% – 20%) for any resulting sales. These videos and live streams are marked with an “Eligible for commission” label, similar to the “Paid Partnership” label used for sponsored content by creators.

The affiliate program is part of TikTok’s efforts to support brands in driving sales and to generate their own revenue. Competitors, like Instagram and YouTube, have also explored similar affiliate programs.

The Intersection of Affiliate Marketing and Influencer Marketing

Since the pandemic, brands have increasingly explored affiliate marketing, too. In most cases, they’ve investigated how to inject it into their influencer marketing efforts. As people were forced to stay home, brands secured budgets to collaborate with influencers on sponsored content. This allowed them to connect with consumers who were spending more time on mobile devices and to generate content assets as in-house studios became obsolete.

This increased investment in influencer marketing programs garnered attention from leadership and executives, as well as other departments such as performance marketing. This led brands to focus on the return on investment (ROI) of the dollars they were putting into creators instead of traditional marketing tactics.

Despite the passage of time since March 2020, brands are still navigating how to effectively integrate the strengths of both affiliate marketing and influencer marketing into their strategies. A great deal of friction exists today as brands see affiliates and influencers as the same when they are actually two very different types of creators.

Here are a few factors that I believe are important for brands to successfully integrate the strengths of both affiliate marketing and influencer marketing.

Understand the Differences Between Influencer and Affiliate

It’s important to recognize that influencers and affiliates are not the same. Influencers focus on creating content and building an audience, while affiliates are primarily focused on driving sales. Affiliates may not always produce high-quality content or have a large audience, but they excel at getting their audiences to take action. Influencers typically receive guaranteed payments, whereas affiliates earn commissions based on conversions. Understanding the differences helps brands align their strategies accordingly, whether they partner with influencers, affiliates, or both.

Utilize a Hybrid Payment Approach

Brands can utilize hybrid payment models that combine flat-rate payments with performance-based incentives. This approach enables creators to receive a guaranteed payment while also tying their additional earnings to the performance of their content through affiliate links or codes. This allows marketers to understand their ROI and incentivizes creators to go beyond their campaign deliverables. This model aligns with where the industry is heading — creators of all sizes receiving some form of payment for producing content.

Explore a Pay-for-Performance Model Beyond Conversions

Many affiliate programs traditionally focus on rewarding creators solely for generating sales. However, there is a growing trend where creators are paid based on other key performance metrics commonly used in influencer marketing campaigns, such as impressions, engagements, clicks, CPM (cost per thousand impressions), or CPE (cost per engagement).

TikTok and Instagram have started to embrace this approach through programs like Branded Missions and Reels Play Bonus Program. In addition, there are emerging influencer marketing platforms that use these models for challenge-based campaigns. They compensate creators based on top to middle of the funnel results and provide marketers with more visibility and predictability on campaign outcomes.

Leverage the Appropriate Channels

Choosing appropriate channels based on a brand’s product or service is crucial. While Instagram and TikTok may be popular platforms for influencer marketing, they may not be the best fit for driving conversions for certain products and services, especially those with a longer customer purchasing journey.

Activating creators on channels that align with the customer purchasing journey is important. For example, consumer packaged goods (CPGs) are easy to promote through short-form video content on Instagram and TikTok. However, tech or mattress products may require longer-form content on blogs, newsletters, or YouTube.

Provide Incentives for Viewers to Support Creators

Provide viewers with compelling reasons to make purchases directly from creators rather than from other sources like Amazon

Offer exclusive discounts, limited-time offers, or unique product pages to incentivize viewers to complete purchases through the affiliate links shared by creators. Make it convenient and enticing for viewers to buy directly from creators versus going elsewhere.

Utilize Long-Term Partnerships

Embrace long-term partnerships with creators to build sustained exposure and trust with their audience. The “one and done” approach may not be as effective, as it takes repeated exposure to a product before a consumer makes a purchase. It takes time for consumers to be exposed to a product or service multiple times before making a purchase. By working with creators on long-term partnerships, brands can increase the chances of conversions and build stronger relationships with the audience, which can drive long-term success.

Empower Creators to Succeed

Brands should actively share relevant data, insights, and resources with creators to help them optimize their content. This includes providing information on historical performance data, such as successful channels, messaging, and creative ideas that can contribute to the creators’ success in promoting the brand.

While creators are experts in their field, brands can provide valuable assistance, especially when it comes to data-driven aspects like affiliate marketing. Brands should approach creators similarly to how sales enablement specialists support sales teams.

Test, Learn, and Iterate

Affiliate and influencer marketing integration is still in its early days, so it’s important to continuously test, learn, and iterate. Brands should be open to trying new strategies and experimenting with different types of creators, payment models, briefing methods, and other innovative approaches to optimize their affiliate marketing efforts in collaboration with influencers.