Affiliate marketing vs influencer marketing: a highly debatable topic that you will find amongst various marketers. Some professional marketers say that affiliate marketing is perfect for growing businesses to seek attention.Â
Meanwhile, many social media marketers consider influencer marketing one of the most effective ways to increase brand awareness. Thus, the clash between these two is quite common.
When you listen to all the aspects, you may face problems choosing between these two options. That’s where I come in. I will discuss affiliate marketing vs influencer marketing so that you can make better decisions.Â
What is affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a performance-driven strategy where your eCommerce business promotes its products or services on external websites and shares a portion of the revenue whenever a purchase is made through a unique affiliate link.Â
Essentially, your business compensates affiliates—be they individuals, organizations, media outlets, or publishers—with a commission for every customer they refer through their specific link.
This model motivates affiliates to market your brand actively, as their earnings are tied to a share of your sales revenue. Their potential to earn commissions inspires them to boost their promotional efforts and provide advertising opportunities for your products on their platforms.
What is influencer marketing?
Influencer marketing is a digital marketing strategy that involves collaborating with prominent social media influencers, such as bloggers or celebrities on platforms like Instagram and YouTube, to showcase your products within their regular content.
In essence, you invest in product placement and brand exposure through the influencer’s channel. Since influencers have a strong connection with their audience, it’s crucial to allow them creative freedom in shaping the promotional message to maintain their authenticity.
Rather than focusing on one-time influencer marketing campaigns, the ideal approach is to foster long-term partnerships with influencers, ensuring consistency and achieving sustainable goals over time.
However, remember that influencer marketing will depend heavily on the influencer you’re choosing. Also, you need to pay close attention to the influencer's audience base to know if they are relevant.Â
Affiliate Marketing vs Influencer Marketing: A few differencesÂ
Now, let’s come to an important part. Knowing the differences between affiliate marketing vs influencer marketing is of top most priority. While they both may seem similar, there are huge differences.Â
So, knowing which is which will help you choose the right one for your business. Moreover, you can avoid some costly marketing mistakes. Here are some key differences between these two marketing methods you should know:
Comparing affiliate marketing vs influencer marketing is the best way to know which one to choose for your business. It will ultimately boil down to your overall marketing campaign.Â
Similarities between affiliate and influencer marketing
Although these are distinct marketing strategies, influencers can be integrated into your eCommerce affiliate programs, creating a hybrid approach to marketing. Â
The key to success in both influencer and affiliate programs lies in collaborating with individuals, organizations, or publishers whose audience aligns closely with your brand. As a result, you can increase your chances of:
Both influencer and affiliate marketing are most effective when you partner with individuals and brands that align with your brand's style and values. These partners are best equipped to authentically promote your products and services. By engaging influencers as affiliates, you can leverage the strengths of both strategies for maximum impact.
Working principle of affiliate marketing
To maximize the effectiveness of your eCommerce affiliate marketing campaigns, consider leveraging platforms like Impact, AWIN, and others. Getting started with these platforms is straightforward: Â
Affiliate marketing platforms enable you to instantly connect with hundreds of affiliates, informing them about new products, upcoming releases, features, and all essential details they need to promote effectively. However, there’s no assurance that every potential affiliate will join your network. Â
These platforms often include a rating system for advertisers, allowing affiliates to evaluate brands based on their profile, past performance, trustworthiness (including response times, payment speed), and overall ratings before deciding to partner.
In addition to using platforms to promote yourself as an advertiser and reach hundreds of potential affiliates, you can also build your own affiliate network by carefully selecting partners and creating customized offers and ads for their platforms.
While this can be a highly effective affiliate marketing strategy, managing affiliates individually can be time-consuming.
Regardless of the approach, a best practice is to offer your affiliates exclusive promo codes or special deals. This not only incentivizes their audience to make purchases but also helps accelerate your revenue growth.
Cost of affiliate marketing
Depending on the platform, you’ll incur various fees in addition to the commissions paid to affiliates, such as:
In affiliate marketing, you pay affiliates based on the sales they generate, along with platform fees, which could range from a $500 setup fee to a $3,000 monthly subscription, or something in between.
However, affiliates can be a valuable investment because:
Overall, affiliate marketing offers a strong ROI since most of the costs are tied to a small percentage of your revenue. For instance, if your revenue is $1 million and you pay $100,000 to affiliates, that results in a clear 900% ROI.
Can you track the effectiveness of affiliate marketing?
One of the key benefits of affiliate marketing is the ability to track results and make data-driven decisions to manage your campaigns and reputation.
By using an affiliate marketing platform, you can access valuable insights for each ad on your affiliates' websites, allowing you to track metrics such as:
Additionally, you can monitor all this data in Google Analytics, as each affiliate will have a unique URL parameter that shows the source of the traffic.
Should you hire an agency?
Yes, of course!
While you can manage affiliate campaign on your own if you prefer, hiring a digital agency can offer significant advantages if you're not confident in handling it alone.
Marketing experts from an agency will take charge of platform setup, affiliate communication, and overall campaign management. They will ensure affiliates are regularly updated on product updates, new releases, exclusive promotions, discounts, and more.
An agency can also assist in creating and maintaining your media hub, ensuring it stays up-to-date with all the necessary visuals for your ads, including various formats, dimensions, color schemes, and campaign variations.
Working principle of influencer marketing
While influencer marketing platforms are available, the relationship with influencers is usually more personal and one-on-one. It's about building strong, ongoing connections to help grow your brand.
When launching a campaign, you can work with an influencer to decide how they will promote your brand, such as:
A best practice is for influencers to be transparent and disclose when a post is part of a paid partnership. Instagram’s Paid Partnership feature makes this process easier, allowing you to approve influencers as business partners. This way, you can track reach, engagement rates, and other performance metrics for posts tagged with your business.
Regardless of whether influencers publicly disclose they are being paid or not, their influence over their followers can be a powerful marketing tool for your brand.
That's why it’s essential to build long-term relationships with influencers, keeping them informed about your latest products, services, and ideas. As third-party affiliate marketers, influencers should feel closely connected to your brand.
1. How to know a good influencer?
There is no definitive rule for determining when someone becomes an influencer, but they are typically recognized by the size of their following.
Generally, individuals with 5,000+ followers on at least one social media platform can be considered influencers. There are several types of influencers based on their follower count:
Promotions through celebrities with large, multi-million followings have been found to be less cost-effective due to their audiences' lower engagement. This is why many brands are shifting their focus to micro-influencers, who tend to have more dedicated and engaged communities within their specific niches.
2. How to find the best influencers for your business
Choosing the right influencer for your brand depends on several factors, including:
Additionally, the ideal influencer will be one who shares your brand values and fits within your campaign’s budget, goals, and key performance indicators (KPIs).
3. Should you invest in influencer marketing?
The short answer is – it depends on your goals.
To elaborate, the cost of influencer marketing varies based on factors like the influencer’s audience size, popularity, and the scope of the promotion. Typically, you’ll pay influencers a flat fee upfront for visibility on their channels.Â
While this approach is great for brand building, it’s not always effective for immediate performance, as the results are harder to track. Here’s one possible scenario:
In this case, the influencer’s post eventually led to a conversion, but it’s not something you can directly measure.
Alternatively, you might generate $10,000 in revenue by the end of the campaign but have paid $20,000 to influencers, meaning you would lose money in the short term.
It’s also important to factor in the time required for setup. The hours spent on influencer marketing setup and relationship-building depend on the number of influencers you're working with.
Although influencer marketing requires an investment of both time and money upfront, the long-term results can often outperform those of affiliate marketing. In fact, 48% of marketers report that the ROI from influencer marketing is better than from other marketing channels.
Affiliate Marketing vs Influencer Marketing: Which one to use?
So, is there a clear winner in the affiliate marketing vs influencer marketing battle?
The answer isn’t simple, but after understanding how each tactic works and their respective advantages and disadvantages, choosing between the two should be easier.
However, both tactics require ongoing management and nurturing of the channel. For a well-rounded approach that supports both short-term and long-term goals, using influencer marketing and affiliate marketing strategically is likely your best bet.