5 Reasons to Use Influencers & Affiliates

As the discussion grows over the benefits of affiliate versus influencer marketing, it is clear that brands can take advantage of both opportunities without having to choose one to the exclusion of the other. Campaign goals, budgets, target audience and content strategy can all play a role in determining how best to build a hybrid initiative integrating performance and fee-based elements for your marketing programs. Here are 5 reasons to work with both Affiliates and Influencers  

1 – Ad Blocking

According to the 2017 Adblock Report from PageFair, 615 million devices now use adblocking technology, adblock usage grew 30% globally in 2016, and Mobile adblock usage grew by 108 million from Dec 2015 – Dec 2016. This means that affiliate ads run the risk of being blocked by these technologies. Content marketing on the other hand is not seen as advertising per se and generally won’t encounter this roadblock. Ideally, marketers create synergy by taking advantage of both opportunities and generate content combined with acceptable affiliate ad practices in order to be whitelisted within adblocking technologies.    

2 – Budget

Traditional affiliate marketing is performance based and therefore seen as ‘free’ by many advertisers whereas influencer marketing typically involves a cost to have content created. However, this doesn’t mean that brands can’t allocate budgets across both channels.  According to BrightLocal, ‘85% of consumers trust online reviews as much as personal recommendations’, so you can be sure that ad views are just one step in the conversion process and help to justify an investment in positive content creation to support affiliate initiatives.

3 – A/B Testing

In order to truly understand which marketing channels are converting best, affiliate and influencer campaigns offer great ways to test your message. Content allows brands to expand their message through the power of storytelling. Affiliate marketing takes a much more direct path to conversion. Comparing the results of a content strategy against the conversions driven by traditional affiliate marketing will be very helpful in determining which strategy is best suited for your particular needs, one or a combination of both?

4 – Audience Reach

Influencers and Affiliates often reach very different audiences. Influencers tend to focus on single subject content targeting readers specifically interested in topics such as home décor, fashion, finance and travel whereas affiliates will place more emphasis on distributing advertising across numerous sites and verticals while emphasizing direct conversion methods. Both approaches serve to complement each other and can prove profitable when combined as part of the overall marketing strategy.   

5 – Repurposing Content

Influencers typically create high quality content in exchange for a fee. As part of the campaign, the content is usually shared to one or more social channels such as YouTube or Instagram. Brands can capitalize on this content by repurposing it for internal use, a benefit that affiliate marketing generally does not offer. In combination with performance campaigns, repurposing influencer content can provide strong ongoing brand exposure that can help with awareness when customers see corresponding affiliate advertising.   

Contact Tembo Collective to learn more about why you should use influencers and affiliates!