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There are many ways to utilize influencer marketing to your benefit. Some companies like doing promotional campaigns in which famous influencers review their products or take photos or videos with the products in the frame, and others may use a social media takeover strategy.
However, two of the most popular tactics in influencer marketing include the usage of discount codes and affiliate links that influencers share with their followers. This enables you to take a data-driven approach and track influencer campaigns to see how your partnerships contribute to your revenue. Along with that, you can easily measure your ROI to see whether working with that particular social media celebrity is leading to the desired results.
In this article, we will take an in-depth look into this particular area of influencer marketing revolving around influencer discount codes/promo codes and affiliate links.
Influencer Marketing With Promo Codes
A discount code is essentially a string of numbers and letters that shoppers can use online at checkout in order to get a discount on the items they’re purchasing. In this context, they also allow influencers to promote your products more effectively.
Most online businesses use promo codes as a way to increase sales and get better data on where their customers are coming from. As far as influencer marketing goes, discount codes work to track if a partnership is successful or not, as you can assign each of your partners or brand ambassadors their own unique code and record which ones are used most frequently.
The other significant benefit of promo codes is that they’re easy to customize. For example, you can create limits on when the code can be used and how many codes can be used together.
Here’s a rundown of some benefits of using coupon codes in your influencer marketing strategy:
Using promo codes in any marketing campaign motivates people that are interested in your products or services to take the plunge and order, as they feel like saving money and “winning” something from the deal. They also enhance the overall user experience by providing a larger portion of the target audience a chance to try out the products.
In other words, including codes in your campaigns might encourage on-the-fence leads to make a purchase. Since your influencer partners’ followers are likely already a part of your target audience, this tactic is especially useful.
Additionally, discount codes can help you track your influencer partners’ performance and their effect on sales and conversions. You can create different promo codes for each social media persona that’s a part of your campaign and then analyze the data and see which collaborations work best for your brand. Taking a data-driven approach prevents you from wasting money and ensures that you make the best decisions for your business in real-time.
Influencer Marketing With Affiliate Links
Both discount codes and affiliate links are popular tactics used within influencer marketing, but their benefits in advertising campaigns are different. Indeed, affiliate links often incorporate discounts. However, along with that, one of their main goals is to generate leads at the top of the funnel and thus create more traffic towards your website.
Affiliate links are essentially unique URLs that lead to customized landing pages for each affiliate/influencer. They’re used to track each partner’s performance and usually contain your brand’s domain name with a distinctive affiliate ID at the end of the URL. Similar to promo codes, using affiliate links allows you to measure the success of each influencer partnership easily.
All in all, the main reasons to include affiliate links in your influencer marketing strategy are:
- More traffic to your website
- Lead generation
- Boosted visibility and brand awareness
- Easier tracking of influencer campaigns
Key Differences Between Affiliate Links and Discount Codes
The biggest difference between affiliate links and promo codes is the form they come in. Their purposes are similar, as they can both be associated with offering discounts, and they’re both very useful for tracking influencer campaigns and calculating ROI.
One thing to keep in mind regarding discount codes is that they can be shared outside of your influencer partners’ follower-base. For example, a follower can send the code in a group message with their friends. Of course, this isn’t a bad thing for your sales numbers, but it’s not always the best for your tracking efforts. Promo codes can also be abused by hackers, which is never a good outcome.
Because of these reasons, companies often use discount codes and affiliate links simultaneously. That way, they have more control over the offers (in the form of discount codes) and can easily track sales attributions thanks to affiliate links.
How Do Influencers Earn Money With Affiliate Links and Discount Codes?
Many different pay structures can work depending on your agreement with your influencer partners, what kind of influencer they are, their size, etc. Commonly, influencers earn money for each customer they bring in. That means that whenever a person buys a product using a discount code or an affiliate link provided by a particular influencer, they earn a commission based on their contract with the brand.
Alternatively, some social media content creators prefer to earn a flat rate and negotiate payment based on contract length and pre-determined agreements about the type and frequency of content or promotions they post.
In Conclusion
There are many tactics you can use in an influencer marketing campaign. However, using affiliate links and discount codes are some of the most widely used ones. If you want to hire influencers for your marketing and advertising efforts but you feel like you lack the needed knowledge, then contact Markerly and we’ll set you up with the tools and the people you need to succeed.
