Selling on Insta: Influence Marketing vs Affiliate Marketing

Selling on Instagram with influencer and affiliate marketing methods. Maximize your sales on Instagram.

Selling on Insta: Influence Marketing vs Affiliate Marketing
Maxime
Content Writer @ BoostFluence
Social Media
April 1, 2022

What is the difference between influencer marketing and affiliate marketing? Which marketing method should you use to promote your business on Instagram? In this article we'll show you the differences, but also the similarities, between these 2 marketing methods, which, properly used, can be complementary.

Selling on Instagram with Influencer Marketing

Nowadays, every business is familiar with influencer marketing. Since the explosion of social media, influencer marketing is a new way for companies to increase their visibility with a targeted audience and generate even more sales.

Influencer marketing involves working with influencers in your niche to promote your products and services to a targeted community. Influencer marketing is one of the fastest and most effective ways to get your brand out there in record time.

When celebrities, micros or nano-influencers interact with your target audience, their followers are more likely to take action to find out more about you. In fact, the best influencers are those with high engagement rates. This proves that they have a close relationship with their fanbase.

In 2022, there are more than half the world's population using social networks, that's 4.5 billion Internet users! By going through influencers, brands give themselves enormous exposure.

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What metrics should you analyze after working with an influencer?

To understand the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns, you need to analyze multiple metrics that will tell you whether the influencer is profitable or not.

Analyzing the number of new subscribers

Before launching your marketing campaign with an influencer, note your number of subscribers on a tracking chart. During a marketing campaign, if the influencer does his or her job well, your Instagram page will welcome new followers. This means they're following you out of curiosity, or they're already liking what you offer and have already become customers thanks to the influencer's placement.

Analyze the engagement rate

There are several ways to make a product placement or promote a service. One of them is to ask the influencer to create an Instagram post that will be visible on their news feed. This will enable you to analyze the publication's engagement rate. This analysis step allows you to look at the number of comments, likes, views and the click rate on links.

With Boostfluence you benefit from analysis tools that allow you to see the relevance of marketing campaigns. Our analysis tool is specially designed for professionals who want a precise look at their statistics. Analyze the performance of your publications, your rate of engagement, your new subscribers, and more. This way you can more easily determine whether the influencer in question is best placed to sell your products or highlight your services on Instagram.

Analyze your account's reach

To analyze your account's reach, certain statistics allow you to see how many unique users have viewed your account. With this information, if your influencer marketing is successful, you should see the reach increase.

Analyze your website traffic

A successful influencer marketing campaign will drive traffic to the URL the influencer has placed in their call-to-action. Once you know how many people have seen the influencer's Instagram promotion, you can calculate the conversion rate based on the number of visits to your website. This data allows you to track the relevance of your marketing campaign - whether it's profitable or can be improved.

Finally, depending on the number of sales you've generated thanks to the influencer you've engaged, you can determine your final conversion rate.

analysis after influencer placement

Determine the success of the collaboration with the influencer

Once you've gathered all this data, you can determine whether your influencer campaign is beneficial in the short term for your business. In any case, if these statistics increase, you can assume that your marketing campaign is a success.

However, some companies don't hesitate to invest in a huge number of influencers despite the fact that they aren't hugely profitable. Indeed, even if the companies aren't profitable, they benefit from enormous visibility among millions of people. To each his own.

Selling on Instagram with Affiliate Marketing

What exactly is it?

Affiliate marketing is less well-known than influencer marketing because it seems less easy to set up. Yet it is just as effective, enabling you to promote your products or services on other websites. Affiliate marketing is based on a system of give and take. In fact, affiliate marketing is based on a commission system. The site that promotes your products or services receives a percentage of every sale it makes thanks to its traffic.

Unlike influencer marketing, affiliate marketing is based on partnerships. Whether it's with bloggers, companies or publishers, the aim of affiliate marketing is to increase your sales by offering your audience unique offers.

The best affiliates often work with several affiliate marketing companies to ensure that your product receives maximum exposure by being well-positioned. Some don't hesitate to provide an additional service to increase sales.

What metrics should you analyze for an affiliate marketing campaign?

To help you analyze your affiliate marketing campaigns, there are platforms that allow you to process payments easily and have access to tools to track the performance of your affiliate marketing campaigns. However, it's vital to properly analyze your affiliate marketing campaigns.

  • Measure the average order value. Check how many services or products people buy and determine which are the most successful.
  • Analyze the number of sales generated. If your affiliate marketing campaign is a success, you should see an increase in sales of the products promoted.
  • Website traffic is a factor to take into account. In fact, by affiliating your products on platforms that generate a lot of traffic, you should see an increase in the number of visitors to your store.
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What's the difference between affiliate marketing and influencer marketing?

As you've seen above, these 2 marketing strategies rely on different levers. However, these 2 marketing axes have one thing in common, and that'is that affiliates and influencers are third-party advertisers who are not directly linked to the offers they promote.

The main difference between these 2 strategies lies in the data analysis process. Indeed, a product placement with an influencer will bring short-term results. Generally speaking, the influencer is paid a fee that is consistent with his or her rate of engagement and number of subscribers. And depending on the returns, the company decides whether or not to create a contract for regular placements over the medium and long term.

Which marketing strategy to choose according to your business to sell on Instagram?

There are many criteria to highlight to find out which marketing strategy best suits your business. Depending on whether you sell one or more products, one or more services, the marketing strategy won't be the same. Then, before implementing a marketing strategy, make sure you know who your ideal customer is. That's the biggest part of the job, it's the one who will determine who will help you choose between influencer marketing and affiliate marketing.

For example, if you want to promote your Instagram page and your products are mainly aimed at young men, you'll need to favor an influencer who is followed mainly by this community so that your marketing campaign is relevant. On the other hand, if you sell services that help businesses develop their notoriety on Instagram, we advise you to be present on blogs in your niche.

Really, like all strategies, they need to be tested. Perhaps in your case, you'll find a real harmony between your affiliate marketing campaigns and your influencer marketing campaigns!

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Conclusion: test, analyze and optimize your marketing campaigns

To conclude this article, we advise you to test, analyze and optimize your marketing campaigns to improve your profitability. These 2 marketing methods enable you to sell your products or services on Instagram. But not only that, you can also increase the visibility of your Insta page and capture as many leads as possible. Whatever marketing you use, get creative and develop your analytical and technical skills.

Want to focus on your conversion rate and selling your products or services on Instagram? Right now, offer yourself our Boostfluence services to automate, manage and professionalize the publication of your Instagram content. And save precious time in the process.

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