Marketing de Influenciadores VS Marketing de Afiliados

Desde 2017, a indústria de marketing de afiliados cresceu mais de 83% e está projetada para atingir um valor global de $40 bilhões até 2030. Da mesma forma, a indústria de marketing de influenciadores é atualmente avaliada em $24 bilhões.

A publicidade tradicional não funciona mais tão bem quanto costumava funcionar. Os comportamentos de compra dos consumidores mudaram, e muitos agora tomam decisões com base em recomendações de influenciadores e mídias sociais.

Tanto marketing de afiliados quanto marketing de influenciadores aumentaram significativamente as vendas e conversões para marcas de e-commerce e DTC.

Mas qual abordagem é a certa para seu negócio?

Neste artigo, exploraremos as principais diferenças entre marketing de afiliados e marketing de influenciadores para ajudá-lo a escolher a estratégia que maximizará seu ROI e impulsionará o crescimento.

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O que é Marketing de Influenciadores?

Marketing de influenciadores é um tipo de marketing em mídias sociais que envolve endossos e colocações de produtos de influenciadores—indivíduos que têm uma base de seguidores dedicada e substancial em plataformas de mídias sociais.

Esses influenciadores criam e compartilham conteúdo que promove uma marca, produto ou serviço, aproveitando sua confiança e relacionamento com seu público para impulsionar o engajamento, a conscientização da marca e as vendas. Esta estratégia se concentra em autenticidade e promoção orgânica para alcançar efetivamente dados demográficos alvo.

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Por que Usar Marketing de Influenciadores?

A indústria de marketing de influenciadores está crescendo em alta velocidade. Estes são os principais benefícios de usar marketing de influenciadores para seu negócio:

1. Constrói Confiança e Credibilidade

Os influenciadores frequentemente têm relacionamentos fortes com seus seguidores, que os veem como figuras autênticas e relacionáveis. É por isso que mais de 69% dos consumidores confiam nas recomendações de produtos que recebem de influenciadores.

Ao fazer parceria com um influenciador, você pode gerar mais confiança e credibilidade em sua marca, pois é recomendada por alguém que eles admiram e confiam.  Essa dinâmica pode levar a uma maior fidelidade à marca e uma maior probabilidade de conversão, já que os consumidores sentem uma conexão pessoal com a recomendação.

2. É Econômico

O marketing de influenciadores tende a ser mais econômico que a publicidade tradicional, oferecendo um ROI mais alto. Os dados mostram que as empresas ganham $6.50 para cada $1 que gastam em marketing de influenciadores. E 3% ganham $20 ou mais.

As marcas podem trabalhar com influenciadores de vários tamanhos para se adequar a diferentes restrições orçamentárias e ainda obter resultados impactantes.

3. Clientes de Qualidade

Gerar conversões é uma das principais razões pelas quais as marcas usam marketing de influenciadores como sua estratégia principal. Mais de 51% dos profissionais de marketing dizem que o marketing de influenciadores os ajudou a adquirir clientes melhores.

A razão para isso é que ao trabalhar com influenciadores, você pode atingir com precisão sua demografia desejada. Isso garante que os esforços de marketing alcancem o público mais relevante.

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O que é Marketing de Afiliados?

Marketing de afiliados é uma estratégia baseada em desempenho onde afiliados, geralmente blogueiros, influenciadores ou proprietários de sites, promovem os produtos ou serviços de uma empresa através de links de rastreamento exclusivos.

Os afiliados ganham uma comissão para cada venda, lead ou ação gerada através de seus esforços promocionais. Este método depende de resultados mensuráveis e incentiva os afiliados a impulsionar o tráfego direcionado e as conversões, tornando-o uma maneira econômica para marcas alcançarem um público mais amplo.

Por que Usar Marketing de Afiliados?

O marketing de afiliados está se tornando rapidamente uma das estratégias mais eficazes para marcas impulsionarem conversões. Aqui estão os principais benefícios do marketing de afiliados:

1. Menor Risco

O marketing de afiliados impulsiona cerca de 16% das vendas de eCommerce nos EUA e Canadá e é utilizado por mais de 80% dos anunciantes. Uma das principais razões é que o marketing de afiliados opera em um modelo baseado em desempenho, onde marcas pagam apenas por conversões reais, como vendas ou leads.

As marcas não pagam por impressões ou cliques; a comissão é paga quando um influenciador realiza uma venda.

2. Aumento da Conscientização da Marca

De acordo com Forbes, 83% dos profissionais de marketing usam programas de marketing de afiliados para impulsionar a conscientização da marca.

Ao fazer parceria com afiliados que têm seus próprios públicos estabelecidos, as marcas podem expandir seu alcance para segmentos de clientes novos e diversificados. Essa visibilidade expandida pode levar a maior conscientização da marca e maior tráfego para o site da marca.

3. Fácil de Implementar

O marketing de afiliados é simples de implementar e não requer recursos extensos. O passo principal é configurar um sistema para gerar URLs exclusivas para cada afiliado, para que o rastreamento de conversões se torne a tarefa principal.

Para isso, usar plataformas como Influencer Hero pode ajudá-lo a construir facilmente seu programa de afiliados de influenciadores para recompensar influenciadores de melhor desempenho. Com suas integrações de marketing de afiliados de influenciadores, você pode criar links de afiliados, códigos de desconto e processar pagamentos.

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Marketing de Influenciadores vs Marketing de Afiliados: Principais Diferenças

A principal diferença entre marketing de influenciadores e marketing de afiliados é que o marketing de influenciadores se refere ao processo geral de marketing de colaboração com influenciadores, enquanto o marketing de afiliados é o processo técnico usado para rastrear o desempenho com base no qual o influenciador está sendo compensado.

Em essência, o marketing de afiliados pode ser visto como um subconjunto do marketing de influenciadores, focado especificamente no rastreamento de desempenho e compensação, conceitos que são comumente explorados em cursos estruturados de marketing digital.

Vamos explorar os principais elementos de ambas as abordagens.

Ferramentas

O marketing de influenciadores emprega uma variedade de ferramentas para criação de conteúdo, engajamento do público e gestão de relacionamentos. Essas ferramentas ajudam na criação de tipos específicos de conteúdo e no fornecimento de diretrizes criativas aos influenciadores.

O marketing de afiliados, no entanto, depende mais fortemente de ferramentas de rastreamento e análise como Awin ou Refersion para monitorar cliques, conversões e desempenho geral da campanha.

Rastreamento

Os mecanismos de rastreamento diferem significativamente entre os dois.

No marketing de influenciadores, enquanto o rastreamento de métricas como alcance, engajamento e sentimento da marca é importante, pode ser mais qualitativo e menos preciso.

O marketing de afiliados, por outro lado, é fortemente orientado por dados, com métricas claras sobre vendas, leads e outros resultados diretos, tornando o cálculo de ROI mais direto.

Métricas

As métricas usadas para avaliar o sucesso também variam. O marketing de influenciadores analisa métricas mais amplas, como conscientização da marca, prova social e qualidade criativa.

O marketing de afiliados se concentra em métricas de desempenho precisas, como custo por clique (CPC), custo por aquisição (CPA) e taxas gerais de conversão.

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Prós e Contras do Marketing de Afiliados e de Influenciadores  

Quando comparamos o marketing de influenciadores e o marketing de afiliados como estratégias de marketing separadas, estamos nos referindo ao modelo tradicional de marketing de afiliados onde marcas podem se registrar em plataformas como Awin ou Refersion VS marketing de influenciadores como um todo.

Cost Comparison: Influencer Marketing vs Affiliate Marketing

Influencer marketing costs can vary significantly based on several factors, including the influencer’s reach, engagement rate, niche, and platform. Typically, costs are categorized as follows:

1. Nano-Influencers (1K-10K followers): Costs range from $50 to $500 per post.
2. Micro-Influencers (10K-100K followers): Costs range from $500 to $5,000 per post.
3. Macro-Influencers (100K-500K followers): Costs range from $5,000 to $20,000 per post.
4. Mega-Influencers (500K+ followers): Costs can exceed $20,000 per post.

Besides the fee for individual posts, you may also incur costs for additional content creation, long-term partnerships, giveaways, and promotional campaigns.

Influencer marketing often involves upfront payments or fixed fees, making it key to asses the ROI carefully.

Affiliate Marketing Costs

Affiliate marketing operates on a performance-based model, meaning costs are primarily incurred when a desired action, such as a sale or lead, is completed. These are its most common structures:

1. Cost Per Sale (CPS): A commission is paid to affiliates for each sale generated. Commission rates can range from 5% to 30% of the sale value, depending on the industry and product.
2. Cost Per Lead (CPL): Affiliates are paid for each lead generated. This could be a fixed amount, typically ranging from $1 to $50 per lead.
3. Cost Per Click (CPC): Affiliates earn money for each click they generate, usually a few cents to a few dollars per click.

Since affiliate marketing costs are directly tied to performance, it offers a lower-risk alternative for businesses, allowing them to pay only for measurable results. This model also makes budgeting more predictable, as costs scale with the volume of successful transactions.

Additional Considerations

When deciding between influencer marketing and affiliate marketing, keep in mind:

Budget Flexibility: Influencer marketing may require a higher upfront investment, while affiliate marketing offers more flexibility with its performance-based model.

Measurement of ROI: Influencer marketing ROI can be more challenging to measure, as it encompasses brand awareness and engagement, whereas affiliate marketing provides clear, quantifiable results.

Brand Goals: If your goal is to build brand awareness and reach a specific audience, influencer marketing might be more effective. For driving direct sales and measurable actions, affiliate marketing is often more suitable.

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Success Stories of Brands Using Influencer Marketing

1. Dyson

Dyson is a British technology company renowned for its innovative home appliances, including vacuum cleaners, air purifiers, and hand dryers.

For one of its campaigns, the company collaborated with five pet influencers, primarily targeting dog owners. The influencers were given creative freedom, with the only guideline being to showcase how pet owners clean up after their pets.

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The results? Dyson had over 1 million views, 115,000 likes and a 10% engagement rate across their campaign.

2. Daniel Wellington

Daniel Wellington is a well-known watch brand that has been leveraging partnerships with influencers, including both macro and micro influencers.

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These influencers showcase the brand’s watches in their everyday lives, helping to build a more authentic connection with their audiences. Additionally, they have creative freedom to produce content that feels genuine and aligned with their personal style.

Whitin just 3 years, the brand sold over $228M in watches, or 1 million watches - this all due to their influencer marketing campaigns. Additionally their UGC campaigns became so popular that influencers started using the hashtag #DWpickoftheday to try to get featured on the brand’s official profile.

3. Bloom

Bloom, a company specializing in plant-based beauty products, partnered with influencers who aligned with their brand values and target demographic. Influencers were chosen for their strong engagement rates and authentic connection with their followers.

The campaign involved influencers creating content that highlighted Bloom’s products in everyday beauty routines. This included detailed product reviews, tutorials, and personal testimonials to showcase the benefits and effectiveness of the products.

One the day of their product launch on Amazon, they partnered with more influencers who redirected people to the Amazon store.

The results? The campaign had 5.5 million views, a $1.47 CMP, and the Bloom product became an Amazon best seller.

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Success Stories of Brands Using Affiliate Marketing

1. Amazon

Amazon’s Affiliate Program, known as Amazon Associates, is a prime example of successful affiliate marketing.

By offering affiliates a commission (1-20%)  for driving sales through their referral links, Amazon has expanded its reach and grown its customer base significantly, contributing to its dominance in the e-commerce space.

2. Gymshark

Gymshark’s affiliate marketing program is designed to leverage influencers and affiliates to drive traffic and sales. Affiliates are provided with unique tracking links and promotional materials to help them promote Gym Shark’s products.

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The affiliate marketing strategy has contributed to significant growth for Gymshark, driving substantial traffic to their website and increasing sales.

3. Adobe

Adobe’s affiliate program effectively targeted creatives and tech enthusiasts through partnerships with bloggers and industry experts. This approach resulted in increased software sales and a broader reach for Adobe’s suite of products.

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Platforms Comparison: Traditional Affiliate Marketing Platforms vs Influencer Marketing Platforms

Traditional affiliate marketing platforms are marketplaces which connect brands and advertisers with publishers. As a brand you can sign up on these platforms through which you will be included in their marketplace.

Publishers can then find you on these platforms, see how much affiliate commission you offer and start creating content and publish articles around your product or service using a personal affiliate link to start earning commission. Examples of these affiliate marketing platforms are Awin and Refersion. 

Influencer marketing platforms on the other hand offer a more proactive approach enabling brands to source through a database of influencers and publishers and then contact these influencers for a partnership. These platforms are often structured to effectively manage these relationships and other aspects related to social media influencers like capturing the content and sending products.

Examples of such influencer marketing platforms are Influencer Hero, Grin or CreatorIQ.

How Does Affiliate Marketing Work?

Affiliate marketing leverages advanced technologies to track referrals and ensure affiliates are accurately compensated for their promotional efforts. This seamless process involves several key technologies working in harmony.

Tracking Links

‍Unique URLs generated for each affiliate to monitor their referrals. In most cases the link adds UTM parameters (Urchin Tracking Module) through which the conversion event can be tracked. 

Cookies

‍Small data files placed in a user's browser to record referral details and track user actions. Cookies allow advertisers to track conversion events even if the conversion event occurs at a later point. This happens for example if a prospective customer clicks on the affiliate link and looks at the website but doesn’t purchase right away. A couple of days later they complete the purchase. In that case the cookie saved in their browser is able to pass over the UTM (which is saved through the cookie) and the conversion can still be attributed to the respective affiliate / influencer.

Voucher / discount codes

‍Besides tracking links, personalized voucher / discount codes can be an effective way to increase attribution in affiliate marketing (more on attribution later). Each affiliate / influencer gets their own voucher code. Everytime this voucher code is being used at checkout the sale will be accounted to the respective affiliate. 

Affiliate Networks

Platforms that connect affiliates with merchants, providing tools for link generation, tracking, and reporting. Examples can be Influencer Hero, Awin or Refersion. 

Tracking Software

Monitors user activities, ensuring accurate attribution of conversions to the corresponding affiliates. These are software companies providing the tools for brands and affiliates to keep track of earnings. Examples are Influencer Hero, Goaffpro or UpPromote. 

Payment Systems

‍After the affiliate has earned his or her affiliate an important process is processing the payouts. Affiliate software providers often offer this feature within their platform.

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How to Track Affiliate Performance

‍If you decide you want to get started with influencer and affiliate marketing it is important to understand how you can track the affiliate performance of your influencers. 

Manually create UTM links and use Google analytics

One way to track the performance is by creating UTM links manually. Google for example offers this easy to use UTM builder through which you can create UTM links. The link would be long and doesn’t look great so we recommend to set up a redirect so you can create personalized links. It could look like this: www.mybrand.com/jessica. This links would then redirect to the UTM link you created. In most cases the easiest way to set up these redirects is within your CMS. This can be Shopify, Wordpress, Webflow or any of the other providers. Once you share the UTM link with your influencers / affiliates and they start posting you can track the performance in Google analytics. Follow the steps below to set this up. 

Log in to Google Analytics

Go to Google Analytics and log in with your account credentials.

Navigate to Acquisition

In the left-hand sidebar, go to Reports > Acquisition > Traffic acquisition. This report gives you an overview of how users arrive at your site or app.

Filter by Campaign

Use the filter option to select your campaign. You can use the search box to find specific campaigns tracked by UTM parameters.

Use the Explore Tab

For more detailed analysis, use the Explore tab to create custom reports. You can use dimensions like Session Campaign, Session Source/Medium, Session Default Channel Grouping, etc.

Set the Date Range

Ensure you set the correct date range to analyze the data for the period you are interested in.

‍Use affiliate marketing software to track performance with influencers

Tracking affiliate performance manually is time intensive and can be complex which is why we recommend using affiliate marketing software to keep track of things. These platforms provide the tools to create affiliate links, discount codes and also provide dashboards which can be accessed by both the brand as well as the affiliate / influencer. 

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Free Influencer Audit Chrome Extension

Analyse fake followers, ER, audience location, forecast sales and much more.

INSTALL FOR FREE HERE

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Best Affiliate Software to Track Performance With Influencers

There are various options you could choose from. If you want to use affiliate marketing for influencer marketing the best options available are:

• Influencer Hero
• Go Affiliate Pro
• UpPromote  

To read more about the best affiliate marketing software you can access our article here.

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Tools Used for Influencer Marketing

As previously mentioned affiliate marketing is used within influencer marketing and is thus only a small part within the whole process of influencer marketing. Influencer marketing often involves the following steps: 

1. Influencer discovery 
2. Influencer outreach 
3. Campaign Management 
4. Collecting the posts and UGC 
5. Processing payments 

Each of these steps can be streamlined and automated using software. We recommend using an all in one influencer marketing platform where you can manage everything in one place. Some options are: 

• Influencer Hero 
• Upfluence 
• Grin 
• Aspire 
• Tagger 

To read more about the best influencer marketing software access the full article here. 

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Important Metrics to Analyze with Influencer Marketing

1. Audience growth 
2. Engagement rate: use our free engagement rate calculator
3. Audience size 
4. Fake followers: use our free fake follower check 
5. Verified accounts 

Our data scientists analyzed over 10K commercial influencer post to determine the correlation between different metrics and conversion. You can access the full research on the metrics which impact ROI here.  

To analyze all the above metrics conveniently while browsing the web you can also use our free influencer audit chrome extension here. 

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‍Attribution and Tracking in Influencer and Affiliate Marketing

What is important to understand is that attribution is rarely 100% in digital marketing. With affiliate marketing even when using the most advanced tracking tools there is always a part which gets lost. Some of the reason tracking is getting lost: 

‍Using a Different Browser

Imagine a prospective buyer sees an influencer posts and clicks on the affiliate link which is included as a link sticker in the influencer story post. The cookie is correctly placed in the browser. The prospect uses Safari on his or her Iphone. A few days later they remember about your product, open their laptop and complete the purchase. On their laptop they use Chrome as a browser which means that the cookie is not saved which disables the system to pass over the UTM link. The result is that attribution gets lost. 

‍Accessing a Website Without Clicking on The Affiliate Link

A common way attribution gets lost especially when affiliate marketing is used with influencers is when the customer does not click on the affiliate link but accesses your website in a different way. 

This can frequently happen for example if the influencer also tags your Instagram next to adding the affiliate link in a link sticker on Instagram. A lot of people will go to your Instagram page first and access your website through your link in bio hence the affiliate link won’t be able to track. If you then also offer a discount directly on your website or through an email popup the customer might use that code in which case both the affiliate link and the discount code won’t be able to track the sale. 

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Can Influencer Marketing And Affiliate Marketing Be Used Together

Yes, influencer marketing and affiliate marketing can be effectively used together to amplify a brand’s reach and sales. Influencer marketing focuses on leveraging influencers' content and credibility to create brand awareness and engage their audience, while affiliate marketing incentivizes influencers to drive specific actions, such as clicks or sales, by offering commissions. Combining these strategies allows brands to benefit from both the broad visibility of influencer campaigns and the performance-based structure of affiliate programs.

Steps To Use Influencer Marketing And Affiliate Marketing Together

• Apply the 80/20 principle: a small group of influencers often generate the majority of returns, so keep initial costs low with new influencers.
• Test influencers with free products and affiliate commissions to gauge their ability to convert audiences before committing to larger payments.
• Build long-term relationships with top-performing influencers, turning them into brand ambassadors.
• Continuously use affiliate links and discount codes to monitor influencer performance and optimize budgets for maximum ROI.

This hybrid approach maximizes ROI by blending brand-building efforts with direct, measurable outcomes, making it a powerful tool for comprehensive marketing strategies.

Nordstrom’s Hybrid Strategy with Influencer and Affiliate Marketing

Nordstrom combined influencer and affiliate marketing to boost brand awareness and sales. By partnering with fashion influencers, Nordstrom generated engaging content that resonated with their audience.

Alongside influencer collaborations, Nordstrom integrated an affiliate marketing program. Influencers were given unique affiliate links, incentivizing them to drive sales in addition to creating content.

This approach resulted in high engagement and a significant increase in online sales, demonstrating the power of blending both strategies to achieve a higher ROI and foster long-term partnerships with influencers.

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‍Conclusion

Understanding the distinct roles and benefits of influencer and affiliate marketing is crucial for crafting a successful marketing strategy. While influencer marketing leverages the authenticity and reach of social media personalities, affiliate marketing focuses on performance-based outcomes with measurable KPIs. Combining both strategies can maximize brand visibility and drive conversions. By carefully selecting compensation methods and tracking performance through appropriate tools, businesses can optimize their marketing efforts and achieve their objectives efficiently.