Influencer Marketing VS Affiliate Marketing

Seit 2017 ist die Affiliate-Marketing-Branche um über 83% gewachsen und wird bis 2030 einen globalen Wert von 40 Milliarden Dollar erreichen. Ebenso ist die Influencer-Marketing-Branche derzeit mit 24 Milliarden Dollar bewertet.

Traditionelle Werbung funktioniert nicht mehr so gut wie früher. Das Kaufverhalten von Verbrauchern hat sich verschoben, und viele treffen jetzt Entscheidungen basierend auf Influencern und Empfehlungen in sozialen Medien.

Sowohl Affiliate-Marketing als auch Influencer-Marketing haben den Umsatz und die Konversionen für E-Commerce- und DTC-Marken erheblich gesteigert.

Aber welcher Ansatz ist richtig für Ihr Unternehmen?

In diesem Artikel werden wir die wichtigsten Unterschiede zwischen Affiliate-Marketing und Influencer-Marketing untersuchen, um Ihnen bei der Wahl der Strategie zu helfen, die Ihren ROI maximiert und Wachstum fördert.

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Was ist Influencer Marketing?

Influencer Marketing ist eine Art des Social-Media-Marketings, die Empfehlungen und Produktplatzierungen von Influencern umfasst – Personen, die eine engagierte und beträchtliche Anhängerschaft auf Social-Media-Plattformen haben.

Diese Influencer erstellen und teilen Inhalte, die eine Marke, ein Produkt oder eine Dienstleistung fördern, und nutzen dabei das Vertrauen und die Beziehung zu ihrem Publikum, um Engagement, Markenbekanntheit und Verkäufe zu fördern. Diese Strategie konzentriert sich auf Authentizität und organische Werbung, um Zieldemografien effektiv zu erreichen.

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Warum Influencer Marketing nutzen?

Die Influencer-Marketing-Branche wächst schnell. Dies sind die wichtigsten Vorteile von Influencer Marketing für Ihr Unternehmen:

1. Vertrauenswürdigkeit und Glaubwürdigkeit aufbauen

Influencer haben oft starke Beziehungen zu ihren Anhängern, die sie als authentische und nachvollziehbare Personen betrachten. Deshalb vertrauen über 69% der Verbraucher auf Produktempfehlungen von Influencern.

Durch die Zusammenarbeit mit einem Influencer können Sie mehr Vertrauen und Glaubwürdigkeit für Ihre Marke aufbauen, da sie von jemandem empfohlen wird, den sie bewundern und vertrauen. Diese Dynamik kann zu erhöhter Markentreue und einer höheren Konversionswahrscheinlichkeit führen, da Verbraucher eine persönliche Verbindung zur Empfehlung spüren.

2. Es ist kosteneffektiv

Influencer Marketing ist in der Regel kosteneffektiver als traditionelle Werbung und bietet einen höheren ROI. Daten zeigen, dass Unternehmen 6,50 Dollar für jeden Dollar verdienen, den sie für Influencer Marketing ausgeben. Und 3% verdienen 20 Dollar oder mehr.

Marken können mit Influencern verschiedener Größen zusammenarbeiten, um verschiedene Budgetbeschränkungen zu erfüllen und trotzdem wirkungsvolle Ergebnisse zu erzielen.

3. Qualitätskunden

Die Generierung von Konversionen ist einer der Hauptgründe, warum Marken Influencer Marketing als Hauptstrategie nutzen. Über 51% der Vermarkter sagen, dass Influencer Marketing ihnen geholfen hat, bessere Kunden zu gewinnen.

Der Grund dafür ist, dass Sie durch die Zusammenarbeit mit Influencern Ihre gewünschte Zielgruppe präzise ansprechen können. Dies stellt sicher, dass die Marketingbemühungen das relevanteste Publikum erreichen.

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Was ist Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate Marketing ist eine leistungsbasierte Strategie, bei der Partner, typischerweise Blogger, Influencer oder Website-Betreiber, die Produkte oder Dienstleistungen eines Unternehmens durch eindeutige Tracking-Links bewerben.

Partner verdienen eine Provision für jeden Verkauf, Lead oder eine Aktion, die durch ihre Werbebemühungen generiert wird. Diese Methode basiert auf messbaren Ergebnissen und motiviert Partner, gezielten Verkehr und Konversionen zu fördern, was sie zu einer kosteneffektiven Möglichkeit für Marken macht, ein breiteres Publikum zu erreichen.

Warum Affiliate-Marketing nutzen?

Affiliate-Marketing wird schnell zu einer der wirksamsten Strategien für Marken, um Conversions zu steigern. Hier sind die wichtigsten Vorteile des Affiliate-Marketings:

1. Geringeres Risiko

Affiliate-Marketing ist für etwa 16% des eCommerce-Umsatzes in den USA und Kanada verantwortlich und wird von über 80% der Werbetreibenden genutzt. Ein Hauptgrund dafür ist, dass Affiliate-Marketing auf einem leistungsbasierten Modell basiert, bei dem Marken nur für tatsächliche Conversions wie Verkäufe oder Leads bezahlen.

Marken zahlen nicht für Impressionen oder Klicks; die Provision wird gezahlt, wenn ein Influencer einen Verkauf getätigt hat.

2. Erhöhte Markenbekanntheit

Laut Forbes nutzen 83% der Marketer Affiliate-Marketing-Programme, um die Markenbekanntheit zu steigern.

Durch die Partnerschaft mit Affiliates, die ihre eigenen etablierten Zielgruppen haben, können Marken ihre Reichweite auf neue und vielfältige Kundensegmente ausdehnen. Diese erweiterte Sichtbarkeit kann zu erhöhter Markenbekanntheit und höherem Traffic auf der Website der Marke führen.

3. Einfach umzusetzen

Affiliate-Marketing ist unkompliziert umzusetzen und erfordert keine umfangreichen Ressourcen. Der wichtigste Schritt besteht darin, ein System zur Generierung eindeutiger URLs für jeden Affiliate einzurichten, sodass die Verfolgung von Conversions zur Hauptaufgabe wird.

Dafür können Plattformen wie Influencer Hero Ihnen dabei helfen, einfach Ihr Influencer-Affiliate-Programm aufzubauen, um Top-Performer-Influencer zu belohnen. Mit seinen Influencer-Affiliate-Marketing-Integrationen können Sie Affiliate-Links, Rabattcodes erstellen und Auszahlungen verarbeiten.

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Influencer-Marketing vs. Affiliate-Marketing: Die wichtigsten Unterschiede

Der Hauptunterschied zwischen Influencer- und Affiliate-Marketing besteht darin, dass Influencer-Marketing den gesamten Marketingprozess der Zusammenarbeit mit Influencern beschreibt, während Affiliate-Marketing der technische Prozess ist, der zur Verfolgung der Leistung verwendet wird, auf deren Grundlage der Influencer bezahlt wird.

Im Grunde kann Affiliate-Marketing als eine Teilmenge des Influencer-Marketings angesehen werden, die sich speziell auf Leistungsverfolgung und Vergütung konzentriert – Konzepte, die häufig in strukturiertem Digital-Marketing-Kurs erforscht werden.

Lassen Sie uns die Hauptelemente beider Ansätze erkunden.

Tools

Influencer-Marketing nutzt eine Vielzahl von Tools zur Content-Erstellung, Zielgruppen-Engagement und Beziehungsmanagement. Diese Tools helfen dabei, spezifische Arten von Inhalten zu erstellen und kreative Richtlinien für Influencer bereitzustellen.

Affiliate-Marketing hingegen verlässt sich stärker auf Tracking- und Analysetools wie Awin oder Refersion, um Klicks, Conversions und die Gesamtleistung der Kampagne zu überwachen.

Tracking

Die Tracking-Mechanismen unterscheiden sich erheblich zwischen den beiden.

Beim Influencer-Marketing ist die Verfolgung von Metriken wie Reichweite, Engagement und Markenwahrnehmung zwar wichtig, kann aber qualitativer und weniger präzise sein.

Affiliate-Marketing ist hingegen stark datengesteuert, mit klaren Metriken zu Verkäufen, Leads und anderen direkten Ergebnissen, was die ROI-Berechnung vereinfacht.

Metriken

Die zur Erfolgsmessung verwendeten Metriken sind unterschiedlich. Influencer-Marketing betrachtet breitere Metriken wie Markenbekanntheit, sozialer Beweis und kreative Qualität.

Affiliate-Marketing konzentriert sich auf präzise Leistungsmetriken wie Cost-per-Click (CPC), Cost-per-Acquisition (CPA) und Gesamtkonversionsraten.

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Vor- und Nachteile von Affiliate- und Influencer-Marketing

Wenn wir Influencer-Marketing und Affiliate-Marketing als separate Marketingstrategien vergleichen, beziehen wir uns auf das traditionellere Affiliate-Marketing-Modell, bei dem sich Marken auf Plattformen wie Awin oder Refersion anmelden können, im Vergleich zu Influencer-Marketing als Ganzes.

Vorteile des Influencer-Marketings	Nachteile des Influencer-Marketings	Vorteile des Affiliate-Marketings	Nachteile des Affiliate Marketing
Anforderung eines spezifischen Inhaltstyps / kreative Direktive	Kann höhere Vorlaufkosten haben, wenn mit Pauschalzahlungen gearbeitet wird	Leistungsbasierte Kosten und geringeres Risiko	Blogs können weniger persönlich sein im Vergleich zu einem Influencer, der ein Produkt in sozialen Medien empfiehlt
Zusammenarbeit mit verschiedenen Kompensationstypen: Pauschalgebühren oder Affiliate	Mehr operativ und erfordert eine dedizierte Person zur Verwaltung von Beziehungen	Leichter zu verfolgendes ROI	Schwierig zu skalieren, besonders als kleinere, weniger bekannte Marke
Erhöhen Sie sozialen Beweis durch Brand Ambassadors	ROI kann schwieriger zu messen sein	Weniger operativ	Schwierig, Inhalte wiederzuverwenden
Sammeln Sie hochwertige kreative Inhalte, die für organische oder bezahlte soziale Medien verwendet werden können

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.