Influencer and affiliate marketing strategies – terms and definitions
First of all, we would like to provide you with definitions for both of these two marketing terms.
What is influencer marketing?
It’s a form of marketing where people promote products and services using social media channels. Inside of influencer marketing, so-called influencers are people who have a social influence on the followers of their social media channels – like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok.
Usually, their influence is based on the relation between them (the influencers) and the brands (the companies looking to promote their product in a non-traditional way). Brands pay influencers for the promotion, which is usually a fixed price, and they expect increased growth in sales.
To connect these with each other and to make this entire process more straightforward and easier, we’ve created our influencer marketing platform, Brybe.
What is affiliate marketing?
It’s also a form of marketing where affiliate marketers advertise the product of a chosen advertiser. It’s a performance-based type of marketing, which means that the affiliate gets paid for the expected action or for the purchases of his visitors.
To cooperate with this strategy and to make the most out of it, we’ve united influencer and affiliate marketing by creating our proprietary platform called Brybe Affiliates.
Wondering how Brybe Affiliates derives from these two strategies simultaneously? It’s actually pretty simple. You have to invite your followers via the generated affiliate link (which is a part of affiliate marketing strategy) to later expect huge financial benefits from their collaborations (under the influencer marketing strategy) with the help of brands available on behalf of Brybe.
Which niche is the most popular one?
No matter what we would have told you, the numbers always give the clearest and most trustworthy answers. That is why we will now show you some statistics to together observe how both niches have developed over the last few years:
- Influencer Marketing – “Influencer Marketing Expected to Grow to be Worth $9.7 Billion This Year” (Reference: The State of Influencer Marketing 2020: Benchmark Report)
- Affiliate Marketing – “In 2016, U.S. retailers spent $4.7 billion on affiliate marketing. Astoundingly, by 2020 U.S. affiliate marketing spend is expected to rise to $6.8 billion.” (Reference: 8 Affiliate Marketing Statistics Every Marketer Must Know)
To see the growth of investments in influencer marketing, just take a look at the chart below:
And to watch the evident and stable growth of affiliate marketing, just look here:
Having this knowledge combined, there are no doubts that these 2 niches are very interesting sources for every online marketer who wants to earn money.
The difference between influencer and affiliate marketing
- #InfluencerMarketing is a slower way to make really big money – simply because you need time to make your social media page look stylish and presentable, attain a sizeable audience, and earn a decent organic reach. But if you manage to do that, you will be able to sign long-term contracts with large advertisers and companies.
- #AffiliateMarketing is quite the opposite. It allows you to begin your marketing immediately and start making money online right away. Additionally, you can just buy traffic from the advertising networks and lead it to the right offer you want to promote! This way is even faster but requires you to have a good starting budget.
An influencer vs an affiliate
AN INFLUENCER is usually a well-known person (if we are talking about the big income). Apart from earning money from working with them, your brand will also gain popularity and become more trustworthy. There is a reason they call them INFLUENCERS and remember that their opinions influence the decisions of their audience – and their point of view indeed makes a difference!
AN AFFILIATE is usually a person nobody knows. When surfing the Internet you've surely seen banners that advertise something more than once – but have you ever wondered who made them? The affiliate marketer himself! Their work behind the scenes is one of the reasons why this profession is so popular among introverts – right next to being a programmer or gamers.
Traffic in affiliate marketing and influencer marketing
- Traffic for influencers primarily comes from their social media pages like Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and others. They can advertise different products and work with multiple advertisers on each of their social media profiles.
- Traffic for affiliates can be anything – for example any social media channel (paid advertising), organic traffic from search engine optimization (SEO), advertising networks, context advertising (Google AdWords), and even the influencers themselves! How come? Imagine that an affiliate needs to advertise the product. What he can do is to find an influencer who’s able to sell it and who could have a relevant audience for the chosen brand. The affiliate pays the influencer while getting bigger income from the product sales – and this way we come full circle!
And how do you think an influencer can use an affiliate? We’ll be happy to discuss your thoughts and opinions, so make sure to share them with us!
If you have any questions, please contact us here. And don’t forget to join Brybe Affiliates to double your income in influencer marketing with the use of affiliate marketing!