Affiliate vs. Influencer Marketing: Which Is Better?

Affiliate and influencer marketing are evolving digital marketing strategies, each with different benefits and opportunities for DTC and eCommerce brands looking to boost their sales and conversion rates. 

Affiliate marketing is a performance-based strategy where brands work with affiliates who promote products or services and earn commissions primarily for driving sales. In contrast, influencer marketing involves collaboration with influencers who promote products or services predominantly on social media to improve brand awareness and social proof, leading to conversions. 

Should you choose affiliate marketing, influencer marketing, or both? The answer will depend on your marketing goal and budget. As the lines between these two digital marketing methods become blurred, more influencers work as affiliates, and more eCommerce brands incorporate a combined strategy to achieve desired results. 

Keep reading to learn about various affiliate and influencer marketing aspects, including their benefits and differences, as we help you decide which marketing option works best for your brand. 

What Is Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is the preferred marketing method for brands looking to boost sales or website traffic through collaboration with individuals or companies who are affiliates. Affiliates use unique affiliate links to promote products or services via blogs, social media, emails, and websites. 

By creating affiliate programs, brands can find suitable affiliates and provide them with marketing materials and individual affiliate links. Almost all brands choose an affiliate marketing strategy to generate sales although some focus on generating leads or clicks through collaboration with affiliates. 

Since affiliate marketing is a performance-based reward system, affiliates earn commissions for each sale (or click or lead) generated through affiliate marketing efforts. Depending on the brand, affiliate marketing commission can be pay-per-sale, pay-per-click, or pay-per-lead. 

Blue Wheel offers affiliate creator services for our clients. Our current creator programs are a traditional influencer model with affiliate codes usage and up-front payment, and TikTok Shop affiliate which does not often include up-front payments.  

Standard affiliate creator programs do not include payment to creators beyond commissions on sales or traffic they drive, and often only attract smaller creators willing to post for free products. While these programs can drive content and sales potential, the content tends to have lower quality than traditional influencer content.

In addition to creating their affiliate programs, eCommerce brands can join affiliate networks. These networks connect brands with affiliates to facilitate and manage affiliate marketing programs by providing tracking, reporting, and payment processing. 

Benefits of Affiliate Marketing for Brands

Expanding reach, generating leads and sales, and efficiently measuring affiliate marketing sales are the biggest benefits of this digital marketing strategy for brands. You can easily use unique affiliate links provided to your affiliates to check accomplished results and pay commissions. 

Numerous affiliate marketing software tools can be utilized to share affiliate links and keep track of marketing campaigns. Affiliate marketing is an excellent choice for brands looking to boost revenue with minimal effort on their part, as the majority of the work is handled by affiliates. In addition to growing sales, affiliate marketing can bring new customers to your brand and increase your website’s domain authority.

Another benefit of affiliate marketing is that affiliates don’t need to be familiar with or have prior experience with a product or service to promote them with affiliate links. Affiliates are driven to earn commissions by getting your brand in front of their followers using unique affiliate links, encouraging them to purchase, and supporting your affiliate marketing goals. It’s a win-win situation for both sides, especially since starting with affiliate marketing is easier than other digital marketing solutions. 

What Is Influencer Marketing? 

At its core, influencer marketing involves leveraging the influence of individuals (influencers) who have authority and trust among their followers, primarily on social media channels and blog pages, to promote your products or services. Unlike affiliate marketing which focuses on growing sales and traffic, the main goal of influencer marketing is to increase brand awareness and engagement and drive conversions.  

Choosing influencers whose followers match your target audience and trust their recommendations is the most important aspect of influencer marketing. Blue Wheel influencer marketing program focuses on facilitating relationships between brands and influencers. We have years of experience working with thousands of influencers and can help you reach your target audience and drive conversions on social media platforms such as Instagram and TikTok. 

Our influencer marketing collaborations ensure high-quality content with usage rights to maximize each collaboration’s benefits. While brands from almost all industries can benefit from influencer marketing, the key product categories are Beauty + Personal Care, Fitness + Wellness, Food + Housewares, Fashion, and Gaming + Technology. You can reach a substantial and engaged audience through influencers to raise awareness about your brand, gain their trust, and ultimately convert them into customers. 

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Benefits of Influencer Marketing for Brands

Increased engagement, brand awareness, and website traffic leading to potential sales are the main benefits of influencer marketing for brands. While brands pay commissions to affiliates, influencers are paid by campaigns that can be short or long depending on the collaboration. 

Measuring influencer marketing results is done based on your campaign goals. Track reach, engagement, impressions, and brand mentions for your brand awareness campaigns. You want to observe trackable links, discount codes, and affiliate links for conversions. Likes, comments, shares, clicks, and engagement rates are the key performance indicators for your influencer marketing content. Use Google Analytics to measure website traffic from your collaborations with influencers. 

Influencers can provide you access to a highly engaged and large audience that matches your ideal customer profile. Influencer affiliate marketing is on the rise with numerous influencers who include affiliate links in blogs and on social media (e.g. link in bio). They promote your brand by creating posts, videos, stories, or blogs featuring your products or services. 

Influencers can create product reviews, share discount codes, and organize giveaways to engage with specific audiences and support your brand growth. If you form long-term partnerships with influencers, you can make them your brand ambassadors and benefit from their marketing efforts over an extended period.

Blue Wheel’s traditional influencer marketing program is centered around clients’ needs and goals. These include spreading brand awareness to influencer audiences, obtaining UGC-style content that can be used for our clients’ social media profiles or in paid advertising efforts, and driving brand revenue with influencer discount codes. 

Based on their number of followers, influencers can be mega (celebrities or individuals with over one million followers), macro (100,000 to 1,000,000), micro (10,000 to 100,000), or nano-influencers (1,000 to 10,000). Our clients typically work with at least ten influencers monthly, with followings ranging from 5,000 to 500,000. We often find it better to collaborate with a larger number of smaller influencers rather than one or two mega-influencers. This approach involves less risk and provides more content that can be used across various marketing initiatives.

The Difference Between Affiliate Marketing and Influencer Marketing

Brand goals, ways to track and measure results, and payment methods are the main differences between affiliate marketing and influencer marketing. Your budget is also a deciding factor when choosing between these two marketing strategies. How do you decide which option is the best for you? Start by defining your goal and finding the most suitable collaborators for your brand.

If you want an easy-to-implement and low-risk marketing strategy with growing sales or website traffic as your main goal, you will likely choose affiliate marketing. With numerous affiliate marketing networks and software tools, you can easily create affiliate links, track results, and organize payments. 

If your main goal is to raise brand awareness while engaging your target audience and maximizing the potential of social media platforms to attract potential customers, you should collaborate with influencers. Influencer marketing is a powerful tool for connecting with people who match your target audience, trust influencers, and can recognize your brand value, leading them to become customers. 

High-quality, engaging content created by influencers can be shared across various platforms to boost your brand visibility. Partner with an advertising agency such as Blue Wheel that can help you navigate different aspects of your influencer marketing strategy every step of the way.

For some brands, it isn’t a question of affiliate marketing vs influencer marketing, as they combine these two powerful marketing strategies and get the best of both. Whichever way you choose to proceed, remember the key benefits and differences mentioned above.

Want to learn more about our influencer marketing, TikTok marketing, and TikTok Shop services? Reach out to our experienced marketing specialists today!