Masterclass: Integrating Influencers into an Affiliate Program

Influencer marketing is currently one of the hottest topics in the affiliate space. If you haven’t caught our recent coverage of the ‘new era’ of influencer marketing, let’s get you up to speed.  

Once seen as effective but costly and hard to measure, influencer marketing had a reputation problem. Celebrities commanded huge fees for social media promotions, while brands struggled (or simply forgot) to track ROI. 

For all its creativity, sheen, and potential, what the channel lacked above all was infrastructure and a robust tracking method. That’s until brands found a workaround by recruiting influencers for their affiliate program and having them share trackable links that made it simple to see what their content was really delivering. 

Boots is just one example of a brand embracing influencer marketing’s new era of effectiveness. The beauty retailer uses Awin’s integration with influencer platform Metapic to recruit, manage, and collaborate with a team of creators on its affiliate program. It’s an ‘always-on’ strategy. And it’s firing. 

Curious to learn more, we sat down with Ellie Waters, Affiliate Marketing Specialist at Boots, and Sarah Boudissa, Business Development Manager at Metapic, for a special episode of Awin-Win Marketing Podcast. 

Listen to the full episode or read their thoughts below.  

 

 

 

How to get started with influencers on an affiliate program 

Boots had a well-established affiliate program, but influencer marketing was something of an untapped resource.  

After joining Boots in 2023, Ellie noticed a creator-shaped gap in its strategy having previously worked with influencer platforms like Metapic, Stylink, and LTK during her time at women’s fashion brand Pretty Little Thing (PLT).  

Ellie: “Our affiliate program was very heavily centered just toward the traditional affiliates like cashback and discount sites. We really had no relationship with any influencer networks… Seeing first-hand the value that influencer networks can bring to brands like PLT, I knew that this was a huge space that we could easily tap into.” 

We’ll get onto the ease of linking influencer and affiliate in a moment. But let’s hear from Sarah at Metapic, an influencer network connecting 2,000+ retailers with 100,000+ content creators. 

Brands like Boots use Metapic to recruit influencers, issue links, track their performance, and pay for everything via their Awin affiliate program.  

Creators themselves use Metapic to grab links to embed within their content for monetization purposes. These links can see them paid out on all the common commission models, including cost per click (CPC), cost per acquisition (CPA), and flat fees.  

Boots has gone deeper with Metapic by using its agency services. It sets a capped budget for Metapic’s experts to source creators, distribute campaign assets, and make sure the highest performers get the best rates. 

Unlike with influencer activations in other channels, Boots’ affiliate-based influencer efforts are geared around return on ad spend (ROAS). Studies show that proving a return on influencer marketing is still a challenge for 43% of brands, but the affiliate route makes it easier to prove effectiveness.  

Affiliate marketing also gives first-time investors a much more palatable start. Rather than having to build a business case to secure budget with no promise of a return, Boots started engaging with Metapic in a risk-free capacity by running campaigns on a CPA-only basis. Within a couple of months, it was performing well enough to secure extra investment and broaden the mix of commercial models. 

Working with influencers in different channels 

Many brands in sub-sectors like fashion, homeware, and particularly health & beauty often have in-house influencer or social media specialists, meaning affiliate managers like Ellie do face additional challenges when dialling up their activities in this area.  

Regular check-ins between teams, trackers, raising important updates, frequent calls – there are no trade secrets to Boots’ internal alignment. Just a clear distinction of roles and responsibilities. Unless an influencer being managed by the in-house team requests an affiliate link to sweeten their deal (“that’s a grey area”), everything is relatively easy to manage. 

Ellie: “What we do and what they do really can complement each other rather than overlap or duplicate any work… The in-house influencer team looks over the paid collaborations, whereas our role is covering all organic-only content. That makes sure that there's a clear line between what both channels are offering rather than us overpromising on what we can both do.” 

How to create an effective, measurable influencer campaign 

Following a good couple of years of testing and learning with affiliate-powered influencer efforts, we were keen to quiz Ellie about her wins. 

From her perspective, mixing commission ‘boosts’ with other incentives has been a useful tactic for driving influencer engagement.   

Ellie: “I think our biggest successes have just always been where we've utilized both the CPC boosts alongside competitions, gifting, and also exposure across Metapic. I think having that brand presence across all of Metapic has really helped us and you can see the organic uplift we see from content creation off the back of it.”  

Sarah has her own theories on how Boots has found such quick success. 

Sarah: “I think the most important thing, and something that Boots does really well is having an always-on approach. They always have some kind of activation going on with the influencers, and it really does help show the influencers that, ‘We value you, we want to keep rewarding you for your efforts’. The more that they do that, the more the influencers give back. We've seen that time and time again with the trajectory of growth in their [Boots’] month-on-month and year-on-year performance.” 

That ‘always-on’ approach makes influencer recruitment and engagement a much easier task, but it also creates advantages in other areas.  

Ellie noticed that many of Boots’ competitors were running CPC campaigns on Metapic alone, which partly inspired the broadening of its commercial model beyond a sales-only CPA. Many of those same competitors will also share Boots’ taste in creators. But rather than having to think of ways to become front of mind, Boots is already there.  

Sarah: “Now we have Boots creators chasing us, saying ‘What's next? When are we doing the next gifting activation? When are we going to have the next boost?’ Because Boots always has communication going out with their influencers as well, it just keeps them top of mind in so many different ways.” 

How many influencers should you work with?  

Budget, campaign goals, influencer type, sub-sector – there are no shortage of factors to consider when deciding how many creators you should work with. 

Still, Boots and Metapic have sage advice which will be familiar to most affiliate managers. D is for diversification, and relying on a small group of high performers is a big no-no in the influencer world.  

It’s equally true of any affiliate program that has an unhealthily large contribution from its top 10 partners. But a lack of diversification carries an even bigger consideration in the influencer space, where your fortunes rest on the availability of a single person, rather than a company. 

Sarah: “We don't want all of the ROAS to be coming from, for example, the top 20 or 30 influencers alone. Because if one of those influencers is on holiday, or moving, or has an operation, as they did a couple of months ago, then it can lead to a dip in performance.” 

Sarah states that it’s less of an issue with a brand the size of Boots, although others haven’t been so fortunate. It’s why ‘active influencers’ is often cited as a KPI alongside traffic and sales. 

Sarah: “I've seen it happen to other brands I've worked with. They rely so heavily on the same kind of influencers. So I think making sure that you are increasing the unique active influencers that you're working with is super, super important.” 

Which commission models should you use for influencer marketing? 

Affiliate’s CPA model has been a natural draw for risk-averse brands. It’s also been a revelation for mega influencers (1 million+ followers) that can potentially raise their earnings ceiling with a sales-only commission model vs. a flat fee.  

In one campaign at Awin, challenger eyewear brand Tomahawk Shades managed to strike up an unlikely CPA arrangement with golf’s no.1 influencer after learning that they were planning to create their own branded sunglasses. Rather than building a new business from scratch, the influencer simply promoted Tomahawk and accepted the CPA as the more lucrative deal.  

Sarah clarifies that a hybrid approach, blending CPA, CPC, monetary rewards, and free products has been the right approach for Boots. 

Sarah: “Primarily we work on a CPC basis, but then we also do gifting and have events and multiple other activations. I think that's super important, because we don't want to rely heavily on discount days, promotions, sales, and peak periods. We want to make sure that the performance is still going strong during off-peak times as well. Otherwise, you're just going to be relying on November and December…” 

The realization that CPA-only activations would have to be supplemented with other commercial models was also born out of necessity.  

Ellie: “We knew that competitors were already utilizing a CPC model within Metapic. So it just meant we either accept that we lose our share of voice within the influencer space, or we actually try and adapt… Seeing how it runs organically as a base really proved its value over time. And then putting that investment into the CPC, seeing how it performed and then making adaptable and flexible changes from there was really helpful.” 

From Sarah’s perspective, it’s not a case of CPC being better than any other commercial model, but there are valid points that reinforce its suitability for creators with smaller audiences.  

Data from Awin shows influencers tend to engage with audiences earlier in the funnel. They might conduct extra research before purchasing an item they first saw advertised on an Instagram story. That makes paying out on clicks, rather than sales, a fairer deal. 

Sarah: “I think CPC really does align with the primary roles of an influencer, which is to drive awareness and traffic to a brand site. Whereas CPA requires a specific action, usually that's sales, which is a little unfair because the influencer will go through all of this effort to create content, which takes time to put it in front of their audiences. If they don't get a sale, because it does take time for a consumer to consider that purchase… They’ll think, ‘If I've never worked with this brand beforehand and I've driven traffic to their site, but it's not converting, then what's in it for me?’” 

That scenario explains the demand for flat fees, but a capped CPC and CPA hybrid does see both sides meeting in the middle. The brand gets traffic and a chance to convert it. Meanwhile, the creator can earn the maximum amount from the clicks they drive and top up their commission with the CPA earnings. 

Sarah: “CPC is a low-risk way of working with new influencers. It's a capped budget, which means that it's cost effective for the brand side. And I think some brands get really scared when it's the first time they're doing it... But it does work out really well, especially when it comes to beauty and entertainment, travel, etc. It’s low risk.” 

What results can influencer marketing deliver? 

Brands haven’t always been totally sure about how or whether they benefit from influencer marketing. From the view of one that does, it’s a mix of advantages. 

Ellie: “It drives long-term partnerships with the influencers, but also trust from the audience as well, because they can see that Boots is integrated within their lifestyle and everyday makeup routine... I think rather than it being a one-stop shop or an ad, it really helps prove our value.” 

As for the more tangible benefits, Boots makes good use of Metapic’s analytics to see precisely how the influencers perform. 

Ellie: “Obviously sales and revenue are key indicators of success. However, we take a really holistic approach to measurement. We're not just looking at short-term goals, but we're also looking at long-term sustainability and brand visibility. We're looking at traffic and clicks, making sure that the influencers are driving quality traffic… Conversion rates let us gauge how well the influencers are promoting Boots.”  

Everything is underpinned by ROAS, but there’s a useful subset of data that Boots also uses to inform its strategy. Metapic’s built-in competitor benchmarking makes it easy to review performance in the context of a vertical. This helps Boots and Metapic assess whether they’re winning or losing in a key battleground for consumer attention. 

Sarah: “I love delving into what competitors are doing, where the gaps are… We send over a report after each month so they [Boots] can see exactly how they've performed and which influencers have contributed to that success. Who their top performers are. Why they're performing well, any movers and shakers. So if there's an influencer that performed particularly well last year, then if they're not in their top five anymore, why is that? And how can we reengage them?” 

These activities spell out the key difference between the influencer marketing of ten years ago and the influencer marketing of today. Not only do brands have a strong grasp of how their own investments are returning, but they can keep an eye on how their competitors’ budgets are being spent, too.  

The social platforms, investors, and even some of the bigger creators are largely the same. It’s the desire and ability to measure that have changed. In some cases, affiliate marketing has single-handedly powered that shift, creating a much safer route to the same destination.  

Ready to enter the new era of influencer marketing with your affiliate program? Tap into a global network of creators by partnering with Metapic. 

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