When Facebook acquired Instagram back in 2012, the world’s collective jaw dropped at the $1 billion purchase price. More than a decade later, that purchase looks like the smartest thing Facebook has done since its inception.
Consider these statistics:
- Instagram ad revenue for the US alone in 2024 is projected to exceed $59.6 billion, after reaching $43.28 billion in 2022.
- Instagram Ads can potentially reach 22.6% of the global population aged 13+.
- 90% of Instagram’s users follow at least one brand.
- 50% of people are more interested in a brand when they see ads for it on Instagram.
Add to this picture, Instagram’s shoppable photos feature, along with its Branded Content partnerships, its vertical style feed, Stories, Reels, Threads, and its livestreams features, and it becomes apparent that the platform is going to dominate the social marketing landscape in the coming years.
All this attention on Instagram for business, however, contains a downside. Brands must work harder than ever to get noticed. Influencers, however, have more power on the platform than ever. There are over 2 billion monthly active users on Instagram (500 million daily active users), and companies have to increasingly funnel their message through influencers to reach the right audience.
Brands need the right Instagram influencer tools to locate and vet new talent while simultaneously managing multiple campaigns with multiple people involved. Finding a decent Instagram influencer marketing platform is therefore of paramount concern to brands of all sizes.
Here are the best tools for discovering influencers and influencer outreach on Instagram in 2024:
Best Influencer Marketing Platforms for Instagram in 2024:
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influencer marketing platforms instagram
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Channels: Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, X (Twitter), Twitch, YouTube
Grin has been part of the influencer marketing scene since 2014, before influencer marketing even existed as a separate concept. It recognizes that the first, and therefore most important, step of influencer marketing is cultivating a trusting relationship with the influencers in your field.
Grin’s customer base doesn’t trend toward any size: small, medium, or large. Its target customer is a direct-to-customer eCommerce company, regardless of the vertical.
Users consider Grin easy to use despite offering all the major features that a top-tier marketing management software should.
Grin includes some nifty search methods, such as pulling potential influencers from your database of registered eCommerce site users, as well as some social listening capabilities. However, you can still search the “old-fashioned” way, with Grin’s searchable database including influencers from Instagram, as well as YouTube and TikTok. It even automates the outreach process, where you start with a template, and Grin emails each person individually from your mail domain. All the emails look like personal one-to-one messages.
Pricing Model
Grin uses customized pricing, taking into consideration factors such as the size of your organization and your expected needs from the platform.
Ease of Integration
Grin integrates with most major social media channels, including Instagram. However, it also integrates with eCommerce software like Shopify, WooCommerce, and Magento so that you can manage and ship products to your influencers, create sales tracking links to pay commissions, create exclusive discount codes, and more. You can also integrate it with email systems like Gmail and Outlook, so every message you send from Grin comes from your mail domain, not some weird one-off address that’s separate from your actual email.
Key Features: Content Amplification, Search/Discovery, Influencer Lifecycle Management, Influencer Relationship Management, Content Review, Content Library, Campaign Management, Campaign Reporting, Influencer Analysis, Audience Analysis, eCommerce Tools, Product/Gifting Tools, Forms and Compliance.
Key Features: Content Amplification, Search/Discovery, Influencer Lifecycle Management, Influencer Relationship Management, Content Review, Content Library, Campaign Management, Campaign Reporting, Influencer Analysis, Audience Analysis, E-commerce Tools, Product/Gifting Tools, Forms and Compliance,
Channels: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Twitch, YouTube
Channels: Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, X (Twitter), Twitch, TikTok, Shopify
Brandwatch offers a comprehensive suite covering consumer intelligence, social media management, and influencer marketing. The latter service is relatively new to the suite, thanks to their purchase of influencer platform Falcon.io. The newly rebranded Brandwatch Influence can help you manage all the steps involved in launching a successful influencer marketing campaign, offering an all-in-one end-to-end solution.
One of its most notable features is its influencer database. You can use it to search and segment over 40 million creators on Instagram (and most other common social channels) by using filters like brand affinities, previous work, and interests. You can also add influencers to your dedicated influencer CRM.
Once you’ve found the Instagram influencers you want to partner with, Brandwatch also makes it easy to keep track of everything. You can organize all the files, docs, and other details, like payment info, in one place, while streamlined workflows help you with content approvals.
Then, to help you measure the direction in which your campaigns are heading, there are real-time customizable reports that you can easily share with others. You can, for example, use metrics like campaign impressions or engagement to evaluate influencers or use the full overview to monitor deliverables to ensure that influencers are meeting the requirements.
Pricing Model
Brandwatch Influence uses customized pricing, taking into consideration factors such as the size of your organization and your expected needs from the platform. They place particular emphasis on serving enterprises.
Ease of Integration
Campaign management and reporting software within Brandwatch Influence helps you generate sales materials, track deliverables, and create real-time reports. The platform easily integrates with your influencers’ social platforms to collect all the necessary data to create these reports as well as effect easy communication with your influencers. If you’re after a quality Instagram influencer marketing platform, you will find effortless ease of integration.
Brandwatch offers a range of APIs over its entire suite to assist its customers. These include an Analysis API, Data Upload API, Consumer research API, Measure API, Publish API, and Engage API.
Key Features: Influencer Discovery, Influencer directory management, Creation of private influencer network, Campaign management and reporting, Broad platform coverage, Automated Reporting.
Key Features: Influencer Discovery, Influencer directory management, Creation of private influencer network, Campaign management and reporting, Broad platform coverage, Automated reporting,
Channels: YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Twitch, TikTok, Shopify
Channels: Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Twitch, TikTok, X (Twitter), Pinterest, Blogs
Upfluence has expanded its remit recently to encompass influencer marketing, affiliate programs, creator management, user-generated content, and brand ambassadors. Despite all this expansion, Upfluence is still at heart a self-service influencer discovery platform, targeting influencers on all of the main social channels, including Instagram, as well as the blogosphere. It comes at a comparatively low cost compared to many of its competitors, bringing it into the realm of small and medium-sized businesses. Despite this, Upfluence can claim numerous big-name clients, including Microsoft, PayPal, Ralph Lauren, and AXA.
Although the highlight of Upfluence’s offering is undoubtedly its search software, you can do much more than just hunt for influencers. Their software allows you to manage your preferred influencers into lists. It gives you full access to their personal contact details. You can even export their details in bulk and contact them at scale. The Upfluence database is mind-boggling. Its algorithm indexes over 500 million items of content and analyzes each piece for reach and engagement.
This means that you can search for influencers using any imaginable keyword. You can drill down your searches to very long-tail terms. Upfluence offers a range of tools to ease the complications of finding and making contact with influencers as well as keeping track of the success of campaigns.
Pricing Model
Upfluence is a SaaS platform, with pricing based on a subscription model. There are three levels of service, each with a monthly fee (but sold on an annual basis). The plans vary according to the number of users and services offered. If you’re just looking for an Instagram influencer tool, Upfluence’s lowest-level plan, Growth, would meet your needs if two user accounts are sufficient. Not all integrations are available to users of this plan, however. Upfluence’s pricing is custom and tailored to your needs. Fees are based on the number of active influencers in a campaign.
Ease of Integration
Upfluence easily connects to your whole ecosystem. You can easily connect your CMS, email clients, PayPal account, and more to Upfluence. It includes integration with major eCommerce platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, Adobe Commerce, and Big Commerce, so you can trigger orders, ship products, and track progress, as well as generate coupon codes and track sales.
Key Features: Influencer Search & Discovery, Relationship Management, Campaign Management, Third Party Analytics, Automated Recruiting, Influencer Lifecycle Management, Team Collaboration Tools, Content Review, Campaign Reporting, Audience Analysis, E-commerce Tools, Product/Gifting Tools, Payment Processing, Social Listening, Affiliate Management, Affiliate Campaigns.
Key Features: Influencer Search & Discovery, Relationship Management, Campaign Management, Third Party Analytics, Automated Recruiting, Influencer Lifecycle Management, Team Collaboration Tools, Content Review, Campaign Reporting, Audience Analysis, E-commerce Tools, Product/Gifting Tools, Payment Processing, Social Listening, Affiliate Management, Affiliate Campaigns,
Channels: Instagram, Youtube, Facebook, Twitch, Tiktok, Twitter, Pinterest, Blogs
Channels: Instagram, YouTube, TikTok
Creator.co places as much emphasis on content creation as it does content distribution. However, it features a database containing details of 200 million+ influencers, with surprisingly in-depth data on these influencers and their audiences, more than you would expect from a platform targeting small and medium businesses.
The platform also offers both self-service and “hands-free” versions. In the “hands-free” plans, clients are given a dedicated Account Manager who handles the bulk of their influencer campaigns, from strategy to reporting. Here, Creator.co suggests influencers from a smaller, vetted talent pool of around 80,000. In this case, Creator.co finds suitable influencers and checks on their willingness to participate in the campaign. The brand merely needs to choose whether to activate each recommended and willing influencer.
Whether you’re working with a self-service plan or an automated one, the first thing you need to do is create and define your campaign. You will want to be as specific and detailed as possible. You can fully customize your campaigns, but Creator.co includes two prefabricated types: the ShoutOut campaign, essentially an exchange of free products for exposure, and Giveaways, where you work with influencers to drive followers to your profile by running contests for freebies.
Campaign dashboards are very cleanly laid out, and easy to navigate, with four main sections: General, Compensation, Requirements, and Deliverables.
The platform makes a “Deep Insights” report available for any influencer. This is a downloadable 20+ page PDF report full of valuable information about the influencer and their social activity.
Pricing Model
Creator.co has different plans for brands and agencies. Brand plans are subscription-based (starting from a $460/mo. subscription). All plans require a minimum 3-month subscription but also have a one-time $395 onboarding fee. The automated plans include an Account Manager fee (that differs by plan level) on top of the subscription and onboarding costs. Creator.co also has add-ons for affiliate integration, social media ads management, and social media content management).
Agency pricing plans scale by the number of brands they cover. They include two “free” brands per five paid brands, maxing out with the Global Plan that caters to unlimited brands (with ten free).
Ease of Integration
Creator.co incorporates a range of importing and exporting tools to assist brands and agencies in collaborating with influencers. They also integrate with eCommerce platforms to give access to product catalogs, product samples, and more. One of Creator.co’s optional add-ons is affiliate integration, enabling you to expose your affiliate program to 175,000+ micro-influencers.
Key Features: Search/Discovery, Automated Recruiting, Influencer Relationship Management, Influencer Marketplace, Content Review, Content Library, Campaign Management, Campaign Reporting, Influencer Analysis, Audience Analysis, E-commerce Tools, Product/Gifting Tools, Fake Follower/Fraud Detection, Payment Processing, Social Listening, Competitor Research, Creator Marketplace.
Key Features: Search/Discovery, Automated Recruiting, Influencer Relationship Management, Influencer Marketplace, Content Review, Content Library, Campaign Management, Campaign Reporting, Influencer Analysis, Audience Analysis, E-commerce Tools, Product/Gifting Tools, Fake Follower/Fraud Detection, Payment Processing, Social Listening, Competitor Research, Creator Marketplace,
Channels: Instagram, YouTube, TikTok
Channels: Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, Pinterest, X (Twitter), Blogs, LTK App
LTK (formerly called rewardStyle and LIKEtoKNOW.it) is a global influencer marketing platform that was founded by a creator for the creator economy in 2011. Their goal is to “empower the world’s premium lifestyle creators to be a brand’s power partner”.
Headquartered in Dallas, Texas, their platform can help brands of all sizes with influencer discovery to transaction, and everything in between. According to their LinkedIn page, their influencer marketing programs have helped over 6,000 global retailers generate billions in annual sales. They have more than 200k curated creators making shoppable posts for 10 million+ users scrolling through the app looking for things to buy.
One of the features that deserve special mention and help to set them apart is their access to data. It incorporates over 10 years of proprietary sales insights and cross-channel performance data. Armed with this performance data on creators in the LTK network, brands can connect with the right target audience and generate sales and engagement more effectively.
Recently, they’ve launched their new self-serve solution, LTK Connect. The launch of this new solution will help even more brands, in particular DTC brands, to explore and leverage creator-guided commerce. In short, LTK Connect enables brands to create, manage, and grow their influencer marketing platforms directly across publishing platforms, which include their own shopping app — the single biggest creator shopping channel. With the help of their shopping app, you can amplify your campaign and reach over 8 million monthly shoppers.
Another recent innovation by LTK is the introduction of LTK Marketplace, which empowers brands to receive Creator Proposals for their campaign, reducing search and communication time to find Creators. Brands can post campaigns to LTK Marketplace for interested Creators to send Proposals to collaborate. Brands then review the proposals, and if interested, move forward with a partnership.
Pricing Model
LTK offers three plans giving different levels of service (and reflecting the maximum number of creators with whom you can connect). LTK has set annual campaign budget levels for each plan. All plans require a single annual payment; there are no month-to-month subscription options. Brands are subject to a $2,400 onboarding fee. The platform has set a requirement that brands must have a website with eCommerce to work with LTK Connect.
Ease of Integration
LTK includes integration with Shopify and some online payment processors. For example, custom-built “Buy Now with LTK Cart” technology allows shoppers to securely purchase multiple products from brands and retailers without leaving the LTK shopping app.
Key Features: Search/Discovery, Content Review, Campaign Management, Campaign Reporting, Influencer Analysis, Audience Analysis, Product/Gifting Tools, Forms and Compliance, Payment Processing.
Key Features: Search/Discovery, Content Review, Campaign Management, Campaign Reporting, Influencer Analysis, Audience Analysis, Product/Gifting Tools, Forms and Compliance, Payment Processing,
Channels: Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Blogs, LTK App
Channels: Instagram, YouTube, TikTok
Influencity offers services to brands wanting to work with influencers on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. This is despite the company beginning in 2014 by connecting brands with some of the most influential people on Twitter. This indicates the massive change in the relative performances of the various social platforms over the last few years. Now Instagram is the primary social channel for brands to be seen, closely followed by the two video platforms, and Influencity is one of the best tools for influencer outreach on Instagram.
Discovery with Influencity relies primarily on Instagram data now. The platform includes an incredible amount of data on each account it indexes. Across the three channels, you can discover the content creators that fit your campaign needs by comparing over 200 million profiles worldwide.
Running through your search filters, you’ll see an abundance of options, from basic demographics like gender, age, and location, to psychographics like interests and brand affinities. There are over 100,000 ways to combine filters. You can also do a lookalike search. Once you can identify one perfect influencer, you can let the platform do the rest for you.
You can also see in-depth data relating to your campaigns. Influencity gives you a clear picture of the kinds of audiences that your influencers reached and how well that audience received the posts your influencers made on your behalf. This helps future-proof your next wave of promotions.
Pricing Model
Like many SaaS platforms, Influencity offers multiple levels of subscription that run the gamut of features. In addition to four fixed plans, customers can put together a personalized plan by selecting features that suit them and creating a Custom Bundle.
Ease of Integration
Influencity incorporates extensive data from influencers on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. It also offers influencer relationship management (IRM), making it easy for you to keep your influencer database centralized and updated at all times, to facilitate your day-to-day management of your influencers. You can connect your personal email (IMAP or Outlook) to Influencity to send one-to-one emails from the IRM and log your emails and replies in the platform. You can download influencer data in XLSX format and work with it in Google Sheets or Excel.
Key Features: Search/Discovery, Influencer Lifecycle Management, Influencer Relationship Management, Campaign Management, Campaign Reporting, Influencer Analysis, Audience Analysis, Fake Follower/Fraud Detection, Exportable reports, Team/Collaboration Tools.
Key Features: Search/Discovery, Influencer Lifecycle Management, Influencer Relationship Management, Campaign Management, Campaign Reporting, Influencer Analysis, Audience Analysis, Fake Follower/Fraud Detection, Exportable reports, Team/Collaboration Tools,
Channels: Instagram, YouTube, TikTok
Channels: TikTok, Instagram, Shopify, Retail Sites, Brand Website
Skeepers (previously Octoly) has masterfully positioned itself at the forefront of influencer marketing, offering an efficient platform tailored for brands aiming to elevate their online presence, particularly on Instagram. Their SaaS platform isn’t just about connecting brands with influencers; it’s about generating authentic content that resonates with consumers, thereby bridging the gap between brand recognition and brand loyalty.
Their platform is more than just an influencer connector. It’s an all-in-one solution where campaigns can be managed, content can be generated, and real-time data can be analyzed. By automating the logistical aspects, Skeepers allows brands to concentrate on campaign performance and nurturing relationships with influencers. Additionally, the content rights feature, which provides brands with access to a unique User Generated Content (UGC) bank for a decade, is a game-changer. This is not just about influencer marketing but building a digital asset bank.
Skeepers also offers an unparalleled level of insight with real-time KPIs that brands can use to adjust their strategies. They’ve made it incredibly user-friendly to identify ideal influencers with the “Personal Profile” feature, streamlining the process to ensure optimal brand-influencer alignment. With their platform, nearly 1,000 brands have launched 17,000+ influencer campaigns, working with 74,000 micro and nano-influencers, a real testament to Skeepers’ efficacy.
Pricing Model
Custom pricing, depending on client needs.
Ease of Integration
Being an all-in-one platform covering influencer marketing, ratings and reviews, customer data activation, feedback management, consumer videos, and live shopping, Skeepers integrates easily with a wide range of tools. These range from CRMs like HubSpot (which uses the HubSpot Connector) to direct integration with Salesforce, Adobe Campaign, MailChimp, and Zendesk, along with APIs.
Key Features: Campaign Management, Influencer Discovery, Social Media Monitoring, Faceted Search / Filtering.
Key Features: Campaign Management, Influencer Discovery, Social Media Monitoring, Faceted Search / Filtering,
Channels: Tik Tok, Instagram, Shopify, Retail Sites, Brand Website
Channels: Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn
InsightIQ is emerging as a leading player among brands venturing into the dynamic world of Instagram influencer marketing. With a rich repository of over 250 million creators, the platform epitomizes diversity and precision. Its AI-powered mechanisms sift through a voluminous database, ensuring that brands align with influencers who not only embody their ethos but are also positioned to drive engagement and sales.
In a world where data is king, InsightIQ stands distinguished with its ability to analyze and interpret more than 80 million content items. The platform’s incisive focus on authenticity ensures that brands navigate beyond vanity metrics, offering a detailed inspection of audience demographics and engagement. Each influencer’s potential to resonate with a specific Ideal Customer Profile (ICP) is meticulously evaluated, turning the often-complex task of influencer selection into a data-driven, strategic endeavor.
The real-time tracking of Instagram influencer campaign metrics elevates InsightIQ to a platform of precision and accountability. Metrics like Cost Per Engagement (CPE) and Total Media Value (TMV) are closely monitored, providing brands with actionable insights for optimizing ROI. Moreover, the integration with Shopify facilitates real-time tracking of sales origin and each creator’s contribution, binding influencer efforts to tangible, measurable outcomes.
Clients’ testimonials accentuate the flexibility and robust data accessibility that InsightIQ offers. In a landscape where influencer marketing’s efficacy is often mired in ambiguity, InsightIQ emerges as a beacon of clarity, precision, and tangible results.
Pricing Model
InsightIQ access is sold on a subscription basis, though the pricing isn’t made public. They offer a single plan that gives you access to the platform and (nearly) everything it does. However, they customize the plan to match your needs, adjusting their quote to factor in your usage, so you only pay for what you need.
Ease of Integration
You can choose to use InsightIQ’s dashboard or APIs. Their API solutions are extensive and echo adaptability, enabling a customized interface for brands, and ensuring that the platform seamlessly intertwines with varied operational and strategic needs. You can use their APIs to build exclusive curations of influencers as per any campaign brief, across any platform, including Instagram.
InsightIQ includes Creator Search APIs, Content Analysis APIs, ROI and Sentiment Analysis APIs, Brand Safety APIs, and Publish APIs.
Key Features: Search/Discovery, Campaign Reporting, Influencer Analysis, Audience Analysis, Fake Follower/Fraud Detection, Visual Discovery, LinkedIn Creator Search.
Key Features: Search/Discovery, Campaign Reporting, Influencer Analysis, Audience Analysis, Fake Follower/Fraud Detection, Visual Discovery, LinkedIn Creator Search,
Channels: Instagram, Tiktok, Youtube, LinkedIn
Channels: Facebook, YouTube, Snapchat, TikTok
IndaHash emerges as a standout influencer marketing platform, offering a suite of tools tailored to elevate your brand’s social media influence. With IndaHash, you have access to data-driven solutions that are essential for crafting impactful campaigns.
Its Creator Discovery tool is particularly noteworthy, enabling you to pinpoint and collaborate with influencers who truly align with your brand’s ethos. This tool leverages sophisticated AI algorithms and over 20 filters, ensuring that each influencer partnership is a perfect match for your brand’s objectives.
Pricing Model
IndaHash offers a flexible pricing model, including Creator Discovery, Campaigns Management, Agency Pack, Managed Services, and Enterprise packages. This approach allows you to choose a plan that aligns with your influencer marketing budget and goals. For accurate pricing on all packages, request a demo from IndaHash.
Ease of Integration
IndaHash integrates effortlessly with major social media platforms, especially Instagram. Moreover, IndaHash can integrate with any eCommerce platform. This integration streamlines your influencer campaigns with a dashboard that provides real-time data and performance reports for efficient campaign management and analysis.
Key Features: Engagement Rate Analysis, Audience Demographics, Audience Overlap Check, Competitor Check, Crisis Detection, Campaign Reporting, Team and Task Management, Content Autodiscovery, Personalized Creator Onboarding, Comprehensive CRM Solution.
Key Features: Search/Discovery, Influencer Relationship Management, Team Collaboration Tools, Content Review, Content Library, Campaign Management, Campaign Reporting, Influencer Analysis, Audience Analysis, White Label Reporting, E-commerce Tools, Fake Follower/Fraud Detection, Visual Discovery,
Channels: Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook
Channels: Instagram, Facebook, X (Twitter), YouTube, TikTok
With Kolsquare, identifying key opinion leaders on Instagram (and other social channels) becomes much less time-consuming. Not only does it boast a massive network of more than 1 million influencers, but it also helps you narrow down your search to manageable levels.
The platform has a very useful Chrome extension, the Kolsquare Analytics Sidebar, that lets you access all the stats of potential influencers and their audiences. Included in the stats are automatically calculated engagement rates, socio-demographic data, and credibility scores. The credibility score can be particularly useful for working with Instagram influencers.
In addition to influencer identification, Kolsquare also offers several tools and features to help with campaign management and performance measurement. Plus, if you’re part of a bigger team, it makes it easy to share the same info with other collaborators on your team.
Pricing Model
Subscription-based, sold on an annual basis only. They are tailor-made packages individually adapted to your market, target group, and influencer marketing strategy. Their pricing starts at €500 per month, with a large selection of customizable options. The platform gives a 30% discount for startups that were created less than 3 years ago, raised less than €500k, and have less than 10 employees.
Ease of Integration
Although Kolsquare doesn’t have many integrations, it does feature a Chrome extension to give you all the statistics of the influencers’ profiles and their audiences you see on Instagram and TikTok. It also provides a custom dashboard that allows you to track an unlimited number of key opinion leaders (KOLs) simultaneously and compare their performance. In addition, you can easily import pre-existing file lists of favorite KOLs. It also includes an automated campaign report generator to create, download, and share custom reports in multiple formats (PowerPoint, Excel, and shareable weblink).
Key Features: Search/Discovery, Influencer Relationship Management, Content Review, Content Library, Campaign Management, Campaign Reporting, Influencer Analysis, Audience Analysis, E-commerce Tools, Product/Gifting Tools, Fake Follower/Fraud Detection, Payment Processing, Social Listening, Competitor Research.
Key Features: Search/Discovery, Influencer Relationship Management, Content Review, Content Library, Campaign Management, Campaign Reporting, Influencer Analysis, Audience Analysis, E-commerce Tools, Product/Gifting Tools, Fake Follower/Fraud Detection, Payment Processing, Social Listening, Competitor Research,
Channels: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok
Channels: Instagram, YouTube, TikTok
Klear grew out of Twtrland, an analytics platform designed to provide detailed insights into Twitter. Twtrland offered tons of data on users’ posting habits, popularity, and followers’ demographics. Over time, the platform expanded to focus on Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok and rebranded to become Klear.
Klear’s comprehensive Instagram influencer tool ensures you hire influencers that align with and promote your brand’s values. It incorporates comprehensive influencer insights for a complete understanding of an influencer’s impact. Klear divides the influencers in its database into 60,000 topic categories and offers deep analytics about their audiences’ demographics and psychographics.
Klear is now an all-in-one influencer platform, although it still has a distinct strength in data analytics. They split their solutions into five components:
- Find Influencers – Klear offers strong influencer discovery, matching brands with the most relevant creators for their audience. They claim their discovery capabilities are 2X more targeted than any other tool on the market. Advanced filters allow you to sift through profiles and focus on those who are relevant to your brand. Klear’s AI-powered FakeSpot technology detects fake followers or engagements generated by auto-bots.
- Influencer Analytics – Klear includes in-depth tools to perform a complete influencer analysis. The Klear Influencer Score identifies users with the highest level of influence.
- Manage Relationships – manage your campaign and keep the whole team synchronized with an integrated CRM.
- Activate Influencers – contains a smart and easy collaboration hub.
- Measure Campaigns – Klear campaign reports are data-driven and use industry-leading metrics to quantify campaign performance.
Klear even automatically tracks Instagram Stories and aggregates all Stories into your campaign report.
Pricing Model
Although Klear offers clear plan tiers (Professional, eCommerce, and Enterprise) and follows a subscription model, it uses customized pricing based on customer size and need.
Ease of Integration
Klear offers various integrations depending on the plan you choose. For example, the eCommerce and Enterprise plans allow for easy email integration and mass outreach to thousands of influencers, as well as eCommerce platform integrations and sales/link tracking. Enterprise plans add BI integration.
Key Features: Search/Discovery, Automated Recruiting, Influencer Relationship Management, Influencer Marketplace, Content Review, Content Library, Campaign Management, Campaign Reporting, Influencer Analysis, Audience Analysis, E-commerce Tools, Product/Gifting Tools, Forms and Compliance, Fake Follower/Fraud Detection, Payment Processing, Social Listening, Competitor Research, Visual Discovery.
Key Features: Search/Discovery, Automated Recruiting, Influencer Relationship Management, Influencer Marketplace, Content Review, Content Library, Campaign Management, Campaign Reporting, Influencer Analysis, Audience Analysis, E-commerce Tools, Product/Gifting Tools, Forms and Compliance, Fake Follower/Fraud Detection, Payment Processing, Social Listening, Competitor Research, Visual Discovery,
Channels: Instagram, YouTube, TikTok
Channels: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Websites
Cohley sees content as being equally important to the influencers, recognizing they are mutually exclusive assets in a marketer’s toolbox. Not every talented content creator has influence, and not every influencer makes great content.
Cohley connects brands with professionals, photographers, and videographers, both those talented but only starting to gain attention and those whom people consider full-on influencers. In all cases, content is the key to success.
Brands retain licensed rights to content, and they can use and re-use their greatest hits across all their marketing channels, refining their use along the way to be more and more effective.
Cohley’s team helps orient new customers on the platform and onboards you into your first campaign.
You can look for up-and-coming influencers to create authentic User Generated Content, ideal for social campaigns or visual assets you can use for websites. You collect this content in a content library, organized like a familiar file manager, with each campaign’s content in a separate folder.
Pricing Model
Cohley doesn’t make its pricing public and doesn’t have a one-size-fits-all approach to its product. The platform assesses each potential customer’s needs and devises a customized solution to help customers achieve their specific goals.
Ease of Integration
Cohley integrates with Shopify and BigCommerce to streamline the shipping and fulfillment process when sending products to an influencer. If you require influencers to write a product review as you’d see on Amazon, you can get them to submit them to Cohley, which then propagates them out to the associated product page on Yotpo or PowerReviews. It also integrates with multiple other types of complementary platforms. When we reviewed Cohley, we considered its ease of integration to be one of its best features.
Key Features: Search/Discovery, Automated Recruiting, Influencer Marketplace, Content Review, Content Library, Campaign Management, Campaign Reporting, Influencer Analysis, E-commerce Tools, Product/Gifting Tools, Payment Processing, Influencer Content Amplification.
Key Features: Search/Discovery, Automated Recruiting, Influencer Marketplace, Content Review, Content Library, Campaign Management, Campaign Reporting, Influencer Analysis, E-commerce Tools, Product/Gifting Tools, Payment Processing, Influencer Content Amplification,
Channels: Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Websites
Channels: Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, X (Twitter), Pinterest, Snapchat, YouTube
Julius grew out of Thuzio, a web-based talent agency for athletics wanting to increase their sources of income. It became a fully-featured influencer discovery and campaign management platform – for all kinds of influencers and is now a full-fledged self-service marketing suite.
Julius has over 50,000 influencers in its database. It does not just rely on an algorithm but uses humans to research the credibility of each potential influencer. It has an opt-in database, which means that everybody you find has expressed an interest in participating in influencer marketing. Many of the influencers are represented by talent agencies who have partnered with Julius.
Julius features a clean interface that is easy to use and understand. Despite its apparent simplicity, Julius has an in-depth search engine, and you can refine your search criteria in many ways. There are more than 50 data points you can use to modify your search criteria.
You can compare up to five influencers at a time to help you determine which is the best fit for your target market.
Pricing Model
Julius is a SaaS subscription platform, but you have to pay your sub as an annual fee. The specific fee you’ll pay is contingent on the number of users you’ll want to have access to the software. All subscriptions come with complete access to the platform, unlimited messaging, custom influencer lists, and a dedicated and on-demand account manager for guidance/assistance.
Ease of Integration
Julius’s main integrations are the eight social channels of the influencers it has in its database. Julius observes that it is constantly growing the breadth and depth of influencers on the platform. They source new influencers to add by focusing on specific industries that are in demand, and also from client requests. They don’t currently have a public-facing portal for influencers to access and update their information, however, it’s something they are actively working on. Brands can analyze, monitor, and optimize influencer stats, and create reports with robust CSV exports, as well as bulk exporting to PDF and PowerPoint.
Key Features: Search/Discovery, Influencer Relationship Management, Campaign Management, Campaign Reporting, Influencer Analysis, Audience Analysis, Forms/Compliance.
Key Features: Search/Discovery, Influencer Relationship Management, Campaign Management, Campaign Reporting, Influencer Analysis, Audience Analysis, Forms/Compliance,
Channels: TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat, YouTube
Channels: Instagram, Facebook, X (Twitter), YouTube, TikTok, Blogs, Snapchat. Post for Rent states that whenever a new channel emerges and gains traction, it will add it to the pool.
In 2016, influencer marketing was in its infancy – even the influencer Marketing Hub didn’t post its first article until near the end of that year. During that time, Post for Rent began as an influencer marketing platform and agency. Later, Post for Rent’s team pondered about what they should do next. The answer was to set up another platform with a different target market, which they aptly named NEXT Business Manager.
More recently, Post for Rent took another look at its main influencer marketing platform. They introduced a whole slew of new features, adding to what was an already impressive platform.
It is now more of an influencer and campaign management platform than the marketplace it started as. At the same time, they developed a solution focusing on talent agencies, making it more akin to an ERP platform for influencer agencies.
As well as campaign and influencer management, Post for Rent also provides a CRM, document repository, contract creation and management tools, messaging, a content library, and reporting on campaigns.
Pricing Model
With its recent shift towards an agency focus, Post for Rent has changed its pricing. It uses a subscription model, with four plans ranging from Starter, $899/mo., up to their custom-priced Enterprise plan.
Ease of Integration
Post for Rent includes various integrations that improve the life of influencer agencies. Recently they integrated OpenAI’s GPT-3 Model into their software.
Key Features: Search/Discovery, Influencer Relationship Management, Team Collaboration Tools, Content Review, Campaign Management, Campaign Reporting, Influencer Analysis, Audience Analysis, Forms and Compliance, Payment Processing, Client Relationship Management.
Key Features: Search/Discovery, Influencer Relationship Management, Team Collaboration Tools, Content Review, Campaign Management, Campaign Reporting, Influencer Analysis, Audience Analysis, Forms and Compliance, Payment Processing, Client Relationship Management,
Channels: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Blogs, Snapchat
Channels: Instagram, Facebook, X (Twitter)
CrewFire is an influencer marketing and brand ambassador platform that connects brands with relevant influencers and loyal customers so that they can spread the word about your product or service. This platform allows brands to find ambassadors within their customer base and incentivize their impact through sponsored content and exposure.
You can use CrewFire to launch Instagram campaigns to help you drive engagement among your audience. It’s a unique platform, as it works much like a social media app—think a Facebook group but for influencers.
CrewFire doesn’t include a search function to find influencers. Instead, the focus is on ambassadors, who will be people like your customers, who you invite on to the platform.
With CrewFire, ambassadors can access different content from a centralized page and can be easily mobilized to like, comment, and share a brand’s content with their followers as quickly as possible. In this way, you can increase engagement, such as shares, views, comments, and likes, for your brand on Instagram. It’s a fantastic tool for influencers and brands because both can quickly increase engagement and interaction for every piece of published content.
CrewFire understands that customer loyalty has the biggest impact on long-term conversion and retention. The platform helps you work directly with influencers to track all communication, product promotions, content, and results. Discussing and executing campaigns as well as transacting with influencers are easily accomplished within a single platform. CrewFire has helped brands of every size manage and scale their campaigns.
Pricing Model
CrewFire offers monthly plans with no commitment and incentives for an annual prepayment. Their Starter plan allows you to have a robust roster of up to 500 ambassadors with an unlimited number of customized activities (e.g., rewards). The higher plans allow more admins and administrators. Monthly plans are subject to a $1k setup fee.
Ease of Integration
Although CrewFire doesn’t publicize much in the way of integration, you can embed your ambassador experience on your own URL or subdomain. You can pay ambassadors using PayPal or ACH without leaving CrewFire.
Key Features: Influencer Relationship Management, Team Collaboration Tools, Content Review, Campaign Management, White Label Reporting, Payment Processing, Influencer Content Amplification, E-commerce Tools.
Key Features: Influencer Relationship Management, Team Collaboration Tools, Content Review, Campaign Management, White Label Reporting, Payment Processing, Influencer Content Amplification, Ecommerce Tools,
Channels: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter
Channels: Instagram, Facebook, X (Twitter), YouTube, Pinterest, Snapchat, Blogs
Open Influence (formerly InstaBrand) is more of a creative agency, acting as a kind of middleman between brands and influencers. This makes a lot of sense, given their stated goal of “making ads more human.” Open Influence clients can use their “Intermix” search engine to find collaborators, which contextualizes an influencer beyond the number of followers she has and the verticals she aligns with. Their database of over 1.2 million influencers cross-references keywords and post-performance and analyzes engagement rates and locations—it’s a big data engine for finding the perfect marketing match. By drilling down into each profile, Intermix can reveal influencers on virtually any platform clients want to hit while filtering for other criteria.
This is not a self-service platform by any means, though, so if you’re looking to just find your talent and then execute campaigns yourself, Open Influence won’t be a good fit. On the other hand, if you want a company that’s going to manage your marketing with a human touch, with a core of technology that both defines and reports on the campaigns, Open Influence has plenty going for it. They describe themselves as a “mobile-first influencer company,” and as such place greater emphasis on mobile-first platforms like Instagram and TikTok.
Pricing Model
Open Influence operates a subscription model. They have two limited “small business” offerings (starting at $149/user/mo.), and a Premium plan (which provides a considerable jump in features), as well as a custom-priced plan that includes everything Open Influence offers (and gives another considerable leap over the Premium plan). Managed services start at $75,000/campaign.
Ease of Integration
With Open Influence focusing on offering a managed service, rather than self-service, there is little need for integration with your software (apart from giving you access to influencers’ social data). They do, however, operate a seamless and intuitive CRM platform to give clients a comprehensive view of the entire campaign lifecycle.
Key Features: Search/Discovery, Content Review, Content Library, Campaign Management, Campaign Reporting, Influencer Analysis, Audience Analysis, Visual Discovery.
Key Features: Search/Discovery, Content Review, Content Library, Campaign Management, Campaign Reporting, Influencer Analysis, Audience Analysis, Visual Discovery,
Channels: Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, Snapchat, Blogs
Channels: Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, X (Twitter)
Storyclash sets itself apart by focusing on content instead of vanity metrics when discovering creators who are perfect for brands. The platform is equipped with effective tools and well-honed technology to get the data you need to discover, track, and analyze the content of your brand ambassadors.
By not primarily focusing on pure demographic data, Storyclash has developed its own effective approach to transforming good influencer marketing into exceptional.
The platform’s ability to carry out well-performing campaigns that translate to more sales can be attributed to working with genuine creators who click with a brand’s audience. Part of its content-based influencer discovery strategy is providing insights into brand collaborations with the help of an AI-powered recommendation engine.
If you’re a client, Storyclash will make it easy for you to discover the kind of content that is popular at the moment. The platform makes it convenient for you to regularly monitor how your organization is ranked and get insights on how to score more interactions and video views.
Storyclash is also a big help when it comes to research and benchmarking, which is surely an added value for pitching or onboarding clients. With the platform, you have an entry point for monitoring your content and discovering content continuously, which is essential for increasing the output and performance of your content consistently.
Pricing Model
Storyclash is a SaaS platform offering three plans giving different levels of access to the software. The two lower-level plans have changed since we last reviewed the platform, and now follow the typical pattern offered by most of these products. If you’re just after an Influencer marketing platform the lowest-level plan (Light, from €799 /month) may be ideal for you. That includes Instagram influencer discovery, access to a Creator Content Library, Brand Collaboration insights, campaign planning and reporting, and more. The middle-level plan (Professional, from €1599 /month) adds TikTok and YouTube influencer discovery, brands & competitive insights, a white-label reporting dashboard, and more. Large businesses with custom requirements and a complex tech stack should consider buying the Enterprise plan (custom pricing).
Ease of Integration
With Storyclash having years of social media monitoring before pivoting to influencer marketing, it offers in-depth integrations with creators’ social media accounts. It has amassed years of data through social listening. It offers campaign report exports in XLS, CXV, and PDF formats. Storyclash provides easy email integration with Outlook and Gmail and will soon enable mass email outreach and sequencing. If you have additional integration needs, Storyclash makes an API available.
Storyclash currently signposts that it has Shopify eCommerce integration coming soon, as well as link tracking.
Key Features: Search/Discovery, Influencer Relationship Management, Team Collaboration Tools, Content Library, Campaign Reporting, Product/Gifting Tools, Fake Follower/Fraud Detection, Social Listening, Competitor Research.
Key Features: Search/Discovery, Influencer Relationship Management, Team Collaboration Tools, Content Library, Campaign Reporting, Product/Gifting Tools, Fake Follower/Fraud Detection, Social Listening, Competitor Research,
Channels: Instagram, Tiktok, Youtube, Facebook & Twitter
Channels: Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, TikTok, X (Twitter), Twitch, Blogs
Mavrck takes a programmatic approach to influencer marketing. You select your campaign type and then follow through the steps that Mavrck outlines. All you need to do is tell the platform the specific details of your campaign. Many of the steps in Mavrck’s process can be automated, making it easy for you to run influencer campaigns at scale.
The platform combines a traditional influencer marketing platform with customer and employee advocacy. You can search through its influencer search engine, filtering down to find people who fit into your vertical, match your style, and have the correct number of followers and engagement stats. You can search for Instagram influencers, along with those on a selection of other channels. However, Mavrck offers much more. It can find you those influencers, most often micro-influencers, you already have as customers. And these people will always be easier to activate as influencers than strangers who may never have heard of your brand.
Activation can even happen at checkout when you potentially reach thousands of consumers, many of whom are likely to have a sizable social following.
Mavrck has 20 predefined “digital activities” in which your influencers can participate – you just have to define which are relevant to your business. It may be as simple as sharing a coupon on your behalf, or perhaps slightly more demanding, like making an Instagram post showing them using one of your products. You can, in turn, set incentives your influencers/advocates can earn for each digital activity.
All the content your influencers create and share on your behalf is designed to get people back to your site to register or buy something. At that point, they can sign on, too, and become your next group of influencers.
Mavrck has recently joined forces with social media marketing platform, Later, making it even easier to reuse your Instagram influencers’ content.
Pricing Model
Mavrck uses a subscription model for its pricing but customizes its pricing based on customer needs.
Ease of Integration
One of Mavrck’s unique features is the way influencer activation can happen at checkout time, i.e., Mavrck analyzes each interested customer to determine how much of an influencer they are. Mavrck’s recent connection with Later makes social integration even easier. It doesn’t publicize other types of integration, however.
Key Features: Search/Discovery, Influencer Relationship Management, Campaign Management, Campaign Reporting, Influencer Analysis, Audience Analysis, E-commerce Tools.
Key Features: Search/Discovery, Influencer Relationship Management, Campaign Management, Campaign Reporting, Influencer Analysis, Audience Analysis, E-commerce Tools,
Channels: Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest,TikTok, Twitter, Twitch, Blogs
Channels: YouTube, Podcasts, Newsletters, Blogs
ThoughtLeaders refers to what they do as “Sponsorship Intelligence.” They help brands find all the influencers they like, and creators gain a holistic understanding of what a brand is looking for.
In earlier versions of this post, ThoughtLeaders didn’t support sponsorships directly on Instagram, with their intelligence tool tracking brand sponsorship in newsletters, as well as YouTube and Podcasts. More recently the platform has added Instagram as a channel, as well as TikTok and Twitch. The platform’s main focus is still on YouTube, however.
The site consistently calls its influencers “thought leaders.” However, thought leaders are not just influential people. They can also be publications or other entities that behave like a thought leader.
You can search for content with any combination of things like keywords, categories, publish dates, brands, and influencers, to name a few. You can filter your search down to only “likely sponsored” posts, and the platform shows very clearly why a particular piece of content ended up in that list. ThoughtLeaders provides data on any brands it finds sponsoring content. This includes data on their social presence and how many influencers they’ve worked with.
If you’re the brand in question, you’ll get a fresh view of your marketing. If you’re a competitor, you can see what you’re up against. If you’re an influencer, you can find information you can leverage for future collaborations.
Pricing Model
Access to the ThoughtLeaders platform is achieved by buying one of three subscription tiers (annual payment only). Pricing for each is customized, based on a customer’s size.
Ease of Integration
You can use the power of ThoughtLeaders’ API connection to connect your existing tech, discover new ones, and build a tailored integration solution. Their most advanced API is YouTube-focused, rather than Instagram, (you can easily track important YouTube stats and analytics to optimize your content strategy and improve your overall performance on the platform), however, ThoughtLeaders also offers custom API solutions. This allows their clients to tailor their API endpoints to their specific requirements.
Key Features: Search/Discovery, Influencer Analysis, Social Listening, Competitor Research.
Key Features: Search/Discovery, Influencer Analysis, Social Listening, Competitor Research,
Channels: YouTube, Podcasts, Newsletters, Blogs
Channels: Instagram, YouTube, X (Twitter), TikTok (and Facebook for targeted paid media buys)
Humanz describes itself as an AI-powered influencer marketing platform that’s been designed to bring back trust between brands, content creators, and their target audiences. Its goal is to tackle influencer fatigue, while at the same time measuring real ROI and, ultimately, offering a seamless end-to-end experience for brands as well as influencers. Put more simply, it wants to remind marketers and audiences that influencers are people – not just revenue-generating bots.
The platform uses an algorithm that analyzes public profiles by specifically looking at performance stats, text, images, videos, and followers. Armed with this info, you get to know the actual person behind the account and their followers. Thanks to this tech, not only is the influencer marketing process simplified but brands get a real picture of the influencer. It also helps them to identify which followers might be real but aren’t active to get a more accurate understanding of an influencer’s potential reach.
While Humanz is still very new to the scene, it has already been described by influencers, agencies, and marketers as the most comprehensive and user-centered influencer marketing platform. Where other platforms are more appealing to brands than influencers, Humanz has created a platform that’s equally appealing to both parties.
The interface is dynamic and can deliver well-researched results quickly. Every feature is well thought out to deliver all the standard information but in context. In short, they’ve set new standards concerning features as well as user experience. All in all, it’s best for medium to large brands as well as agencies.
Pricing Model
Humanz offers both a fully self-service SaaS solution and hybrid models where brands can directly use as much or as little as they want (with Humanz acting as an agency). Humanz charges on a per-campaign basis, with Humanz taking their fees as a percentage of the budget and charging a lower percentage for higher-budget campaigns. All features for creators are 100% free inside the Humanz app.
Ease of Integration
You can easily connect your social accounts to Humanz via APIs, including Meta’s Instagram API. Humanz supports full conversion integration and tracking whether it’s for e-commerce, lead generation, sign-ups, or any kind of trackable web-based action. Marketers can use the Humanz pixel or specific plugins for Shopify, WooCommerce, or Wix.
Key Features: Influencer Marketplace, Search/Discovery, Automated Recruiting, Influencer Lifecycle Management, Influencer Relationship Management, Team Collaboration Tools, Content Review, Content Library, Campaign Management, Campaign Reporting, Influencer Analysis, Audience Analysis, E-commerce Tools, Product/Gifting Tools, Fake Follower/Fraud Detection, Payment Processing, Competitor Research, Exportable Reports.
Key Features: Influencer Marketplace, Search/Discovery, Automated Recruiting, Influencer Lifecycle Management, Influencer Relationship Management, Team Collaboration Tools, Content Review, Content Library, Campaign Management, Campaign Reporting, Influencer Analysis, Audience Analysis, E-commerce Tools, Product/Gifting Tools, Fake Follower/Fraud Detection, Payment Processing, Competitor Research, Exportable reports,
Channels: Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), YouTube, Pinterest, Twitch, Blogs
CreatorIQ describes itself as the influencer marketing cloud for the enterprise. It calls its product an Enterprise Creator Cloud, which it describes as being “built for big business because we don’t take influencer marketing lightly.” Clearly, CreatorIQ places its focus on streamlining the influencer marketing processes of the largest companies.
Possibly in recognition of the high demands of its potential customers, the developers of CreatorIQ have produced a truly end-to-end product, with an interface that’s polished and efficient. The platform includes a comprehensive version of virtually every feature and tool that its customers could demand of it.
CreatorIQ uses tech to not only simplify the influencer marketing process but to solve some of the problems that have long plagued the industry as a whole. It sees through follower fraud, inflated reach metrics, and inauthentic/mercenary influencers, and shows the real picture.
CreatorIQ’s AI-powered algorithm analyzes over 1 billion public social accounts, checking everything against a set of criteria to see if they merit adding to the platform database. To date, they have indexed 15 million creator accounts into the system.
CreatorIQ assigns each influencer an “Integrity Quotient,” which is an indication of how genuine and authentic they are.
Once a client short-lists potential influencers, they ask these influencers to register on a fully customizable portal, where they fill out tax and compliance forms, self-identify their interests, and set up their payment options. The portal acts like a private influencer marketplace and is the hub for communication between a brand and its influencers.
Analytics and campaign reports sit on each brand’s portal. They are fully customizable. Everything is widget-based, so you can include or exclude items as you desire.
Pricing Model
CreatorIQ doesn’t make its pricing public. However, they clearly target larger businesses and price accordingly.
Ease of Integration
CreatorIQ uses AI to analyze all types of content in minute detail – even using image recognition technology for visual content. Because CreatorIQ requires influencers to opt-in, they have access to far more data than is available via public APIs. In addition to integrating with a wide range of social channels (including Instagram), CreatorIQ integrates with PayPal, Shopify, Amazon, Google Analytics, DocuSign, and many other useful apps for brands working with influencer marketers.
Key Features: Search/Discovery, Automated Recruiting, Influencer Relationship Management, Content Review, Campaign Management, Campaign Reporting, Influencer Analysis, Audience Analysis, E-commerce Tools, Product/Gifting Tools, Forms and Compliance, Fake Follower/Fraud Detection, Payment Processing.
Key Features: Search/Discovery, Automated Recruiting, Influencer Relationship Management, Content Review, Campaign Management, Campaign Reporting, Influencer Analysis, Audience Analysis, E-commerce Tools, Product/Gifting Tools, Forms and Compliance, Fake Follower/Fraud Detection, Payment Processing,
Channels: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Pinterest, Twitch, Blogs
Channels: Not stated. As you are focusing on making ambassadors out of your existing supporters (and not using the platform for discovery as such) you can probably work with ambassadors who are micro-influencers on all common channels.
Small and medium-scale businesses don’t have to be left behind when it comes to influencer marketing. Partnering with micro and nano-influencers, for instance, could bring a positive impact to brands with a tighter budget. Brandbassador is among the best platforms in such instances. They specialize in helping launch effective influencer marketing campaigns and gamifying campaigns for higher engagement on social media platforms, such as Instagram. Brands have the option between a self-service platform and a fully managed one.
As Brandbassador’s name indicates, it primarily focuses on ambassador marketing, assisting you in forming long-term relationships with your loyal customers, followers, and fans. They currently have over a million ambassadors who connect with their favorite brands through the software. However, the company stresses that brands should use the platform to recruit their own customers, followers, and fans to join their community, rather than relying on existing ambassadors.
Brandbassador helps you expand your audience by assigning missions to enthusiastic ambassadors. Monitoring individual collaborations is effortless because all the updates, communications, and metrics are viewable within the platform. Their UX is a dream because of its streamlined and convenient design. You can view influencer profiles, which contain a high-level summary of all the data you need, such as location, follower count, aesthetics, and more. Segmenting influencers into one or more groups is also possible.
The platform makes it easy to accomplish product seeding, payments, and others. You’re getting rid of bottlenecks when it comes to influencer marketing, which is what small startups need to elevate their branding engagement. Most importantly, you are finding influencers who are the best fit for your brand. From the intuitive dashboard and comprehensive access to micro-influencers all the way to the analytics, Brandbassador is one of the most reliable platforms.
Pricing Model
Brandbassador offers two self-service options and two managed ones. The main difference between the managed plans (Co-Pilot and Auto-Pilot) is the time allocated for Brandbassador’s experts to manage your program. Although pricing isn’t publicized, you can opt for either monthly or annual payments.
Ease of Integration
Brandbassador currently integrates with major eCommerce platforms including BigCommerce, Shopify, Adobe Commerce, WooCommerce, Centra, Salesforce, and Wix. The platform states that their dev team can also create custom integrations for brands whose eCommerce platforms are not currently supported. It also incorporates email integration, in-app messaging, and push notifications.
Key Features: Search/Discovery, Automated Recruiting, Content Library, Campaign Management, Campaign Reporting, E-commerce Tools, Product/Gifting Tools, Payment Processing.
Key Features: Search/Discovery, Automated Recruiting, Content Library, Campaign Management, Campaign Reporting, E-commerce Tools, Product/Gifting Tools, Payment Processing,
Channels: Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), YouTube, Blogs
Scrunch was founded by Danielle Lewis in late 2015. Since then, it has improved its product offering. It enjoys an arrangement with News Corp to offer influencer services for luxury brands.
Scrunch has a database of 20 million influencers, so you are likely to find relevant influencers, no matter what niche you operate in. With such an extensive database, you may have to look closely at your results to find the best influencers for you.
Scrunch has useful campaign management tools. They have integrated the discovery tool into the Discovery section, making it easier to shortlist potential influencers. You can take notes on influencers and add them to their profiles.
The reporting tools are sophisticated and robust enough to impress even the most significant clients.
Pricing Model
Scrunch is priced for small businesses, making it useful for even the most limited of budgets. It is a subscription-based SaaS platform, although it has changed its pricing model since our review and no longer offers a free Starter plan. Instead, you can buy a membership to Scrunch365 (at $39/mo. or $356/year). With Scrunch365 you gain access to a marketing community, training, and Scrunch’s Influencer Discovery Platform. Scrunch also offers agency services for those wanting influencer marketing services done for them.
Ease of Integration
Scrunch doesn’t refer to integration other than being able to access influencer statistics sourced from the main social channels.
Key Features: Search/Discovery, Influencer Marketplace, Campaign Management, Campaign Reporting, Influencer Analysis, Audience Analysis, Payment Processing.
Key Features: Search/Discovery, Influencer Marketplace, Campaign Management, Campaign Reporting, Influencer Analysis, Audience Analysis, Payment Processing,
Channels: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Blogs
Channels: Instagram
Co-founders, Mat Stigzelius and Solberg Auðunssons began Takumi in early 2015 in recognition that there was a gap in the market. Businesses could easily find and make contact with celebrities (if they had deep enough pockets). At that time, though, there were not many tools available to help businesses find and make contact with micro-influencers.
Takumi has developed an impressive customer base, with companies like Sony Music, Hilton, Procter & Gamble, and the BBC among their clients.
Takumi has built a database of thousands of vetted influencers who have opted into the platform. It uses human vetting to ensure that everyone in their database is a genuine influencer and undertakes real engagement. They also make sure that each influencer meets a minimum quality score for the content he posts. Takumi only wants to work with creators with style and vision. They also check that potential influencers are unlikely to embarrass any firm they work with. For instance, one of Takumi’s selection criteria is that an influencer isn’t “ethically challenged.”
A brand begins a campaign by defining it – deciding on its objective, timeline, budget, and other vital details. Takumi uses its algorithm to recommend the best influencers for the job. Influencers are notified of new campaigns and can indicate whether they are interested in being involved.
Suitable influencers then create appropriate content for the campaign. They are only paid if their content meets the guidelines. The content goes live according to a campaign’s timeline.
Pricing Model
Takumi prices on a fee-per-service model, with the service being Takumi’s management of brands’ influencer campaigns. Each campaign is priced according to need/budget.
Ease of Integration
With Takumi being a managed platform, there is limited need for integration, apart from extracting data from the social platforms of the influencers analyzed. It does, however, provide communication and payment processing tools to assist with influencer outreach, negotiations, and contracting. In addition, if you wish to use Takumi to assist with paid media, it includes tools that enable media planning, media buying, creator-driven amplification, and paid social advertising.
Key Features: Influencer Marketplace, Content Library, Campaign Reporting, Payment Processing.
Key Features: Influencer Marketplace, Content Library, Campaign Reporting, Payment Processing,
Channels: Instagram
Channels: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X (Twitter), Tumblr, YouTube, Pinterest, Twitch, TikTok, WordPress and other Blogs
IZEA is one of the more established influencer marketing platforms and has been around since 2013. It grew out of a tool designed to connect bloggers, known as Blog Frog. The company changed course because they noticed the reduced effectiveness of banner ads and they wanted to be part of a marketing company that could show clients how to receive a positive ROI on their spending. In 2018 they expanded their influencer marketing operations further when they bought competitor Tapfluence and integrated the best bits into their platform.
IZEA can now claim an impressive roster of clients, including Whole Foods, Seiko, Canon, Volvo, and Target. They do target their product more at larger businesses with sizeable marketing budgets.
IZEA includes all the main features of an influencer platform: influencer search, influencer outreach, analytics, and campaign management.
IZEA now splits its offering into three products: The Creator Marketplace (to quickly find and hire influencers), IZEA Flex (to scale your influencer marketing efforts), and Managed Services (if you prefer to hire a full-service team to take care of everything).
IZEA’s most celebrated area of strength is its set of campaign management tools. They are amongst the most comprehensive tools of any influencer marketing platform. IZEA allows firms to scale their influencer marketing with ease. No matter how many influencers you choose to work alongside, IZEA will help make the process manageable.
Pricing Model
IZEA prices each of its products separately. IZEA Flex offers two plans on a monthly or annual subscription. The cheaper Starter Plan offers limited uses of its various modules, whereas the Power Plan provides unlimited uses. The Creator Marketplace uses a freemium model, with a series of plans ranging from $6/month on top of a basic Free plan. The higher plans add capabilities and AI credits. If you’re interested in IZEA’s Managed Services, you need to contact the platform for customized pricing.
Ease of Integration
IZEA Flex uses integrations to bring your outside analytics into the platform and to keep all of your tracking in one place. It currently supports integrations with Shopify, Google Analytics, and Gmail. For example, you can link your Shopify account to your Flex account to see how many sales a creator drove, what the cost per sale was, and the return on ad spend.
Key Features: Search/Discovery, Automated Recruiting, Influencer Relationship Management, Influencer Marketplace, Team Collaboration Tools, Content Review, Content Library, Campaign Management, Campaign Reporting, Influencer Analysis, Audience Analysis, Visual Discovery, Influencer Content Amplification.
Key Features: Search/Discovery, Automated Recruiting, Influencer Relationship Management, Influencer Marketplace, Team Collaboration Tools, Content Review, Content Library, Campaign Management, Campaign Reporting, Influencer Analysis, Audience Analysis, Visual Discovery, Influencer Content Amplification,
Channels: Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, Tumblr, YouTube, Pinterest, Twitch, TikTok, WordPress and other Blogs
Channels: Facebook, X (Twitter), Instagram, LinkedIn, WordPress, Blogs
Onalytica was established in 2009, making it one of the earliest companies to involve itself in influencer marketing.
They use a combined human/hybrid approach for influencer identification. This incorporates a proprietary algorithm to scrape relevant details from 200 billion social posts per year which they then index into their database. However, they use a human team to scrutinize these results, ensuring that users only see relevant results.
Onalytica has curated lists of influencers for popular categories, such as Fashion, Food, and Lifestyle. Everyone on these lists has been vetted (by a human) to ensure they are a good fit for the list. Searchers can also search for influencers by platform, demographics, or content. You can upload your content to Onalytica, and their software will do its best to find influencers who have written material in a similar voice to your own.
Onalytica provides you with a vast amount of data relating to potential influencers, including a wide range of charts and graphs.
Pricing Model
Onalytica charges brands a monthly subscription fee that covers everything the platform has to offer. For specific pricing, you need to talk to Onalytica directly, who will quote you a customized figure to meet your particular needs. The platform stresses to influencers, however, that they will never have to pay to have a listing.
Ease of Integration
Onalytica doesn’t appear to include much integration, apart from connecting to influencers’ social accounts. However, Onalytica’s search function goes deeper than any other platform we’ve seen.
Key Features: Search/Discovery, Influencer Relationship Management, Influencer Analysis, Social Listening.
Key Features: Search/Discovery, Influencer Relationship Management, Influencer Analysis, Social Listening,
Channels: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, WordPress, Blogs
Channels: Facebook, X (Twitter), Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, Snapchat
CEO Jesse Leimgruber and CMO Misha Talavera first pitched the idea of NeoReach while studying at Stanford University. They proposed NeoReach as a way to connect brands with social media influencers. The idea proved popular, encouraging Leimgruber and Talavera to develop their vision. They were able to generate $1.5 million of seed funding by 2014, turning NeoReach into a reality. NeoReach targets large companies with sizable marketing departments.
NeoReach finds its influencers by using a sophisticated algorithm that mines the social web for relevant data. As a result, influencers do not sign up for the service. But anybody who is genuinely influential will most likely find they have been included in the 3 million people in NeoReach’s database.
One of NeoReach’s main focuses is on providing an extensive array of data. You can search for posts relating to a selected keyword, and NeoReach will find you the influencers who often have online conversations about that keyword. You can refine your research on a wide range of factors, including demographic and psychographic features.
NeoReach uses AI to determine what will be the best results for you. It learns from your searches, so the more you use the platform, the better you will find its suggestions.
Once you have found suitable influencers, you can use NeoReach’s campaign management tools to assist you in managing your campaigns.
NeoReach has developed its own method of calculating your ROI. They call it Influencer Media Value (IMV), and it aims to show the real value of your influencer marketing campaigns.
Pricing Model
You can select either full-service influencer marketing or pay for access to NeoReach’s platform (and optionally API). Brands who wish to use the platform pay an annual fee, which is customized to each firm’s needs. Similarly, you will need to contact NeoReach for a quote if you want them to carry out full-service influencer marketing for you.
NeoReach states that their platform and services are designed for large brands and agencies that need a scalable influencer marketing solution backed by experienced support, and your quote will presumably reflect that.
Ease of Integration
NeoReach offers, as an extra service, API access. This gives you access to all the systems that power the NeoReach application. You can then integrate NeoReach data into your internal workflows and dashboards.
Key Features: Campaign Management, Search/Discovery, Influencer Relationship Management, Team Collaboration Tools, Campaign Reporting, Influencer Analysis, Audience Analysis, Forms and Compliance.
Key Features: Campaign Management, Search/Discovery, Influencer Relationship Management, Team Collaboration Tools, Campaign Reporting, Influencer Analysis, Audience Analysis, Forms and Compliance,
Channels: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, Snapchat
Channels: Instagram, Facebook, X (Twitter), YouTube, Pinterest, Tumblr, Blogs
Traackr is a market-leading influencer marketing platform for data-driven marketers. The company was established nearly fifteen years ago, way before the emergence of “influencer marketing” as a popular trend. Traackr’s platform is designed to tackle the most complex cases for enterprises while still being flexible enough for small businesses that do everything. Traackr’s goal has always been to help clients understand and capitalize on the influence that people and their social content have online.
Traackr offers a comprehensive global influencer data set, enabling brands and agencies to make better-informed investments. Its team provides the knowledge and tools needed to run an efficient and profitable influencer campaign at scale. This involves discovering and vetting influencers, campaign management, program assessment, and benchmarking.
With Traackr, clients get broad influencer coverage, rich program insights, wide use-case coverage, great global scale, and strong enterprise experience. Traackr makes it easier for teams and locations to collaborate by streamlining influencer marketing workflows. It aids businesses in discovering high-performing advocates who can stimulate interest across multiple client segments. It also tracks and evaluates influencer performance as well as campaign and cross-campaign results.
Traackr’s solutions fall into four categories: for brands, for agencies, for eCommerce, and for CMOs. Its use cases include organic marketing, paid campaigns, affiliate programs, and social commerce. Its services also include coordination and visibility, governance and compliance, investment optimization, measurement standardization, and competitive intelligence.
Traackr created the Brand Vitality Score (VIT). It is the first metric designed to analyze and measure a brand’s influencer content performance. It was developed to assess the topmost priorities: visibility (content reach), impact (engagement produced), and brand trust (content quality on brand image). VIT aims to supply a transparent and scalable technique for measuring the impact of influencer content. It is key in creating an influencer management strategy as a marketing pillar.
Traackr has offices in New York, San Francisco, Boston, London, and Paris. The company was named “Best Influencer Marketing Management Platform” at the 2022 MarTech Breakthrough Awards.
Pricing Model
Traackr’s pricing is highly individualized, based on the customer and their needs. The key driver to pricing is the number of users who will need access, as Traackr scales up or down with a company.
Ease of Integration
Traackr integrates with a range of tools to help you manage your influencer program. For example, you can integrate many eCommerce websites so you can track clicks, conversions, and revenue generated by influencers. You can connect to your Shopify site so you can automate product fulfillment. Creators can choose their preferred product and place orders themselves. You can connect your email to Traackr to send personalized emails to your influencers in bulk, track ongoing conversations, and keep a unified record of communication all from within the platform. You can enable your users to log in quickly, conveniently, and securely by integrating Traackr within your organization’s login process using Traackr’s single sign-on solution (SSO).
Key Features: Search/Discovery, Influencer Relationship Management, Team Collaboration Tools, Campaign Management, Campaign Reporting, Influencer Analysis, Audience Analysis, Product/Gifting Tools, Forms and Compliance, Fake Follower/Fraud Detection, Competitor Research.
Key Features: Search/Discovery, Influencer Relationship Management, Team Collaboration Tools, Campaign Management, Campaign Reporting, Influencer Analysis, Audience Analysis, Product/Gifting Tools, Forms and Compliance, Fake Follower/Fraud Detection, Competitor Research,
Channels: Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest, Tumblr, Blogs
Channels: X (Twitter), Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok
And speaking of companies that are effectively marketing their wares, Tribe continues our list of Instagram influencer tools. The website looks much like an Instagram feed of attractive young people having the time of their lives – love the dog wearing the yellow beanie!
Tribe Dynamics can boast of having a particular strength in analytics. It recognized that arguably the most important part of influencer marketing is data. Indeed, Tribe describes itself as the “Google Analytics” of influencer marketing strategies. It looks beyond just the influencers a brand may work with, factoring in organic mentions by any social account. Tribe Dynamics was also amongst the first to recognize the value of the metric Earned Media Value for social media.
Although Tribe Dynamics includes a Search and Discover module, that isn’t its main focus. Its focus is more on tracking and monitoring selected influencers. The platform appears to believe that retention is ultimately far more important than discovery and having a fairly static community of influencers demonstrates a kind of loyalty. And it provides all the analytics you need to establish the effectiveness and impact of your influencers.
Pricing Model
Tribe Dynamics offers three levels of subscription (Micro, Established, and Powerhouse), differentiated by the size of campaigns and the number of influencers required. And these aren’t small campaigns. Even the Micro campaign allows for insight into up to 750 influencers. In addition, Tribe charges separately for add-ons like additional competitive reporting, additional influencer tracking, ephemeral content tracking, industry insight reports, additional and customized data, and additional influencer search.
Ease of Integration
Tribe Dynamics does not highlight its integrations; however, it clearly has strong integration with influencer social accounts. It also includes integration with a range of eCommerce platforms, such as BigCommerce and Shopify. For example, you can use these to easily track, measure, and manage your brand’s digital earned media performance. You can view content created by your tracked influencers via a single, easy-to-use dashboard.
Key Features: Influencer Relationship Management, Content Library, Campaign Reporting, Influencer Analysis, Audience Analysis, Social Listening, Competitor Research.
Key Features: Influencer Relationship Management, Content Library, Campaign Reporting, Influencer Analysis, Audience Analysis, Social Listening, Competitor Research,
Channels: Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, TikTok
Channels: Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, X (Twitter), Pinterest, Blogs
Aspire is maturing as an influencer marketing platform and is improving its feature set regularly. It has always had a particular strength with its influencer management tools, which are robust enough to attract high-profile clients.
It provides tools for all stages of an influencer marketing campaign. These include Campaign Creation, Campaign Lifecycle Management, Digital Term Sheets, Product Tracking, Content Collaboration, Trackable Sales Links, Creator Performance Spreadsheets, Campaign Analytics, and Payments. This has to be one of the most comprehensive management toolsets available.
Over the last year, Aspire has worked on improving its influencer discovery search engine and processes. Indeed, Aspire claims to be the only influencer marketing platform with inbound and outbound discovery for creators, customers, ambassadors, and affiliates.
Influencers can request to be included in Aspire’s database and are vetted before they are accepted. However, Aspire has created a more extensive database of influential people. They use an algorithm to add to the list of potential influencers they offer to their clients. They currently have 500,000 people in their system who they believe are authentic influencers in at least one niche.
Clients can search for influencers using an extensive range of criteria. However, they also provide the “Quickmatch” feature as an alternative way to find influencers. This is similar to a “Tinder for Influencers.” If you navigate to the Quickmatch tab, it will present you with an influencer who meets your preferences. You can either show an interest in this person or opt to Skip and take a look at another influencer.
When a campaign finishes, Aspire allows you to add high-performing content to a Favorites list, which you can use for future reference. There are also tools that will enable you to repurpose campaign content into paid ads.
Pricing Models
Although Aspire offers three service tiers (Basic, Pro, and Enterprise) it customizes its pricing and requires a yearly commitment. You gain full access to the influencer database and most services at the Basic level, with the higher tiers catering to more users and campaigns. You also qualify for a dedicated “Success Manager” at the Pro level (which becomes a “Success Team” at Enterprise level). Social listening is only offered to Pro and Enterprise customers too.
Ease of Integration
Aspire easily integrates with a wide range of apps, social platforms, and eCommerce sites. These include email platforms like Microsoft Outlook and Gmail, Slack for communication, Impact Affiliate, ShareASale, and Awin for sales tracking, PayPal for influencer payment, Klaviyo CRM, as well as WooCommerce and Shopify eCommerce integration. Aspire states that it has direct partnerships with Meta (for Instagram and Facebook), TikTok, and Pinterest.
Key Features: Search/Discovery, Influencer Relationship Management, Influencer Marketplace, Team Collaboration Tools, Content Review, Content Library, Campaign Management, Campaign Reporting, E-commerce Tools, Product/Gifting Tools, Forms and Compliance, Payment Processing, Social Listening, Competitor Research, Visual Discovery, Influencer Content Amplification.
Key Features: Search/Discovery, Influencer Relationship Management, Influencer Marketplace, Team Collaboration Tools, Content Review, Content Library, Campaign Management, Campaign Reporting, E-commerce Tools, Product/Gifting Tools, Forms and Compliance, Payment Processing, Social Listening, Competitor Research, Visual Discovery, Influencer Content Amplification,
Channels: Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Blogs
Channels: Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook
Since 2010, impact.com has been a leading platform for global partnership management. The platform has revolutionized how businesses find and manage all types of partnerships, including brand-to-brand, affiliates, commerce content, publishers, mobile applications, ambassadors, travel, Fintech, SaaS, influencers, and retail.
impact.com offers Partnership Automation, which enables companies to grow any form of partnership. Its Partnership Cloud streamlines the entire partnership lifecycle, covering discovery, acquisition, training, retention, and optimization.
The platform’s sophisticated, feature-rich ecosystem assists brands, publishers, and agencies in creating genuine, long-term, and meaningful connections with publishers and users. By providing insights across the entire customer experience, impact.com accumulates, analyzes, and optimizes the overall value of partnerships with transparency and efficiency.
Influencer marketing is one of impact.com’s most sought-after services for brands and publishers. By automating, streamlining, and tailoring influencer marketing campaigns, the team helps its clients cultivate authentic brand trust through partnerships with influencers.
Through the platform’s end-to-end influencer marketing services, you will learn how to improve your revenue by creating engaging relations. You will be able to oversee your Instagram influencer campaigns throughout their entire life cycle, from identifying, hiring, and engaging the right creators to tracking their work and rewarding them based on their outputs. You can also find the right influencer faster with impact.com’s global opt-in network, which lets you find qualified creators who want to join your campaign.
impact.com provides a centralized place for your creator contacts. With a purpose-built influencer engagement management system, you can effectively develop and harness creator partnerships. Additionally, the platform enables you to launch campaigns quicker with expedited creator setup and track key success metrics.
Pricing Models
While impact.com is a SaaS product, they don’t advertise their pricing (for influencer marketing or any other kind of partnership). You can request a demo of the platform and they will give you a customized price at the end of that depending on your needs.
Ease of Integration
With impact.com covering a range of partners (not just influencers), it unsurprisingly features a wide range of integrations. They actively push for technology partners and have a Technology Partner Program. They even have a Developer Hub containing API documentation. impact.com splits its many integrations into the following categories: Analytics and Reporting, Compliance, Connected TV, CRM, Customer Data Platform, eCommerce, Learning Management System, Marketing, Mobile Measurement and Deep Linking, and Subscriptions & Payments. For example, Shopify is one of impact.com’s featured partners. The integration allows Shopify merchants to seamlessly integrate with impact.com in just minutes so they can quickly launch and automate their affiliate and influencer partnerships programs without developer involvement. Merchants can discover and recruit new affiliate and influencer partners, automate contracts and payments based on the terms they set, and track performance all in one place.
Key Features: Influencer Content Amplification, Search/Discovery, Automated Recruiting, Influencer Relationship Management, Influencer Marketplace, Team Collaboration Tools, Content Review, Content Library, Campaign Management, Campaign Reporting, Influencer Analysis, E-commerce Tools, Product/Gifting Tools, Forms and Compliance, Payment Processing.
Key Features: Influencer Content Amplification, Search/Discovery, Automated Recruiting, Influencer Relationship Management, Influencer Marketplace, Team Collaboration Tools, Content Review, Content Library, Campaign Management, Campaign Reporting, Influencer Analysis, E-commerce Tools, Product/Gifting Tools, Forms and Compliance, Payment Processing,
ROI and Other Important Metrics from Top Campaigns
We have previously heard claims that Influencer marketing delivers 11x ROI over all other forms of digital media. Further analysis suggested that this is overstated (it represented a return on one campaign on the former platform Tapfluence – now integrated into IZEA), but it does demonstrate that brands can enjoy considerable success with influencer marketing.
We thought that we’d look at some of the highlights of case studies these Instagram influencer marketing platforms have included on their websites.
It can be challenging to determine an ROI because every business has a different reason for engaging in influencer marketing. Indeed, one of the first steps of any influencer marketing campaign is to determine your goal. This may be monetary, for example, to increase your sales of a product by $20,000 thanks to the campaign, but it may also be non-monetary, for example, to increase Instagram subscribers by 10,000, or to improve your average engagement rate by 20%.
One agency client of the Grin platform is Blue Wheel Media, an omnichannel marketing agency headquartered in Birmingham, Michigan. The agency leverages influencer marketing to complement its clients’ overall marketing strategies. One of the agency’s recent clients was a haircare brand that wanted to drive sales by leveraging a paid influencer program with more than 100 nano, micro, and macro creators on TikTok and Instagram. As a result of Blue Wheel Media utilizing Grin to create an influencer marketing campaign, its haircare client noticed a 165%+ revenue ROI from 130+ creator activations.
Another successful campaign, thanks to Grin’s platform, was for Trestique, a sustainable beauty brand offering clean, zero-waste makeup kits and essentials. They used the Instagram influencer marketing platform to find content creators in multiple niche industries passionate about the brand’s mission and products, i.e., they focused on finding influencers who aligned with their values. Trestique ran a 2-week Black Friday campaign on Instagram to drive awareness and sales. They used GRIN to identify the best creators they had worked with in the past and invited them onto the Black Friday campaign. Thanks to Grin’s integrations, the creators were able to integrate with Trestique’s email provider to simplify communication. The company used Grin to create affiliate links and had all of the link analytics at its fingertips. Finally, Grin compiled all of Trestique’s campaign data into an intuitive, easy-to-read chart to deliver to the marketing team. Trestique’s 2-week Black Friday campaign generated a 300% increase in influencer link clicks and a 268% increase in revenue from its previous campaign.
Camera company, Insta360, chose to work with Brandwatch Influencer to improve their influencer management. They used Brandwatch to manage 4,000 partners with ease, speed up their campaign reporting (it is now 90x faster than previously), and achieve costs for campaigns significantly below their industry average at 0.0004 dollar cost per view.
Film production and distribution company, Universal Pictures, used influencers and Upfluence to drive awareness and increase the user base for their new Universal All-Access Rewards Program (UAA). They turned to Upfluence to help them deliver a high-impact marketing campaign that required precise influencer discovery, audience matching, social retargeting, and campaign management. Upfluence coordinated a two-pronged campaign for Universal that involved partnering with four influencers over six weeks, and a social ads retargeting strategy. The campaign exceeded audience reach expectations by 73%, leading to increased UAA visits and registrations. The content the enrolled influencers produced surpassed industry audience reach averages (5%) and achieved a staggering audience reach rate of 33%.
Shelby Jacobs is the Social Media Manager for two brands, 7 For All Mankind and Splendid. She had previously found working with influencers to be time-consuming and tedious across two brands and saw the need to find a tool that would make influencer management more efficient. She also found sourcing influencers through Instagram’s native search tool to be time-consuming, and after connecting with influencers, she struggled with managing multiple email threads. She turned to Aspire to help her. Their tools allowed Shelby and her team to efficiently partner with more influencers than before without sacrificing resources. She could use real-time data to show the effectiveness of influencer-generated content has helped to justify the need for both brands to continue investing in micro-influencers. Best of all, she found her campaigns have generated 27.9 million impressions and generated an Earned Media Value (EMV).
As we have seen, an investment in one of these Instagram marketing tools can greatly help you meet and exceed your influencer marketing goals and generate an excellent return on your investment.
Expert Testimonials
We’ve taken a sweep through these Instagram influencer tools’ websites (and their LinkedIn pages) to find some of the most enlightening testimonials from the platforms’ users. We include a selection of them in this section.
- Creator.co – “I love that new customers are coming to our brand organically because of Creator.co’s campaigns. We partnered with creators who were familiar with our products and genuinely wanted to share our products with their friends, family, and community.” Brittany Alfinito, Marketing Coordinator, Zerowater
- Grin – “GRIN has been a great partner with attentive reps and program support… [it] allows us to scale our evergreen influencer programs quickly and efficiently, from onboarding to regular communications.” Megan G, Creator Partnerships Manager, an anonymous cosmetics company, 501-1,000 employees.
- CreatorIQ – “Amazing, top-notch customer service and account management team – Beautiful, modern, and intuitive platform interface – Robust analytics – Transparent methodologies – Continuous rollout of upgrades with new, relevant capabilities & functionalities – Super convenient, interactive one-sheets and reporting for clients – Bit.ly link feature built into the platform.” Tyler P, Operations Analyst, Public Relations and Communications, 51-200 employees
- IZEA – “I have loved using IZEA for discovering new influencers. Our previous tool was great for basic searches to track down contact information, follower numbers, and high-level topics, but didn’t come close to the demographic details provided by IZEA. It is the best way to identify appropriate partners for a program!” Manager in Marketing, Marketing and Advertising Company, 11-50 employees
LinkedIn collated a selection of views from experts on what you should look for when comparing influencer marketing platforms. Some highlights include:
- “The best way to compare influencer marketing platforms depends on your specific needs and goals. However, here are some general factors to consider:
- Audience: Which platform has the audience that you want to reach? Consider the demographics, interests, and engagement levels of the followers on each platform.
- Features: What features does each platform offer? Some platforms offer more features than others, such as influencer discovery, campaign management, and analytics.
- Pricing: How much does each platform cost? Some platforms charge a monthly subscription fee, while others charge a commission on each campaign.
- Ease of use: How easy is each platform to use? Some platforms are more user-friendly than others.” – Richard DiPilla – Talks about #founder, #branding, #recruiter, #storyteller, and #influencermarketing
- “When comparing influencer marketing platforms, research features, review influencer databases, read user feedback, consider pricing and value, request demos, assess customer support, check integration capabilities, evaluate reputation, compare campaign success, seek peer advice, and ultimately choose the platform that best aligns with your needs.” – Dr. Sue Ojageer PharmD, CPGx – trendsetter in pharmacy, influencer, and educator.
- “Before evaluating any platform, map out your objectives, audiences, use cases, geographic reach desired, and KPIs with your TEAM that runs your influencer campaigns. Build on this exercise by then developing a scorecard that will help you evaluate different platforms. Technology platforms can easily sell you on bells and whistles though if you have your scorecard as a reference document, you can more objectively evaluate whether the platform meets your objectives. Lastly, look at reviews and speak to current customers if feasible.” – Kamal Bhandal – Vice President, Consumer & Brand Marketing
- “Before considering any platform, research the market you are targeting and whether there is real value in using a platform compared to just reaching out to influencers yourself. For example, while influencers in Scandinavia mostly rely on agencies and a platform might provide good value, in other countries influencers mostly work on their own and have wildly different pricing ranges. Moreover, the best platforms have a clear focus and niches they excel at (BookTok, B2B influencers, tech, etc.). Be mindful of platforms that promise to cover every need.” – Erica Terranova – Growth Marketing Lead at Moomin Characters.
Wrapping Things Up
If you are really determined, you can create an influencer marketing campaign on Instagram without using any tools or platforms. But why would you? You would have to spend hours on Instagram determining who were the best influencers on the platform in your niche (without access to important data and stats to help with this) and then find some way to communicate with them that they would see. And even if you make it this far there would be no guarantee that influencers (who are busy people after all) would take any notice of your communication.
The reality is that for most brands, old-style manual influencer marketing is impractical, if not impossible. You would need to create content that is worthy of presenting to influencers; content that is accessible, actionable, and visually appealing. You would have to keep a constant eye on your niche’s blogging influencers, vlogging influencers, and the stars of social media, including of course Instagram’s most popular in your niche. You would have to try and guest post on successful blogs, find ways to receive mentions from them on their Instagram and other social posts, constantly comment (thoughtfully) on their images, and much else. This is a considerable amount of work, with no guarantee of success. And it would probably cost considerably more in the long term than subscribing to and working with one of the Instagram influencer tools we’ve discussed in this article.
As you have seen from the above listings, the Instagram influencer marketing platforms offer a wide range of services for their clients. They aren’t just a place to find influencers. They are somewhere you can organize your relations and partnerships with influencers too. Once you find a platform you love, you are likely to still be gaining value from it many years into your first Instagram influencer marketing activity, even if you’re still working with the same influencers you found in that initial campaign.
Frequently Asked Questions
Which platform is best for influencer marketing?
We have reviewed many Instagram influencer marketing platforms and seen the best tools for influencer outreach on Instagram. Instagram influencer tools regularly update their capabilities, so it would probably be best to try a free demo first before committing to one tool. Some of the best that we have seen include
- Grin
- Creator.co
- Brandwatch Influence
- Upfluence
- LTK
How do you do influencer marketing on Instagram?
To create a successful Instagram influencer marketing campaign:
- Define what success means to you
- Find relevant influencers and micro-influencers in your niche
- Send your pitch to influencers
- Design a campaign with your influencer
- Track the campaign and optimize it
What is the most used influencer platform?
The most used social platforms for influencer marketing are Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. Some of the most used influencer platforms include:
- Influencity
- Kolsquare
- NeoReach
- Post for Rent
- Intellifluence
What platforms are popular for social media influencers?
The best influencer marketing platforms for businesses on social media include:
- Grin
- Creator.co
- Brandwatch Influence
- Upfluence
- LTK
How do brands connect with influencers?
The top social media platforms that pay content creators in 2024 include:
- YouTube
- Snapchat
- TikTok
- X (previously Twitter)
- Twitch
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