Effective Strategies For Influencer Campaigns In Ecommerce

Last month, Storylane drove over 700,000+ impressions through influencer marketing. And at the start of the year, I had no idea how to make this channel perform consistently. I had no playbook, no proven process, and no ideas. So, I experimented. A lot. And while we’re still figuring it out, here’s what I’ve learned so far: 1. Smaller creators are outperforming larger ones for us Smaller creators often produce better, more authentic content. They’re typically more affordable, work harder, and deliver results with a hyper-focused audience. Larger influencers charge a premium, and the content often feels average. Exceptions exist, but they’re rare. 2. Build a curated influencer portfolio. There are more great influencers out there than your budget can handle. Start small, experiment, and refine a curated portfolio of creators who align with your goals, budget, and audience. This takes trial and error, so don’t rush it. Your “go-to” influencers will emerge over time. 3. Three months is enough to evaluate an influencer. In three months, you’ll know if the partnership is worth continuing. It’s enough time to assess content quality, audience engagement, and impact. 4. Set up clear contracts with influencers Include everything in writing: - Who owns the content? - Can you run ads with it? - Will they engage with your posts? - How many posts will they deliver? Clarity now saves confusion later. 5. Influencer costs vary... a lot. Pricing is all over the place, but here's a starting point. For this platform, expect $500–$2,000 per post for influencers with fewer than 100K followers. Bigger names might quote $5K or more. The highest I’ve seen is $650k per post (no joke). Decide what’s worth it based on your goals and their audience quality. 6. Influencer onboarding matters. Hop on a 1:1 call to align. Share your knowledge, past successes, and internal data. Learn their creative process and set expectations. The better you collaborate upfront, the smoother the partnership. 7. Influencer program management is a full-time job. I tried juggling this alongside my other responsibilities, and it’s a lot. Between sourcing, contracts, payments, content review, and feedback, the workload multiplies with every creator. Bring in outside help if you can afford it or upskill someone internally. 8. Give creators creative freedom. Over-controlling a creator’s content kills authenticity. Work closely on the brief to give them all the context they need, but let their voice shine through. The results are far better when they feel trusted. 9. Ethics build trust (with influencers and your buyers) Always disclose influencer partnerships (FTC compliance isn’t optional). I see a lot of brands and creators not disclose these partnerships (on LinkedIn, in private communities, Slack groups etc.) and it's WRONG. Don't trick your buyers. Be honest. We’re still learning, but this channel is showing promise, and I plan to scale it further in 2025.

A few months ago I was on call with the CMO of a $25M+ brand. They had just wrapped up a 100 person influencer campaign. Guess how many were ROI positive? Seven. Just seven. This wasn't a failure of the other 93 creators. This was a clear indication something was fundamentally broken in how they did influencer marketing. We went through a simple 5-step checklist to that could be applied immediately. If you're a brand in a similar situation, here's how to go from "influencer marketing doesn't work" to "we need more creators!" 1. Introduce New Data Most brands model off of CPMs, never looking at actual performance. Use social commerce platforms to include actual conversion performance. Display it all against rates to sort by projections we actually care about: CPA, CPC, etc... 2. Measure Alignment Use this data to now measure actual alignment with your brand. Things like AOV, content relevance, messaging... The surface level connection is not enough. 3. Focus on Audience A creator's demographic matters less than their audience demographics. Look at the age, gender, geography of their audience. Plenty of creators that fit your demographic but have an entirely different audience demographic and vice versa. 4. Generate Creative Outlines from Creators Bring creators into the planning stages, letting them shape your creative outline. The right messaging and style is more likely to come from them than you. Then turn this into a content brief that provides direction but is not a script. Let creators do what they do best. 5. Treat Content as the Asset The reach you get from a creator is valuable, but the content they've created is far more valuable when used correctly. Setup whitelisting, repurposing to your own socials - get the most utilization out of every single video. -- Creator marketing works. But it's not 2017 anymore - sending product and seeing what happens is not a strategy. Dig in. Build the right strategy. Find the right creators. Let them do their thing. Maximize their content.

We’ve generated ~6M impressions for our clients at Creatorbuzz. Our most successful influencer campaigns leverage these 5 tactics 👇 1️⃣ Video-first We’re still seeing great engagement from text and image-based content, however, our clients who are leveraging video content are seeing higher impressions and engagement. Influencers who can make great video content will win in 2025. 2️⃣ Real World Application Lots of B2B Marketers think Influencer Marketing only works if the influencers are customers of their products. While that helps, this is not the case. The Influencers just need to have a real world application for the product. The product needs to be able to solve an actual problem the influencer experiences or has experienced in their day job. The audience can see right through it if not. 3️⃣ High Value Resource If your CTA is a demo page, you might need to re-evaluate your influencer strategy. In B2B, sales cycles can be 3-6 months long (sometimes even longer). And demos are usually only requested AFTER the buyer has already done 80% of their research. So by having your influencers share a demo page, this will lead to a poor conversion rate. Instead, have your influencers share a high value resource to help buyers through the funnel. For example, have them share a resource report, some sort of template, or free certification. Anything that provides immediate value. 4️⃣ Full Funnel Content Some campaigns are strictly for brand awareness, while others are more performance based. Duh. However, I’ve noticed our best campaigns have full-funnel content. I recommend using a mix of different types of influencers to achieve this. Select some influencers who make general content in the “Marketing” space that will guarantee you impressions. Then select a few SMEs within each category that will provide more specific content within a niche of Marketing, like MOPs for example. The SMEs may not have as large of a reach, but it will help you target a specific community with tactical advice. 5️⃣ 3 Month Campaign Minimum All of our clients start on a 3-4 month campaign minimum. Why? A few reasons. (1) For the influencers, they’re not interested in signing one off brand deals anymore. (2) In B2B, given the length of sales cycles, it may take a few months to start seeing an impact- especially, if the company has an awareness problem. (3) This 3 month campaign will be a great testing period to see what’s working and what’s not. After the 3 months are up, companies can now extend longer term agreements to the creators who are the best fit. B2B companies will have “Always On” influencer campaigns just like they would for Advertising. These are just some of the tactics our best clients are leveraging for their Influencer campaigns. What else would you add to the list? Interested in launching a B2B Influencer Campaign for your business? Send me a DM 🤝