Why Putting the Power Into Affiliate Brand Ambassadors’ Hands Is Smarter for Brands

Companies can boost their revenue and their brand awareness by combining the power of affiliate marketing with their influencer marketing strategy: 61% of consumers trust influencer recommendations — as opposed to the 38% who trust branded social content. This has changed the game for brands and influencers alike, so learn how to provide a great experience for your brand ambassadors and empower them with the best tools.

Different types of brand ambassador and affiliate marketing programs

Provide influencers with affiliate links

Affiliate link programs provide influencers with a unique brand website link, complete with tracking tokens. Then, brands can track how many clicks the influencer’s unique link received, and pay out a percentage to the influencer when someone makes a purchase through their link.

The downside of only using affiliate links is that legacy affiliate platforms were created for digital publishing, not for influencers — they’re often clunky and hard to navigate for creators and brands, and neither can easily and accurately track their success. Plus, brands can’t see the purchases made by followers of an influencer who navigated to their website without the link, whether that’s on their phone or just by searching for the brand.

Create discount codes for brand ambassadors

Consumers love nothing more than a discount. Providing commissionable discount codes, like 'Marty20' for 20% off, means consumers will actually do your marketing attribution work for you by taking the time to use the code — as opposed to brands just hoping influenced consumers will actually use the unique affiliate link.

Using a dedicated influencer marketing platform like ShopMy lets influencers track the success of their own discount codes and their revenue, and have a place to link to all their mentioned products from various brand partnerships. And brands can bring in more sales by reaching their influencers' customer base with these discount codes — and keeping a close eye on how their brand partnership campaigns are performing.

Run sponsored influencer campaigns

Sponsored influencer campaigns, which typically involve paying influencers for posts on a particular theme, can be very effective if you find the right influencer with an audience that’s interested in your niche.

53% of marketers say that influencer content converts higher than content straight from the brand, so consider working with an influencer to launch your next major campaign. You’ll reach new audiences, and they’ll be more likely to trust that your brand is worth trying.

Create collaborative, co-branded promotions

Co-branded promotions involve two brands working together to cross-promote their products, taking the opportunity to show off their products to both audiences. Think offering a luxury candle from one brand and a face mask from another brand as a bundle, or a concealer from one brand and a spot treatment from another.

How to develop a successful onboarding process for affiliate brand ambassadors

The best brand ambassador programs are successful because the influencer feels supported by the brand. Here’s how to build an onboarding process that helps your ambassadors and influencers hit the ground running and succeed long-term.

1. Find brand ambassadors who align with your brand’s values and goals — use influencer communities and targeted brand ambassador recruitment

Brand ambassador recruitment can be challenging: Which influencers truly align with your brand values? Which ones are open for new collabs? Which ones have revenue expectations that align with your influencer marketing budget?

Instead of spending hours on Instagram sending fruitless DMs, a brand ambassador management software like ShopMy does the work for you, matching the right influencers with your brand and helping you prepare proposals and agreements.

2. Use the right affiliate brand ambassador platforms and tracking to incentivize activity

From the beginning, onboard your brand ambassadors directly into your influencer marketing platform.

ShopMy gives brand partners a custom invitation page that they can send directly to influencers. This delivers a seamless and delightful experience for their current ambassadors to join the platform and can help improve the onboarding process.

ShopMy is built for brand-influencer collaboration, so both influencers and brands have easy access to their metrics. Brand ambassador tracking platforms let all collaborators see how every product, post, video, and campaign is performing and use that data to optimize performance and increase revenue on both sides.

3. Develop a brand ambassador kit

A brand ambassador kit, used in your brand ambassador training process, can include script and caption guidance (and examples), visual mood boards, product information, company information, and who to come to in the case of any doubts, roadblocks, or challenges.

4. Manage brand ambassadors on an ongoing basis and create a supportive community

Long-term partnerships are more effective than one-off collaborations, so ensuring your brand ambassadors are feeling supported and engaged with your brand is crucial. Don’t just set up a collab and move on — have regular check-ins to see how your team can support each influencer.

5. Empower brand ambassadors with monetary incentives beyond individual campaigns

If collaborating with an influencer is going well, you can go beyond discount codes and the occasional brand mention and pitch them on long-term, paid content. Pitch working with them on a branded video series, or a predetermined series of weekly paid posts featuring your products. You can also incentivize ambassadors with unique event experiences like brand-sponsored houses or creator trips.

Examples of successful affiliate brand ambassador programs for social media

Brand ambassadors have the potential to drive revenue directly through social media. Here are a few examples of brands that have successful affiliate brand ambassador programs.

1. Sephora Squad

2. Furtuna Skin Brand Ambassador Program

3. Aerie REAL Ambassadors

4. The North Face’s Summer of Pride Ambassadors

How brands are driving sales through their affiliate brand ambassador programs

Let’s explore some real data from brands using affiliate brand ambassadors.

1. A luxury fashion brand on ShopMy onboarded 14 affiliate brand ambassadors and saw 12X order volume in just five months

Sales drive momentum, and for a luxury fashion brand who onboarded with
ShopMy to empower ambassadors, the momentum picked up steam quickly. This brand drove 12X order volume in just five months, while only activating half of their brand ambassadors. We’re excited to see what’s to come when more ambassadors get ramped up.

2. A CBD wellness brand dramatically increased engagement and orders by strategically gifting to potential new brand ambassadors

When a CBD wellness brand started gifting products to creators in order to find high-converting brand ambassadors, they generated over $15K in sales from affiliate links on ShopMy in just three days. With the right strategy and creator recommendations from the experts at ShopMy, this CBD brand was able to boost sales via affiliates and build affinity with untapped micro- and mid-tier influencers.

Wondering how to start a brand ambassador program? ShopMy can help. Get a demo today.