Imagine during a meeting, the business development director says the brand needs more Instagram influencers to increase sales. You respond noting affiliates can help sales, not influencers. The director asks “what’s the difference?”

It’s a big difference.

“Influencer” has become a murky catch-all for folks who contract with a brand to promote its products or services. Depending on your marketing strategy and sales goals, contracting with Influencers, Ambassadors, and/or Affiliates can help further brand awareness, attract and educate new and current audiences, and increase sales.

There are three primary types of “paid” partnerships a brand can create with individuals. Let’s dive in!

BTW: I answer a few common questions under the image and included a bonus individual with incredible analog and digital word-of-mouth power.

Influencer
Influencers are great for one-off posts, a launch, or campaign related to a service or product. They introduce their own audience to the brand by including information in their content by one of two main ways: actively talk about it or passively show it while highlighting it in the copy. It’s often best to let the influencer decide how to incorporate the product or service into their content simply because they know their audience best.

Generally speaking, Influencers can be broken into three primary groups: 1) micro-influencers have >50k followers, 2) influencers have 50k-1M followers, and 3) celebrities have 1M+ followers. Sometimes Influencers have on-going contracts, which begins to creep into the next partnership type…

Ambassador
Ambassadors have previous experience with the brand possibly as an Influencer or user, which allows the individual to speak genuinely about and promote the brand’s products or services. Ambassadors are ideal if a brand wishes to have an individual build a relationship with audiences over a long period of time. This allows for content consistency and trustworthiness, growing diversity of viewers based on the individual’s audience growth, and increased brand awareness due showing their own experience(s) with the brand in an on-going, authentic way.

For example: individuals in the home DIY/lifestyle space are contracted ambassadors to use specific products throughout their projects. Check out Monica Chavez’s bio where she notes she’s a brand ambassador and the brand’s products can be seen throughout her content.

Affiliate
Affiliates are paid a commission for every purchase made via a specific referral code or link. Similar to Ambassadors, Affiliates allow a brand to have a consistent face(s), which can increase brand trustworthiness, awareness, and reach. However unlike Ambassadors, brands can measure and determine an Affiliate’s value and effectiveness by tracking direct sales metrics. Affiliates are ideal for driving audiences to a brand’s website and sales-related strategies.

For example: visit Anna Liesemeyer’s Amazon page; or Laura Jansen, a contributor at Mom Edit, who uses ShopStyle, an affiliate service.

What’s a Partner?
Any of the above could call themself a “Partner,” which is becoming more common as folks shy away from the term “Influencer.” The exception: if contractually the individual has to go by a certain title then “Partner” may not be an option. Similar to “Influencer”, its growing title use popularity has made it a murky.

Can types overlap?
Yes! They often overlap. For example, an Influencer or Ambassador may include an affiliate code or link so they can receive a commission for any sales as a direct result of their content via social media, website, or other means.

How are each paid?
Generally speaking: Influencers: cash and/or an exchange of product/services; Ambassadors: cash; Affiliates: sales-based commission.

Does a brand have to give free products or services to partners?
Ummm… if you were asked to promote something, wouldn’t you want it given to you for free? Or at the very least, at a very deep discount?

What about disclosures?
All of the above must disclose their brand affiliation with audiences. Aside from the FTC’s Disclosers 101 for Social Media Influencers, this article offers one of the clearer overviews I’ve found. While individuals are responsible to clearly state brand affiliations, it’s a good idea for brands to understand what’s required.

How do I know what to pay - or what to ask for in terms of pay?
Brands: it’s the same as hiring a contractor, whether it’s a one-time post or a campaign; or an on-going partnership. The individual should be fairly compensated for their time, creativity, and effort, including costs related to the campaign or on-going promotions. If it’s commission-based, be fair and know what the affiliate commission rates are within your industry; or offer a baseline monthly pay to help cover content production costs, with the commission on top of it. There are a lot of hidden costs - tangible and intangible - related to creating, building, and furthering an audience relationship on behalf of a brand. Earmark a portion of a campaign, marketing, and/or sales budget for these partnerships. BTW: don’t tell someone exposure to your audience is of great value; exposure doesn’t pay for the electricity or mobile service needed to do the work on the brand’s behalf.

Individuals: think of your time in terms of an hourly or project rate that must be justified beyond a follower count, yet while considering the impact of a partnering with a brand, as well as the impact on your audience. If you decide a product/services exchange is fair or you feel the exchange is worth lowering the monetary amount, then go for it.

Should I have a contract in place?
Yes. It doesn’t matter if cash is involved or not, if it’s an exchange of product or services, or an on-going partnership, a contract needs to be in place to protect all involved and lay out expectations.

Does their follower count matter?
No… and yes. Instead of getting hung up on follower counts, look at their engagement rates. Micro-influencers have a higher trust level with their audiences, which in turn means their digital word-of-mouth campaigns are more likely to be effective. Their audience might be smaller, but their followers are more likely to engage with the content and check out the brand. If it’s purely about reach, larger accounts will serve brands better.

That said, know there are always exceptions. Smaller and larger accounts alike can flounder since they may have jumped into the influencer pool too quickly without establishing their individual brand’s voice, the content lacks consistency in one or multiple ways, or they work with any brand that comes their way so they haven’t created a niche or established a community yet.

There are also larger accounts with incredible engagement simply because they have systems in place for responding to and engaging with their audience, which in turn built an incredible community within the audience.

Can a partner guarantee reach or sales?
In one word: no. They need to fulfill their contract and put their best foot forward in creating content, but they cannot guarantee their work will magically draw in millions of views or break all previous sales records.

What are brands responsible for in these partnerships?
Brands need to ensure they are ready to work alongside and provide all the necessary support to help the individuals be successful and reach common goals. This includes making sure free product or services to share experiences or to create content is current, and it has been received (share those package tracking codes!); personalized affiliate codes or links work; the website is easy to navigate while offering a smooth UX; and when folks arrive either digitally or physically at the brand’s doors, you’re ready to receive them - all in hopes the visitors will invest their hard-earned money in your brand.

THE BONUS TYPE:
The almighty Advocate, aka unpaid community ambassadors cannot be, yet are often, overlooked. Their content is completely organic. They might be someone who tags the brand while using its product or service or you see often in your space - and possibly embodies your ideal client persona. Think of these individuals as Super Fans; they’re loyal brand users and the ultimate word-of-mouth campaigners.

Brands can cultivate these relationships by simply sharing user-generated content (UGC) in their feed with permission, or re-share the post or story in Stories (no permission needed). Sending them product as a thank you gift or discount code to use in the future will go far. It’s also worth considering using them for a future paid partnership if they seem to align with your own brand.

No matter which partnered path(s) a brand may take, it’s important to remember once a user enters brand’s space - may it be social media platform, website, or brick-and-mortar - it’s on the brand to close the sale by showing it’s trustworthy and worth the investment, no matter how big or small it may be.

Anything else?
The individual should hold a certain amount of credibility and be able to align easily with the brand, which will help the partnership feel more trustworthy and genuine to audiences.

Using the DIY/lifestyle space as an example: a beverage brand may partner with a DIY’er since the individual could show taking breaks with the product, or drinking it while working. On the other hand, if you have an DIY’er focused on creating green spaces with recycled items, partnering with a fast-fashion brand wouldn’t make sense.

Good marketing, like all good things, takes time. And work with quality, not quantity.

bottom line:

Understanding the differences between Influencers, Ambassadors, and Affiliates, along with how to use each one’s strengths within a brand’s marketing and sales strategies can help increase brand awareness, build trust with new and current audiences, and create community loyalty.

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