Affiliate marketing and influencer marketing are two similar business models. We untangle the two and show you how both of them combined can bring you additional income through FansRevenue, our social media monetization platform.
Affiliate marketing and influencer marketing are powerful strategies to make money online. In fact, today’s digital marketing landscape is mainly shaped by affiliate marketing and influencer marketing. Countless brands are promoted daily on websites and on social media, boosting product sales and turning internet users into digital customers.
But influencer marketing is especially becoming a driving sales force for brands wanting to reach new consumers. Here are the numbers that prove it:
- USD 10.39 billion: the global market size value of influencer marketing in 2021
- USD 143.10 billion: the expected revenue of the influencer marketing global market revenue in 2030
- 61 percent: the proportion of social media users who trust influencer recommendations more for their purchase decisions than branded content
- 93 percent: the percentage of marketers who used influencer marketing as part of their marketing strategy
A lot of money is currently being made by webmasters and content creators online, so much that the term creator economy was developed to define the type of revenue creators generate with their online content. Many brands have even created their own affiliate program or brand ambassadorship program to attract webmasters and influencers in search of extra income.
If you’ve heard about influencer marketing or affiliate marketing, you’ve got a head start and can jump to the last part of this article on FansRevenue. But if one or two of these terms are new to you, this article is your chance to catch up.
Let’s start!
What is affiliate marketing?
Affiliate marketing is a business model in which brands can get promoted on a someone’s website, therefore gaining visibility and increasing their sales with that website’s traffic. Webmasters, in return, earn a commission or a fixed amount for every desired action (a conversion) performed by their users: a purchase or a completed form (a lead) generated via their website.
This process is called traffic monetization, and it’s incredibly lucrative. Webmasters can watch their income grow in real time with each conversion for a given offer.
Traffic monetization is so lucrative that there are entire networks, CPA networks, dedicated to help affiliates with advertisers (brands) make money on the daily through several affiliate programs.
What is influencer marketing?
Influencer marketing is very similar to affiliate marketing. Instead of traffic monetization, the business model is based on social media monetization.
All content creators and influencers who have a large audience–not just celebs– can leverage it to promote brands on their platform. Brands (also called advertisers), in return, get to reach a larger targeted market through trusted influencers.
How do influencers promote brands on social media?
Marketing campaigns on social media can take the form of
- Stories
- Reels
- Videos
- Pics
- Mentions
- Shared promo links
- Tiktoks
- Tweets
- etc.
Content creators can get paid per post or sale, or by commission, depending on the offer they are promoting. The more followers they have, the more leverage they have as well. Experienced influencers can even negotiate how much they make per post or per sale. For instance, Instagram influencers with up to 10,000 followers (also called micro-influencers) can earn on average $1400 per month!
A lot of influencers and content creators get approached by brands directly on social media to promote their products. However, there are influencer marketing networks that exist to create matches between creators and advertisers. These networks help set the terms, so both party can benefit from the partnership when it comes to the content and the compensation.
Influencer marketing can be a great source of income for both the creator and the brand if they’re a great match. Influencer and content creators develop content specifically for their niche, and the brand targeted consumers must be very similar to the creator’s audience. If a match is very successful—meaning that it generates money for both parties—it can turn into a brand ambassadorship.
What’s the difference between affiliate marketing and influencer marketing?
The main difference between influencer marketing and affiliate marketing is based on the following:
- Who promotes the offer
- On which platform is the offer promoted
- What type of conversion is expected
Affiliates, thus website owners, promote an advertiser’s offers with landing pages, banners, instant messages, chat heads, and all kinds of promo tools at their disposal, including external traffic for specific ads. Their profit lies in their ROI (return on investment) based on sales, clicks, or leads.
Influencers, however, promote offers on social media platforms such as Instagram, YouTube, Tiktok, Facebook, Twitter, OnlyFans, etc. Whether it’s with pictures, videos, stories, reels, or captions, they make money with posts or sales generated through their link.
Now that you understand the difference between affiliate marketing and influencer marketing, let’s see how both can interact and bring you more revenue streams.
FansRevenue: where affiliate marketing and influencer marketing meet
FansRevenue is a social media monetization platform that brings content creators and brands together, so they can both make money on social media. Powered by CrakRevenue, a leader in affiliate marketing, FansRevenue acts as a network to create the best money-making matches that will suit creators and advertisers.
On the FansRevenue app, creators can find offers from many advertisers in various industries. These offers can bring these 3 types of payout:
- PPP: Pay per post (based on content approval and publication)
- PPS: Pay per sale (fixed price on each conversion)
- RevShare: Percentage lifetime commission ( based on sales through a promo link)
Since its creation in early 2021, FansRevenue issued more than $1M to its creators, and that number keeps growing. The network now has more than 500 content creators and influencers promoting 12 brands across various verticals.
FansRevenue also has two essential features that set it apart from other influencer marketing service providers.
A self-serve platform to track your performance
User-friendly, FanRevenue’s self-serve platform is more than a simple user interface. You can access it on mobile or desktop to get all your stats about your active offer. On the app, you can
- Track your conversions
- Get your expected payout amount in real time
- View your number of promo links clicked
- See how many people visited your bio page
You can also determine for which period you want to view the stats using the drop-down arrow at the top.
A custom bio page tool to store your promo links
With Fanstrace, our custom bio page tool, you manage all your promo links in one place, choosing to share your custom links on more than one platform at once if you’d like.
Fanstrace is also the best tool to share content-sensitive links that cannot reach the general public. That way, we make sure that you’re always complying with the different social media platforms’ regulations. You definitely want to avoid having your account shut down and risking losing some money.
Plus, from your bio page, you can directly add new offers by editing your page and choosing new offers at the bottom.
You’ve got that audience and the incredible content that draws news followers to you! Imagine the results you can achieve if you leverage it to promote offers on your top social media platforms.
You no longer have to create great content for free! Join FansRevenue and discover how you can work with top brands and create very lucrative content to advertiser the best products.
You too can boost your earnings as an affiliate! So will you give influencer marketing a try?
