TUNE has completed another successful audit of its system and organization controls, assuring the availability, processing integrity, security, confidentiality, and privacy of customer data. This latest audit marks another year that TUNE has earned both SOC 2 Type 2 certification and SOC 1 Type 2 certification. 

What Is a SOC 2 Audit? 

SOC stands for System and Organization Controls, a suite of services provided as part of the reporting platform of the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA). 

Essentially, a SOC 2 audit examines and evaluates the operational controls of a business. This audit requires a company to document and adhere to comprehensive information security policies and procedures, among other responsibilities. The resulting report gives interested parties, such as prospects and customers, additional information and insight to make a decision about working with that business.  †

What Is a SOC 1 Audit? 

SOC 1 audits focus on user entities, testing their relevant internal controls over financial reporting system design and operating effectiveness. We view SOC 1 audits and other periodic third-party reviews as a valuable resource to help enhance our current product and operations, especially when they address both the TUNE platform and TUNE Pay, our payments system. 

What Is a Type 2 Report?

To earn a Type 2 report, a company must undergo testing over an extended period of time. Type 1 reports, on the other hand, test only a single moment in time. TUNE’s usual audit period for SOC 2 and SOC 1 covers 12 months, demonstrating our ongoing effort to uphold the Trust Services Principles. 

TUNE has always voluntarily pursued the more demanding and comprehensive Type 2 report rather than the Type 1 report. Type 2 reports for both audits signal that our customers can expect high standards across TUNE’s operational, data security, and privacy practices, as well as stringent change management controls throughout our software development life cycle.

Our Commitment to Our Customers

Using an independent third-party to audit these controls is an investment companies do not take lightly. A SOC audit is, by design, an intrusive, time-consuming process designed to test a company on a variety of levels, necessitating active employee engagement and diligence across a broad swath of the organization. It’s a difficult process with a valuable payoff for our customers, and therefore one we are proud to undertake. 

As with our prior SOC audits, TUNE’s auditors determined that our controls were effectively designed and followed throughout the audit period. We intend to sustain our investments in customer-centric compliance in the years to come to protect both our business and the businesses of our customers.

Relevant portions of both reports are available upon request to security@tune.com for TUNE customers as well as prospects under a current non-disclosure agreement. 

Photo by Nesa by Makers

When it comes to performance marketing, one of the biggest questions you can ask yourself (or your advertiser) is what kind of conversion tracking protocol you want to use: pixel tracking (client-side) or postback tracking (server-side). There are benefits and disadvantages to each, and it’s important to distinguish between them if you wish to be successful. So, let’s break it down.

First — definitions:

Pixel Tracking

Also called client-side, cookie-based, in-browser tracking. This method relies on the user’s browser to track conversions by placing a cookie on the click that is called again on conversion to authenticate the session and attribute the conversion to the correct affiliate. Pixel-based offers use cookies to track because they can store the session values in the cookie, and with the way pixels are designed to track, can extract this information from the browser easily. As a result, setting up an offer to track using pixels is very simple and only involves placing the HTML offer pixel on the conversion page.

Use pixel tracking when:

TUNE’s general recommendation is to use pixel tracking as little as possible, as pixel tracking only works for non-mobile web traffic where cookies can be stored. Additionally, major browsers like Safari, Chrome, and Firefox are moving away from allowing tracking-related cookies even for first parties.

As the last resort, use pixel tracking if the following are true:

The offer’s advertiser is unable to send server-side conversion notifications.
The offer does not involve mobile app installs.
The offer’s desired end users are on browsers that support tracking-related cookies.

For more information, check out this TUNE support article explaining implementation of pixel tracking.

Postback Tracking

Also known as server-side, server call, server 2 server (or server-to-server), s2s and, mistakenly, server pixel tracking, relies on the advertiser’s servers to track sessions generated on clicks to attribute conversions.  The servers record and then pass the transaction ID back to TUNE. This method is independent of the user’s browser. Postback tracking can be thought of as two separate processes: what happens when a user clicks on an offer and what happens upon conversion.

Leading up to the conversion:

1. User sees an offer.
2. User clicks on the offer.
3. Click goes to a TUNE server. The server records the click, then generates and records the ID for that session (in most cases the transaction ID).
4. TUNE immediately directs the user to the offer’s landing page, including ID for that session in the offer URL.
5. User sees offer’s page on advertiser’s site. Advertiser’s site handles recording that session’s ID however it deems fit, such as storing it as a variable in an e-commerce site or SDK in a mobile app.

When the user converts on that offer:

1. The advertiser’s server sends a signal to TUNE (a.k.a. fires a postback) that includes the ID TUNE initially supplied. The user is not directed back to TUNE in any way.
2. TUNE records the conversion for that session.

TUNE has another great support article explaining postback tracking.

Use postback tracking when:

You have the technical resources available to implement the server-side calls (see below for details on implementation).

Pros and Cons of Pixel Tracking

Pros:

• Pixel tracking is extremely easy to implement. Because it’s just copying and pasting code into the HTML of your website, you don’t need to be a developer to set up tracking. Along the same lines, the learning curve for implementation is not as steep.

Cons:

• Pixel tracking doesn’t work if the conversion occurs on a mobile device. That means conversions on mobile web, in the app stores, and in apps will not register. (Mobile devices and smartphones usually have cookies blocked as a default setting, so a cookie will never be placed on mobile in the first place.)
• Pixel tracking is much more prone to fraud. As you can imagine, because the tracking is done in the browser, it would be fairly easy for a tech-savvy affiliate to fire pixels without an actual conversion occurring.  
• Sometimes, pixels just don’t fire and you won’t know why. A possible reason for this could be that the user cleared their cache between click and conversion, but occasionally the reason is unknown. Reporting will be of little help for troubleshooting, because you won’t have server logs to utilize.
• For all of these reasons (and others), pixel tracking is highly inaccurate.

Pros and Cons of Postback Tracking

Pros:

• Much more reliable because all tracking is done server-side, so you’re leaving a lot less up to chance.
• Much easier to troubleshoot, using TUNE’s server logs.
• Less prone to fraud, and many more options available to mitigate fraud, like adding an offer whitelist, advertiser security token, or hashing the postback URL. Read more about preventing postback fraud.
• You have the option to set up a global postback (on a per advertiser basis), where a single postback implementation can register a conversion for all offers for that advertiser. Pixels don’t have that option.
• In general, postback tracking will allow more options for conversion firing beyond when the user is on the webpage. Instead of being limited to a simple page load, you can have your advertiser send back the conversion URL whenever they please. This will become helpful if your advertiser doesn’t want to register conversions until after an order has shipped, or a lead has been qualified, for example.
• Postback tracking works on mobile devices! Remember, pixel tracking will not work on a smartphone or mobile device.

Cons:

• Postback tracking is harder to implement. It requires direct communication between the network and the advertiser to make sure that the ID is passed into the correct parameter, and then it requires technical implementation on behalf of the advertiser to store and pass back the value. The advertiser will need to have someone with server-side HTTP experience in order to code the requests.
• Implementation time varies widely. Postback tracking could be set up in a matter of minutes, but for some advertisers, it could take an entire day to code the database to store the IDs.

Want more information? Check out our blog series on digital tracking methods, or download the full e-book: How to Become a Track Star: Your Guide to Tracking for Performance Marketing Campaigns.

This article was originally published in 2016 and has been updated with new links and information.

It’s no secret that financial services affiliate marketing is on the rise. From 2011 to 2017, affiliate marketing spend by the big four banks rose from 11.7% of overall digital ad spend to 14.1%. And overall spend on affiliate marketing is expected to reach nearly $12 billion in 2025 — and that’s just in the United States. Even with regulations that slow progress in the financial industry, fintech brands are catching up to the times. They’re launching and acquiring apps, leveraging influencer marketing, and starting loyalty programs. And it couldn’t be a better time to do so.

In this blog post, we outline how financial services companies can use affiliate marketing to acquire customers, reach new audiences, and grow affiliate programs.

Best Partners for Financial Services Affiliate Marketing

In essence, affiliate marketing for financial services is about leveraging different kinds of partners — publishers, bloggers, influencers, content creators, TikTok stars, Twitch streamers, and so on — to promote a product, service, or company to their audiences. As a model based on performance, affiliate marketing can be a sound investment for financial services and fintech companies. But that doesn’t mean brands should be careless with marketing budgets or throw anything at the affiliate wall just to see what sticks.

Done right, financial services affiliate marketing can bring in big benefits:

• Open untapped audiences for incremental growth
• Access high-quality, engaged, and/or niche customers
• Improve ROI versus traditional (non-performance-based) advertising
• Target and pay only for desired results

Before you can reap the rewards, however, you have to find the right finance-minded affiliate partners to bring them in. Below, we present five of the best kinds of partners to help financial services companies raise the bottom line.

Comparison Sites

Comparison sites like Credit Sesame, Policygenius, Finder, FinanceBuzz, and Bankrate help consumers sift through a variety of financial products to identify which are right for them. These products can include credit cards, mortgage rates, loan options, and insurance companies. As the name implies, comparison sites compare different interest rates, annual fees, and incentives to open new accounts, and link directly to these resources when a consumer finds an option they like. Comparison partners are one of the most common financial services affiliate sites you’ll see.

Community and Content Publishers

With over 200 million ad blockers installed across browsers everywhere, consumers are more resistant than ever to in-your-face advertising. Luckily, publishers and blogs lend themselves nicely to content that consumers actively seek out, looking for everything from expert information to personal recommendations. Personal finance affiliate sites like The Penny Hoarder, Money Crashers, Business.com, The College Investor, Finance Girl, and personal blogs provide articles, reviews, offers, and recommendations about financial products and services.

Content affiliates are incentivized to promote financial services companies in exchange for commissions. Depending on budget and offering, there is a wide range of how banks and other finance institutions pay bloggers. Bank of America, for example, reportedly offers $120 per credit card approval; Discover pays $115, and TurboTax gives 15% commission per sale.

Influencer Affiliates

They say 2021 was the year of influencer marketing. While it might take some time to find the right affiliate influencer, financial services companies can also capitalize on the trend. Research your industry to find famous gurus, or niche experts, who might be willing to promote your brand on social media. Check specialty websites that rank influencers by vertical, engagement, location, and cost. Find out which affiliates your competitors are working with, and how other fintech brands grew their influencer relationships. Or just find an agency that specializes in influencer marketing, and have them do it all for you.

Remember: Word of mouth is still one of the most potent forms of marketing. Customers who follow a specific influencer will be more likely to trust their recommendations over any review site full of strangers.

Deal and Coupon Partners

Deal and coupon sites like The Smart Wallet, RetailMeNot, and Brad’s Deals incentivize readers with coupons and discounts. These can be applied when opening new personal banking accounts, enrolling in new financial courses, and taking advantage of credit card offers, for example.

Deals and coupons are growing increasingly popular for financial services affiliate marketing.

Loyalty and Rewards Affiliates

Loyalty and rewards affiliates offer cash back, points, or other types of rewards for using a product or service. Companies like Rakuten (formerly Ebates), TopCashback.com, and Swagbucks offer paid gift cards and points for taking surveys, signing up for new subscriptions, or watching videos. Like deal and coupon partners, loyalty affiliates are an excellent option for financial services companies to keep in mind. After all, physical and digital rewards have been found to increase brand exposure and conversions by more than 400%.

How to Start Financial Services Affiliate Marketing

Finding the right partners is only one step in successful financial services affiliate marketing. Finance and fintech brands must also determine goals and budgets, set metrics, document marketing policies, implement compliance controls, and manage technology to pull it all together. 

If you’re ready to launch a financial services affiliate program, download our Ultimate Guide to Partner Marketing for a step-by-step breakdown that will put you on the path to success. Or, if you’re not ready to jump in just yet, get an introduction to the industry and vertical-specific tools with our two-page Financial Services Playbook.

What other affiliate partners do you work with as a financial services or fintech brand? Let us know in the comments!

This article was originally published on PerformanceIn.com in January 2020 and has been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.

Introduction

For banks, insurance companies, loan providers, personal finance publishers, and other financial services brands, affiliate marketing has proven to be a valuable channel for generating leads and acquiring new customers. However, the cost of working through traditional affiliate networks can be a significant burden, as high network fees and hidden service charges eat into profit margins. Fortunately, by eliminating the middleman and managing affiliate partnerships directly, financial brands can both reduce costs and improve ROI.

In this post, we’ll explore strategies for cutting out unnecessary costs in financial affiliate programs. We’ll cover the advantages of taking a direct approach and actionable tips for managing partnerships, plus look at a few case studies from financial brands that have used these strategies to succeed.

Why Traditional Affiliate Networks are Costly for Financial Brands

High Network Fees and Service Charges

Traditional affiliate marketing networks serve as intermediaries between companies and their affiliates, facilitating relationships and managing payments. While these platforms simplify the process of running an affiliate program, they come at a high cost. Financial services companies like banks often find themselves paying hefty commission fees, typically ranging between 20% to 40%, on top of monthly service charges.

For industries with tight margins, such as personal finance or loan providers, these fees can significantly impact profitability. When you add in one-time setup costs and potential overage charges, the true cost of traditional affiliate networks becomes clear.

Lack of Control and Customization

Another downside to working through affiliate networks is the limited control over how your brand is represented. Since networks usually offer generic promotional templates and materials, it’s difficult for financial brands to create personalized, high-impact campaigns. The network interface itself is also restricted to the design and user experience set by the network, making it hard to stand out in a sea of competitors. This can lead to missed opportunities for matching with the right partners and optimizing messaging to capture the attention of a more targeted audience.

By managing affiliate partnerships directly, financial services brands gain greater control over every aspect of their affiliate marketing strategy — from the selection of affiliates, to the terms and conditions of contracts, to the creation of custom marketing materials tailored to specific customer segments.

The Benefits of Eliminating Middlemen in Financial Affiliate Programs

Increased ROI through Direct Affiliate Relationships

Cutting out middlemen offers immediate cost savings, but that’s just the start. Financial brands that manage their own affiliate programs can negotiate commission rates directly with affiliates, leading to more favorable terms. Without the network’s cut, companies have more flexibility to reward affiliates based on performance, which fosters better long-term relationships and incentivizes high-quality lead generation.

Additionally, direct relationships enable financial brands to monitor performance metrics more closely and optimize in real-time. This level of transparency can help businesses make smarter marketing decisions, improve conversion rates, and ultimately drive higher ROI.

Greater Flexibility in Commission Structures

When working with a traditional affiliate network, financial brands are often locked into a standard commission structure. By managing affiliate programs internally, you gain the flexibility to tailor commission rates to specific products or customer segments. For example, a bank could offer higher commissions for affiliates who successfully refer new credit card customers, while offering a different rate for mortgage leads.

This flexibility allows you to align your affiliate compensation with your broader business goals, ensuring that you’re maximizing the return on every dollar spent.

Customization of Campaigns and Messaging

Direct partnerships with affiliates also give financial brands the opportunity to develop custom campaigns that resonate with their target audiences. Instead of relying on the standard, cookie-cutter templates provided by networks, you can create tailored marketing materials that speak directly to potential customers. This is particularly valuable in industries like personal finance, insurance, and banking apps, where trust and credibility are critical to conversion.

Banks, for instance, might develop content specifically designed to highlight their commitment to security and data protection, while insurance companies could emphasize cost savings and personalized coverage options.

How to Reduce Costs in Financial Affiliate Programs

Eliminating middlemen and managing affiliate programs in-house might seem like a daunting task, but with the right approach, it can be both cost-effective and efficient. Below are some practical steps to get started.

1. Invest in Affiliate Tracking Software

Financial brands can leverage affiliate tracking platforms like TUNE, which provide the tools needed to track affiliate performance, manage payments, and automate workflows. These platforms are more affordable in the long run when compared to the total cost associated with large affiliate networks, and they give you the control you need to run a successful program.

2. Vet Affiliates Carefully

Take the time to identify partners who are truly aligned with your brand’s values and target audience. Focus on affiliates with established authority in the finance space, such as personal finance bloggers, financial influencers, or comparison websites for loans and insurance.

Look for affiliates who have a proven track record of generating high-quality leads, rather than relying on volume-driven, low-conversion tactics.

3. Offer Performance-Based Incentives

Rather than sticking to a flat commission model, consider offering tiered rewards based on performance. For example, offer higher commissions for affiliates who consistently bring in high-converting leads or premium customers. This approach encourages affiliates to focus on quality rather than just quantity.

4. Prioritize Transparent Reporting

Ensure that your affiliate partners have access to transparent, real-time reporting on their performance. By providing regular feedback and insights, you can build a stronger relationship with your affiliates and encourage ongoing optimization of their promotional efforts.

5. Create Custom Marketing Materials

Collaborate with your affiliates to create custom marketing materials tailored to your audience. Whether it’s exclusive financial guides, loan calculators, or email templates, offering unique content helps affiliates promote your services more effectively. In turn, this leads to higher conversion rates and lower customer acquisition costs.

Financial Services Case Studies

Financial services companies of all sizes and specialties have found success with affiliate marketing and TUNE. Here are just a few examples of how different companies achieved their goals using the strategies outlined above:

• How Topstep Scaled Affiliate Revenue by 66%
• How Credit Sesame Boosted Program ROI via Optimization
• How Gabi’s Affiliate Program Took Off After Switching Platforms

Conclusion

Insurance companies, banks, loan providers, personal finance apps, and other brands can significantly reduce the costs of financial affiliate programs by managing partnerships directly and eliminating unnecessary middlemen. Not only does this lead to lower fees, but it also provides greater control over campaigns, the flexibility to customize commission structures, and the ability to foster long-term relationships with top-performing affiliates.

To learn more about performance-based advertising, download TUNE’s Ultimate Guide to Partner Marketing, over 50 pages of everything you need to know to run a successful program. Don’t forget to download the supplement made specifically for financial services companies, which walks through common affiliate marketing pain points and their solutions here.

When you’re ready to get started with the best platform for financial services affiliate marketing, request a demo of TUNE.

Creators have become an ace up the sleeve of brands aiming to connect with their audiences and build communities of customer advocates. As traditional advertising channels become saturated, the mutually beneficial relationship between advertisers and creators offers a way to provide consumers with the content they want backed by the products and services that fit their lifestyle needs.

That’s why we teamed up with growth agency ZeroTo1 to create the Influencer-Affiliate Blueprint, an e-book designed to help brands understand the power of the influencer-affiliate movement and harness its potential in their partner programs. In addition to covering key chapters in a blog series, we co-hosted a LinkedIn Live session to introduce the e-book’s core concepts. That session is now available on YouTube: What Is Influencer-Affiliate Marketing?

If you’re new to affiliate or influencer marketing, we suggest starting with the video — it’ll give you an idea of what influencer-affiliate is all about and whether it’s the right strategy for your business. Below, we’ve laid out a few of the highlights you’ll hear in the session.

The Value of Using Creators and Influencers

Creators and influencers hold a unique position in the digital ecosystem. They have built trust and credibility with their audiences, and their endorsements carry weight far beyond traditional advertisements. Here are a few key benefits of incorporating influencers into your marketing strategy:

1. Authenticity and Trust: Influencers offer a sense of authenticity that resonates with consumers. Their content is perceived as genuine, making their recommendations more trustworthy.
2. Targeted Reach: Influencers have niche followings, allowing brands to target specific demographics with precision.
3. Engagement: Influencer content tends to have higher engagement rates compared to traditional ads. Their followers are active and invested in their content.
4. Cost-Effectiveness: Compared to traditional advertising channels, influencer marketing can offer a higher return on investment, especially when leveraging performance-based models.

The Benefits of a Performance Marketing Model

Performance marketing, where advertisers pay for specific actions such as clicks, leads, or sales, aligns perfectly with influencer marketing. Here’s why:

1. Measurable Results: Performance marketing is inherently data-driven. Brands can track exactly how much they are spending and what they are getting in return.
2. Risk Mitigation: Since payments are based on actual performance, brands minimize the risk of spending money on campaigns that do not yield results.
3. Scalability: Successful strategies can be scaled up, and less effective ones can be adjusted or discontinued without significant losses.
4. Alignment of Interests: Both brands and influencers are motivated to create effective campaigns since compensation is tied to performance.

Getting Started with Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing is an effective entry point for brands looking to leverage performance marketing. Here’s a step-by-step guide to get started:

1. Identify Your Niche: Understand your market and identify the audience you want to target. Research the types of products or services that resonate with them.
2. Select the Right Affiliates: Look for affiliates (influencers, content creators, bloggers, streamers, etc.) who align with your brand values and have an engaged audience.
3. Choose a Platform: To manage your affiliate marketing efforts effectively, you need a reliable platform to track conversions, manage campaigns and partners, and pay commissions. (This is where TUNE comes into play.)
4. Create Compelling Offers: Develop attractive offers that will entice affiliates to promote your products. This could be in the form of commissions, exclusive deals, or bonuses.
5. Track and Optimize: Use your affiliate marketing platform to track performance. Analyze data to understand what’s working and continuously optimize your strategies.

How TUNE Helps You Do It

We’re a little biased when it comes to choosing the right technology for affiliate marketing, but that’s only because our tech is as good as we say it is. TUNE offers accurate cookieless tracking, granular analytics tools, customizable and scalable solutions, and a user-friendly interface that simplifies the complexities of affiliate marketing. Go ahead, do the research — and make sure to get a demo of TUNE and any other platforms you’re considering, so you can verify which platform actually delivers on what it promises.

Watch the Influencer-Affiliate Blueprint On Demand

If all of this sounds like something you want to know more about, watch the webinar here: What Is Influencer-Affiliate Marketing?, then download your copy of the Influencer-Affiliate Blueprint.

Questions about the TUNE platform or partner marketing? Get in touch with us at sales@tune.com.

Welcome back to the Influencer-Affiliate Blueprint series! In the first two parts of our journey, we explored the foundations of building high-ROI creator communities and understanding the nuances of influencer affiliate programs. Now, it’s time to delve into the art of recruiting social media influencers and content creators to supercharge your affiliate program. Keep reading to learn how to recruit influencers and creators like a boss!

Understanding the Landscape

Before diving into tactics, let’s grasp the diverse landscape of influencers and creators:

1. Macro vs. Micro-Influencers: Macro-influencers boast large follower counts, while micro-influencers have smaller, more engaged audiences. Both have their advantages, depending on your campaign goals.
2. Niche Experts: These influencers focus on specific topics or industries, often commanding deep trust and authority within their communities.
3. Content Creators: These individuals excel in crafting compelling content across various formats, including blogs, videos, podcasts, and social media posts.

Platforms of Influence

The digital sphere offers numerous platforms for influencers and creators to showcase their talents. Here are some of the most popular:

1. Instagram: Ideal for visually-driven content, Instagram is a hotspot for fashion, beauty, lifestyle, and food influencers.
2. YouTube: The go-to platform for video content, YouTube hosts a wide array of creators covering topics ranging from tutorials and reviews to vlogs and entertainment.
3. TikTok: With its explosive growth, TikTok has become a powerhouse for short-form video content, appealing to younger demographics and fostering viral trends.
4. Twitter: Known for real-time conversations, Twitter is favored by influencers for its ability to spark discussions and share quick updates.
5. Blogs: Despite the rise of visual platforms, blogs remain relevant for long-form content and niche expertise, attracting dedicated audiences.

How to Recruit Influencers and Creators

There are a few different ways to tap influencers. Let’s break it down into the following:

• Curated (Outbound)
• Paid (Outbound)
• Earned (Inbound)
• Tech-Enabled (Inbound)
• Tools and Partners

We’ll go into details for each of these below.

Outbound Recruitment Methods

Curated Recruitment

Curation is the good old-fashioned approach to list-building. This organic approach is really important when you’re in an alpha or beta version of your program’s build-out. 

Even though this approach requires manual effort, we recommend keeping this in the mix early on. It’s essential for program efficiency and speed to profitability. It’s also important to test a lot of different influencer segments and channels. See what segments work and what segments don’t, then worry about scale and how to execute that scale with your winning segments. This way, you’re not blowing your program budget on paid recruitment tactics, PR, or additional technology only to power up a bunch of influencer segments that don’t work. 

Key Benchmark: Your reply and opt-in rates on cold outbound recruitment are a great indicator of program interest in your pitch. Strong programs clock opt-in rates ranging from 25% to 40%. 

There are plenty of ways to aggregate these cold outbound lists once you’re armed with your segment criteria. Most of the social media channels have started building their own directories of verified creators (TikTok Creator Marketplace, Pinterest for Creators, Facebook for Creators). Additionally, if you have the budget, you can tap any of the creator marketplaces and influencer management tools that are out there. Depending on the platform, you’ll be able to utilize its creator index, social listening tools, and/or done-for-you list-building products. 

Important Note: We recommend carefully considering your cold outbound strategy. As with any outbound campaign, sending mass amounts of email from a single address can create issues for your account, and potentially flag the domain. We recommend a dedicated domain (e.g., www.mybrandcreators.com) with various send-from email addresses that can be warmed up over the first few test cycles as your messaging is dialed in.

Paid Recruitment

In addition to native curation tools, many platforms will also offer CPL/CPA-based recruitment support. Pricing varies widely, but it’s a good thing to keep in mind as you’re signing a software contract. You may be able to negotiate that recruitment rate depending on the length and size of the contract. Third-party recruitment support can be super helpful if you’re working with a small program management team.

In addition to your software partners, you can also use paid strategies to purchase verified lists and tap segment-specific networks. Or, you can put some budget towards building your own program marketing ad creative. This is one of our favorite tactics once you have some momentum behind the program and a handful of successful influencer affiliates that are open to providing testimonial content that can fuel ads for the program itself. Social proof is a tremendously powerful recruitment technique, and we love to use it right at the top of the funnel.

Inbound Recruitment Methods

Earned Interest

Earned interest can result from both organic and paid effort. Once a program has been dialed in, we see a lot of success with a coordinated PR effort. The creator economy continues to be a hot topic, and major brands have launched these influencer affiliate communities with abundant fanfare. 

We caution that this approach can generate a huge spike in inbound interest. If your team isn’t prepared, these are wasted dollars. Once influencers churn, they’re exponentially more difficult and expensive to win back.

With that said, once an influencer affiliate program is humming, managers can expect an uptick in inbound interest. Influencer communities are very collaborative, and word spreads quickly around well-managed programs — and around poorly managed programs. When creators see their category’s top influencers and their peers utilizing a brand toolkit, they’re apt to hop on board!

Tech-Enabled Recruiting

This recruitment strategy involves investing in additional technology and a willingness to hook these influencer affiliate programs into your brand’s central customer journeys. We’re starting to see e-commerce brands of all sizes include a program sign-up offer in their post-purchase flow with tremendous success. 

How does this work?

• The brand includes a simple pop-up that introduces the affiliate program and invites customers to submit their social media information in exchange for a discount. These pop-ups can be introduced after a first purchase, upon return to the site, or at the point of sale.
• The integration generates a list of potential influencers who are also, most importantly, your customers first. 
• On the back end, program managers build a segmentation strategy or leverage technology like Gatsby.ai to filter these inbound social media handles by follower count, verification status, location, channel, etc. 
• Once everything is in order, you can create a system of rules and onboarding flows that automatically funnel your customers into the program with tiered logic. Customers with verification marks or massive social media followings follow one path with personalized communications and generous offers; meanwhile, other customers can follow another set of paths that are tailored to their degree of influence. You can also create a flow that gracefully exits customers who aren’t a fit for your brand at this time.

The beauty of this strategy is that it automatically scales as sales grow. As more and more influencer affiliates are onboarded, more sales are generated, and an entirely new crop of potential affiliates hit the system. 

Tools and Partners

Finally, tools like Publisher Discovery and partners like those available in the TUNE Marketplace can help brands of all sizes find the right influencer affiliates for their programs. Some helpful partners and tools:

• Publisher Discovery
• MagicLinks
• Aspire IQ
• Find Your Influence
• SARAL
• Gatsby: Growth From Community
• CreatorIQ

How to Engage Influencers After You Recruit Them

No matter how good of a communicator you think you are, it’s smart to spend time testing recruitment and messaging strategies. The key paths to consider during recruitment are program qualification, program onboarding, and program decline. 

Program Qualification

With program qualification, you’re going to be focused on dialing in your pitch and tailoring it to your influencer segments. We recommend taking small segments and A/B testing subject lines, core copy, and follow-up sequences. Optimize these communications over the course of your first few months and then go wider with the winning segments and their winning communications. 

Other tactics during program qualification may include invite-only webinar events, one-to-one discovery calls, and a content drip that includes social proof, case studies, and program success narratives. 

Program Onboarding

The same test and learn strategy goes for your program onboarding flow. You’ll want to hit new sign-ups with a very simple welcome that includes an easy to digest onboarding checklist. We also recommend building a video-driven welcome series that helps orient new influencers. In both cases, approach your creative with an MVP (minimum viable product) mindset, and then expand and refine it as you start fielding real-time questions. 

A variety of issues you didn’t anticipate will arise during your alpha and beta launch phases. As you go, make sure you leave yourself some time and flexibility to figure out the resources and processes needed to address these issues. Until your influencer affiliate program is a well-oiled machine, the approach should remain agile.

Finally, don’t forget to take time to understand the why behind the “no.” When an influencer declines program participation, it’s important to try to understand why. A couple ways to do this are with a simple, personally directed follow-up question, or an incentivized exit survey that thanks them for their time. Gathering data on why someone decided not to join can help guide your outreach to future partners. 

Get Started with Influencers and Creators

Recruiting social media influencers and content creators for your affiliate program is a strategic endeavor that requires careful planning and execution. As you think about recruitment, you’ll want to build A/B testing strategies for your communications that address cold outbound recruitment and qualification stages, the onboarding stage, and an exit stage. Start small. Test over two-week sprints. Optimize. And expand! 

To learn more strategies for recruiting today’s top content creators and influencers, download the Influencer-Affiliate Blueprint: Building High-ROI Creator Communities or watch our on-demand webinar.

Check back soon for Part 4 of our series!

Need a tool to measure your influencer-affiliate programs? The TUNE platform is your go-to solution for flexible, affordable partner management and tracking tools. With in-platform payments, creative asset management, campaign automation, and more, it’s your one-stop shop for performance-based influencer marketing. Request your demo today.

There’s no denying it: artificial intelligence is here to stay. And it’s disrupting almost every area of marketing you could think of, including the world of influencer marketing. As social media platforms and trends shift, the content creation process shifts with them. This change is nudging digital marketers to investigate AI-powered tools like ChatGPT, Claude, and Midjourney to expedite and optimize their daily tasks. We’ve been investigating ourselves, with mixed results — so if you’re determined to add AI to your influencer marketing strategy, just know it’s not a plug-and-play solution. It takes time, testing, and a clear idea of the relevant tactics and desired outcomes to succeed.

Sound good? Great! Let’s dive in.

How to Use ChatGPT, Midjourney, and Claude for Influencer Marketing

AI is on the rise across the board. Influencer marketing is no exception:

• According to a recent report by Influencer Marketing Hub, 63% of marketers plan to increase their influencer marketing budget in the next year, with AI tools being a key area of investment.
• In the same report, respondents identified three main uses for AI in influencer marketing: influencer identification (64%), content discovery and distribution (13.3%), and fraud identification (5.6%).

Here are a few ways that you use AI tools in your influencer marketing today.

Use ChatGPT to Identify Influencers

Identifying the right influencers to partner with is a critical component of any successful influencer marketing campaign. ChatGPT, developed by OpenAI, is a powerful language model that can assist in various aspects of partner discovery and recruitment for influencer marketing. Because it has access to the internet (unlike some AI models), ChatGPT can search relevant sites and social media platforms for you, saving hours in your search for the right partners.

Try using ChatGPT and similar AI-powered tools to search the internet for influencers who fit your ideal profile. Provide your marketing guidelines or website, then ask to identify the influencers that align with your brand’s values, target audience, and marketing objectives. You can also ask ChatGPT analyze large datasets of social media activity, content performance, and audience demographics. Or ask it how best to ask it to find influencers; starting with the right prompt is key, so why not prompt it to provide the right prompt? The options are only as limited as your creativity!

Keep in mind that any data you give to ChatGPT could be shared with OpenAI or others. If you routinely work with sensitive data, consider using the paid version or a different model.

Use Midjourney to Generate Content and Ideas

Influencer marketing is not just about finding the right partners; it’s also about creating engaging, high-quality content that resonates with their followers. AI tools like Midjourney, an image generator, can be used to generate and iterate stunning visuals, while ChatGPT and Claude can help craft captions, scripts, and even entire content strategies.

A few examples of how AI can help in the content process:

• Design Inspiration: Prompt Midjourney with the subject, tone, look, and feel you’re going for in a campaign and let it brainstorm visual directions for you.
• Asset Creation: Generate graphics, banners, and other assets that influencers can use in their content. (Watch out, though: AI tools are still getting the hang of letters, and they often can’t spell worth a lick. Check your images for any text that’s generated, or create images without text and add it in post. There’s nothing worse than an AI-generated ad that spells words wrong or includes letters that don’t exist.)
• Scriptwriting: Use ChatGPT or Claude to generate scripts or script ideas for influencer videos and podcasts that resonate with a specified target audience.
• Social Media Posts: Create on-brand captions and posts that influencers can use across their platforms.

By automating these creative tasks, you can free up your influencers to focus on what they do best: building authentic connections with their audience.

Use Claude to Analyze and Optimize Campaigns

Measuring the success of your influencer marketing efforts is crucial for making informed decisions and optimizing future campaigns. AI-powered analytics tools can provide in-depth insights into key performance indicators (KPIs) such as reach, engagement, conversions, and return on investment (ROI).

Claude, an AI model from Anthropic, is designed to assist in complex decision-making processes. Unlike ChatGPT, though, Claude is designed to be self-contained, which means it won’t access the internet when forming a response. You’ll have to provide it with any relevant data you want to analyze. Luckily, this is as easy as uploading documents or images directly in your chat.

If you have large datasets you want to analyze, Claude is your go-to tool. Here are a few ideas on how to get started:

• Influencer Selection: Analyze engagement metrics, audience demographics, and content relevance to select the most effective influencers.
• Performance Tracking: Monitor influencer content performance over time, identifying which messages, formats, or topics are driving the most engagement and conversions.
• Sentiment Analysis: Claude can analyze audience sentiment towards influencer content, helping you refine your strategy for better results.

By leveraging these advanced data analysis capabilities, you can gain a deeper understanding of what’s working, what’s not, and how to fine-tune your approach for maximum impact.

How to Navigate the Ethics of AI in Influencer Marketing

Ensure Transparency and Authenticity

The rise of AI in influencer marketing has raised important questions about transparency and authenticity. As you explore these tools, it’s crucial to maintain clear communication with your influencer partners and their audiences about the use of AI in content creation or campaign management. Not everyone is on the AI train, and that’s OK. Transparency will help build trust and preserve the integrity of your influencer marketing efforts.

Address Bias and Fairness in AI-Driven Decisions

AI algorithms can sometimes perpetuate or amplify existing biases, which can have significant implications for your influencer selection and campaign management. It’s essential to actively monitor your AI-driven processes for potential biases, and to take steps to ensure that your influencer marketing strategies are fair, inclusive, and representative of your target audience.

Stay Informed About Evolving Regulations and Best Practices

The use of AI in influencer marketing — and digital marketing as a whole — is a rapidly evolving landscape. New regulations and best practices emerging regularly. As you incorporate AI into your strategies, stay informed about industry guidelines, legal requirements, and emerging ethical standards to maintain compliance and build trust with your stakeholders.

Your AI-Powered Future Is Waiting

In influencer marketing and so many other areas, AI can help you unlock new levels of efficiency, creativity, and performance. From identifying the right influencers to automating collaboration workflows and optimizing campaign strategies, the integration of AI-powered tools like ChatGPT, Midjourney, and Claude can help you deliver exceptional results. Just remember to prioritize transparency, fairness, and ethical best practices to maintain the trust and loyalty of your influencer partners and their audiences.

Successful influencer marketing is all about building genuine, long-lasting relationships. AI can assist in this process, but it can’t totally replace the human component. Focus on how you can use AI to enhance your relationships with influencers, not automate them, and you’ll go far.

Want more info on making the most out of your influencer marketing efforts? Download the Influencer-Affiliate Blueprint e-book, our in-depth guide on how to build high-ROI creator communities.

When social media influencers first stepped onto the scene, there were limited options for marketers to work with them. Sponsored posts, free products or services, and flat fees were the norm. Now influencers and creators are embracing performance-based advertising, opening a world of opportunities for themselves and the brands that partner with them. This doesn’t mean, however, that influencers and creators are the same as traditional affiliates. While both groups aim to drive conversions and boost brand visibility, they operate in fundamentally different ways and use distinct strategies to achieve their goals.

We’re covering the basics of influencer affiliate marketing in our new series, the Influencer-Affiliate Blueprint. For an introduction to the series and the e-book it’s based on, read Part 1 or watch our on-demand webinar.

In this post, we’re diving into the differences between the two groups and why influencer-affiliate programs are gaining momentum in today’s marketing landscape.

Download the Influencer-Affiliate Blueprint: Building High-ROI Creator Communities

How Do Affiliates and Publishers Differ from Influencers and Creators?

Traditional affiliates and publishers, rooted in the digital advertising ecosystem, have long relied on metrics like impressions, engagement rates, and clicks to measure success. In some cases, this focus on metrics can come at the expense of user experience. Navigating cluttered websites, wading through obviously AI-generated text, scrolling past pages of intrusive ads — it all harms the quality of users’ interactions with the content they’re looking for. When these less-than-ideal experiences add up, consumers can easily become frustrated, disinterested, and distrustful of the brands associated with them.

On the other hand, today’s influencer programs lean more toward authenticity and trustworthiness by leveraging the personal connection between social media creators and their dedicated followers. Brands that recognize the value of genuine engagement over sheer reach can foster deeper connections with audiences through relatable content and endorsements from trusted influencers. From this perspective, the affiliate industry’s leap to influencers makes sense, as it allows brands to create real connections and communities through their own ambassadors — without the corporate side of marketing getting in the way.

What Makes Influencer-Affiliate Programs Different?

Influencer-affiliate programs share the same pillars as traditional affiliate programs, but they require a different framework and fulfillment strategy. This is most evident in four areas of the program.

Program Strategy

Influencer programs come in all shapes and sizes. They can take a diverse range of approaches, categorized based on scope and the influencer’s degree of influence. From micro-influencers with niche audiences to macro-influencers commanding broader reach, brands have the flexibility to tailor their strategies to align with specific campaign objectives and target demographics. We’ve put together a graphic to illustrate this concept below:

Offers and Payments

Influencer programs also differ from traditional programs in their offers and payments. Unlike CPA (cost-per-action) offers, the bread and butter of affiliate programs, offers in influencer programs usually prioritize a tiered and blended approach. This means encompassing metrics beyond sales, such as views, likes, and shares. This multifaceted payment structure acknowledges the diverse contributions of influencers, incentivizing them to create compelling content that resonates with their audience while driving conversions.

The way you pay influencers and creators can also vary from the way traditional affiliates are paid. We go into this more in our e-book and on-demand webinar — you can watch a quick clip below.

Creative Production and Control

Creative is, hands down, the main differentiator between traditional affiliates and influencer affiliates.

Influencer-affiliate programs redefine creative production by moving beyond conventional banner ads and sponsored articles. Successful brands collaborate with influencers to craft authentic narratives and tell stories their audiences are interested to hear. This empowers creators as brand advocates rather than just another paid advertiser. This personalized approach nurtures brand loyalty and fosters deeper connections with consumers and communities.

For an example, check out ZeroTo1 (our e-book partner) and their Instacart case study here.

Tracking Technology

Influencer programs need specialized tracking technologies to effectively attribute conversions and measure campaign performance across channels. This is because the most popular social media platforms for creators are mobile-first, and the tracking works differently on mobile than on a desktop browser. For brands that are already running a traditional program, getting started with creator affiliates can be as simple as integrating an influencer toolkit. Adding dedicated influencer marketing tools to your existing tech stack will provide a holistic view of engagement metrics and ultimately allow you to run more effective, measurable campaigns.

How to Get Started with Influencer-Affiliate Marketing

As consumer preferences continue to evolve, influencer-affiliate programs offer a dynamic and adaptable approach to affiliate marketing. By prioritizing authenticity, fostering genuine connections, and embracing flexibility and creativity, brands can navigate the ever-changing digital landscape and forge lasting relationships with their target audience. Whether partnering with Instagram micro-influencers or the biggest names on TikTok, the key lies in building trust and telling stories to drive engagement and drive business results.

To learn more about the differences between creators and traditional affiliates, download the Influencer-Affiliate Blueprint: Building High-ROI Creator Communities.

Check back soon for Part 3!

Photo by Robert Anasch on Unsplash

Whether you’re a digital media buyer (i.e., advertiser) or seller (i.e., publisher), both depend on each other for a successful affiliate marketing program. Advertisers need real-time access and visibility into inventory. Publishers need to be able to show inventory as it becomes available, and provide insightful and accurate reporting. Without the right affiliate marketing platform to track, manage, and report on campaigns, the process becomes cumbersome at best — and can jeopardize thousands or millions of dollars at worst.

In this blog post, we recommend a few things to look for when searching for the right affiliate marketing platform for your business.

5 Things to Look for in an Affiliate Marketing Platform

1. Fully Customizable, White Label Technology

Every company has a different need, brand, industry, and process. As such, it’s important that you choose an affiliate marketing platform that you can customize to fit your company, instead of forcing your company to fit a certain affiliate marketing platform. At TUNE, our platform is white label ready and fully customizable. Whether you want to use our platform’s features and tools out of the box, or leverage our API to build your own on top of it, you can create the perfect platform for your business.

2. Best-In-Class Support

No matter which affiliate marketing platform you choose, there are some things you will need help with from time to time. That’s why it’s important to choose a platform with stellar customer support. The last thing you want to do is spend valuable time waiting on an answer while you could be optimizing your campaigns.

One of the best ways to identify an affiliate marketing platform that prioritizes customer service is whether customer satisfaction is a metric they track. TUNE has a 98% customer service satisfaction rating, and our onboarding team always gets high marks from new customers. We’re also continually looking for ways to get even better, asking our customers for feedback at every opportunity possible.

3. Real-Time Reporting and Campaign Optimization

New inventory becomes available every second of the day. For buyers, success depends on making more timely buys, and sellers need to be able to expose inventory quickly and easily. A top priority should be choosing an affiliate marketing platform that provides real-time data and optimization opportunities so you can make instantaneous decisions. The faster you’re able to optimize, the faster your revenue can scale.

Unlike our competitors, TUNE offers real real-time reporting and management capabilities, including A/B testing and landing space splits, so you can discover what performs best and make instant (or incremental) changes that add up to massive results. (Go ahead — ask any platform how they define “in real time,” and get specific numbers. You’ll see their “real-time” reporting is closer to “delayed by a few hours or a day” reporting.)

4. System Reliability

When assessing an affiliate marketing platform, ask for statistics about uptime. It’s critical as a seller to be able to provide timely and accurate data and analysis. In the fast-paced world of affiliate marketing, nothing can be more frustrating (or result in more lost revenue) than dealing with unnecessary downtime.

We’re proud to say TUNE can report 99.9% system uptime, having built our technical infrastructure to the highest standards in security and redundancy, so your platform will be ready for any situation.

5. All-In-One Functionality

It’s no secret the marketing technology landscape is only getting more complex, with more than 14,100 vendors in 2024. (That’s an increase of over 3,000 vendors from the year prior!) The last thing you want to do is sign up for a point solution and have to integrate with 10 more. That’s why we strongly advise looking for an all-in-one affiliate marketing platform that allows you to manage everything from mobile marketing campaigns to publisher relationships, conversion tracking, payouts, creative assets, lead generation, transactions, automation, and more.

Your Choice, Your Affiliate Marketing Platform

We’re proud of what we’ve created at TUNE, but don’t just take it from us. Read more about what our customers say or see their success stories.

Questions? Reach out to partnermarketing@tune.com to ask our experts, or download The Ultimate Guide to Partner Marketing to jump right in.

Every day, something crazy and new happens in the world of affiliate marketing. But who has time for that? We’re backing up a few steps to take a wider look at the industry in 2024. With two months down, what big trends and topics have emerged to lead us through the rest of the year? We asked colleagues at TUNE and around the industry to share their top predictions with us. Here’s what they said.

2024 Affiliate Marketing Trends

AI Expansion Will Continue

This is a no-brainer, which is why it’s first on our list. The AI expansion into every corner of the digital world continues following the explosive introduction of ChatGPT in January 2023. According to recent surveys, when it comes to marketing, generative AI has seen the most growth in content marketing, sales enablement, business intelligence, video marketing, and chatbot applications. We don’t see this trend slowing anytime soon.

“In 2024, integrating AI in affiliate marketing programs and strategies will grow in popularity — for content creation, content promotion, analysis, and much more.”
—Yakir Gal, Head of Sales, EMEA & APAC

“AI is going to be big, big, big this year. I see lots of discussion ahead on how partners will use it to optimize ROI for brands, and how brands use it to identify new opportunities and automate their ongoing evergreen ads. And beyond partners and brands, will groups like Publisher Discovery use AI to keep better hygiene and pull in new, unique traffic sources? We’ll have to wait and see.”
—Matt Miltenberger, Head of Sales, East Coast

Brand-to-Brand “Barter Marketing”

We see plenty of pairing up in brands’ futures for 2024. By partnering to promote each other to their respective audiences, brands that barter can save money and access new markets that are a solid fit. And once a relationship proves successful, there’s no telling how far it could take both brands.

“I predict that brand bartering will become more of a mainstream partnership type this year. With costs rising across the board, brands can explore promoting non-competitive brands with similar demographics by essentially ‘trading’ placements, for example, on each other’s email newsletter list.”
—Dan Buontempone, Business Development Specialist

Influencers and Creators Catch Fire

Influencers are still a hot trend after rising in popularity over the last several years. Content creators and social influencers, especially those with small but engaged followings, are proving just how valuable they can be for brands trying to cut through the noise. And yet, many advertisers are still confused on the best ways to attract and reward them.

Luckily, we’ve got just the thing to help: our newest e-book, Influencer-Affiliate Blueprint: Building High-ROI Creator Communities. Created in partnership with growth agency ZeroTo1, it’s a guide on why and how to add influencers to an affiliate program. Download it here to learn how to create your own community of brand ambassadors.

“The rise of creator-affiliate and influencer-affiliate programs as a brand’s foundational channel. Influencer-affiliate is a wellspring that can feed most other channel marketing efforts, all while spinning off new revenue streams.”
—Meredith Singer, VP, Marketing & Operations at ZeroTo1

Customer Experience Will Evolve

In addition to incorporating AI tools into their customer service platforms, brands in 2024 are changing the way they interact with customers by meeting them where they are: in their chosen communities. Social platforms like Reddit and TikTok are thriving thanks to the self-made niche communities found there, where like-minded users gather for advice, entertainment, and authentic connections. Smart brands are joining and participating in these communities to engage with their users — not to sell to them.

Accurate Data for Optimization

Without optimization, there can be no improvement. And without accurate data, there can be no optimization. We’ve heard recently from some marketers and partners who are starting to distrust the accuracy of their data on traditional platforms. Whether this is a result of changes to how web browsers collect and report data, like GA4’s transition to data-driven attribution, or because traditional platforms tend to move slower when it comes to advanced tracking methodologies, remains to be seen. Either way, having access to accurate, reliable data remains top of mind for marketers in 2024 (as it should).

“Right now, everyone is focused on optimizing resources and excluding unnecessary costs. Thus, I foresee marketers optimizing their programs in 2024: cleaning up, keeping only highly performing partners and influencers, and focusing on Tier 1 markets.”
—Iana Starostovich, Head of Customer Success, EMEA

Privacy and First-Party Data

Speaking of accurate data … first-party data and privacy-centric practices are no longer optional for marketers in the performance space. It’s the way of the future, period. We’ve already seen efforts around SEO make a big comeback in 2024 thanks to AI and the proliferation of sub-par content splashed across the web. Any business that doesn’t make an honest effort at upholding consumers’ privacy and security while they look to improve their digital presence won’t be in business for long.

What’s Next

Whatever the rest of the year has in store, we’re betting that the trends and topics above stay in regular rotation. Good luck!

If you’re looking for new ways to scale your program while maintaining a strategic edge, we have news for you: the TUNE Marketplace is now open to all customers! Read about what makes our marketplace different from the rest in this blog post, or check out our website for more information on partnering through TUNE.