Scaling an eCommerce brand can feel overwhelming, but partnership ads on Instagram and TikTok offer a growth shortcut. These ads feature influencers endorsing your product directly to their engaged follower base.
Unlike regular ads, partnership ads come with built-in social proof as followers see the influencer organically recommending your product. Additionally, businesses can collaborate with influencers to make TikTok video that showcase their products in an authentic and engaging way, further boosting visibility and conversions.
For eCommerce brands, partnership ads provide a powerful new customer acquisition model perfect for accelerated growth. Let’s explore how to make these ads work for your business.
When Should You Consider Them
Partnership ads are extremely versatile and can support a variety of growth goals. Here are some of the top use cases to consider:
Reaching New Audiences
Influencer audiences don’t fully overlap with your own followers and customers. Partnership ads give you immediate exposure to new demographics and interests outside your current reach, expanding your targeting.
Encouraging Repeat Purchases
Loyal customers see your product endorsed by someone they follow and trust. This social proof reminds them of your brand and may lead them to purchase again.
Improving Brand Awareness
Getting your product in front of new eyes organically through influencer content raises brand awareness. Their endorsement also boosts credibility.
Scaling Beyond Current Ad Capabilities
Partnership ads expand your ad delivery capabilities by leveraging influencer follower bases and engagement. Their established authority drives better results.
Identifying the Right Influencer Partners
Choosing the right influencers to partner with is crucial for success. Consider these factors when vetting potential partners:
Follower Demographics and Engagement Rates
Prioritize influencers whose followers match your target customer demographic and have high engagement rates. This ensures your ads reach qualified audiences actively seeing content.
Content Style and Positioning
Look for influencers whose content style and brand positioning complements your product. Their content should make sense as a natural fit.
Compensation Expectations
Discuss compensation expectations early and ensure they align with your budget. Typical options include free product, commission, flat fee per post, or ongoing sponsorship.
Cross-Referencing Interests and Values
The best partnerships form when interests and values overlap. An influencer who genuinely knows and likes your product will convey authenticity to their followers.
Local vs International Influencers
Assess if you want to focus on national or international growth. Local influencers can drive regional results, while international ones expand reach.
How to Set up Partnership Ads on Instagram
Step 1: Partner with an Instagram Creator
- Reach out to creators that align with your brand and have an engaged, relevant audience.
- Formalize a partnership agreement. This grants permission to promote their content.
- Have the creator generate a unique partnership ad code to provide you.
Step 2: Create a New Ad in Ads Manager
- In Ads Manager, click “+ Create” and select your campaign objective.
- Choose budget, schedule, placements, and audience targeting.
- Under “Assets” select “Partnership” as the format.
Step 3: Configure the Partnership Ad Settings
- Toggle on “Partnership Ad”.
- If you have a code, enter it which will auto-populate the identities.
- If no code, manually select your brand identity and creator’s handle.
- Reorder identities if needed by dragging and dropping.
Step 4: Select Content and Configure Ad Details
- Pick existing creator content to promote or upload new creative.
- Add a call-to-action and destination URL.
- Input any necessary captions or overlays.
Step 5: Review and Publish Partnership Ad
- Review ad preview and settings.
- Once approved, the ad will go live and comments can be managed.
- Track performance data in Ads Manager to optimize.
How to Set up Partnership Ads on TikTok
Step 1: Partner with a TikTok Creator
- Identify relevant creators that align with your brand and have an engaged audience.
- Contact them and negotiate an agreement to promote their content.
- Ensure you have permission to use their content for paid advertising.
Step 2: Create a New Ad Campaign
- In Ads Manager, click “Create” and select the “Branded Content” ad format.
- Choose your campaign objective – video views, traffic, conversions, etc.
Step 3: Set Up Targeting
- Target your ad based on your ideal audience’s demographics, interests, behaviors.
- Refine targeting to reach those most likely to engage.
Step 4: Configure the Ad Creative
- Select the creator’s content you want to promote as the ad creative.
- Make sure to disclose by adding your brand handle in video caption.
- Add a compelling overlay/caption to reinforce your branding.
Step 5: Set Budget, Schedule, Placements
- Define your daily budget and set campaign schedule.
- Choose placements – TikTok feeds, profiles, hashtags, etc.
Step 6: Review and Publish Partnership Ad
- Confirm content disclosure is enabled on the original video.
- Review final ad preview and settings.
- Publish your partnership ad.
- Track performance in Ads Manager.
Campaign Structuring Strategies
Setting objectives and key results
Define specific quantitative goals for what you want to achieve from the campaign such as sales, customer acquisition, reach, and other relevant KPIs. If seasonality is a factor, set appropriate objectives tied to quarters. Implement robust tracking using UTM tags, unique promo codes, and trackable links so you can accurately measure performance against your goals.
Optimizing creative content and messaging
Give the influencer product samples and demos so they can authentically experience it firsthand. Schedule an explainer call to collaborate on integrated content ideas and creative direction. Provide suggestions for social copy, slogans, graphics that align with their brand voice and content style. Encourage them to highlight the unique features and benefits they experience in their own words.
Developing customized promotional offers
Build a customized coupon code or discount tied to each influencer to track sales from their audience. Create special gated landing pages, deals, or giveaways exclusive to an influencer’s followers. Offer tiered discounts or savings to incentivize their audience to purchase.
Leveraging episodic content and longitudinal partnerships
Propose multiple integrated content pieces such as an ongoing video review series or recurring brand feature. Aim for consistent partnership over months rather than one-off, with new samples and check-ins to reinforce the relationship. Look for creative opportunities to organically integrate or mention your brand across episodes.
Measuring Performance and ROI
Use unique promo codes and trackable links for each influencer partnership to directly connect resulting sales and conversions back to them. Calculate revenue, conversion rate, CPA, ROAS and other metrics attributable to each one. Compare to your baseline numbers without influencer marketing to quantify impact.
Look at website traffic, follower count, social engagement before and during campaigns to measure increases in brand awareness and audience reach in percentage terms. Monitor search volume and brand mentions to evaluate expanding awareness.
Pull engagement analytics like clicks, comments, shares and likes on content featuring your brand. Conduct sentiment analysis on comments to quantify positive, negative and neutral feedback.
Use UTMs and analytics modeling to examine attribution across influencers throughout the customer journey. Account for multi-touch points with first vs. last touch attribution to understand impact across touchpoints.
Optimization Best Practices
Iterative Creative Testing
Continually testing new creative, copy, CTAs, and messaging with your influencer partners is crucial for optimization. By tracking performance data across iterations, you can gain insights into what types of content and messaging resonates most with their audience. This allows you to refine your approach over time.
Work closely with partners to brainstorm new content formats, review products, integrations, or campaigns to test. Have them try different review styles, tutorials, comparisons, or other creative content. Track engagement, conversions, and sentiment across these tests.
Expanding Influencer Partnerships
Expanding your network of influencer partnerships over time by bringing on others in your niche also optimizes results. You diversify your reach across new follower demographics, interests, and content formats.
Look for opportunities to amplify various aspects of your brand story by collaborating with different types of partners. Target influencers creating content aligned with your brand values and persona.
Adjusting Partnership Terms
Assessing compensation models and renegotiating partnership terms over time is another optimization strategy. Evaluate performance data and influencer value to determine the appropriate compensation structure.
For example, increase commission rates for influencers driving strong results. Or offer bonus incentives for achieving certain KPI thresholds. Adjusting terms incentivizes high performance.
Dos and Don’ts
Avoid partnership mistakes like sole reliance on one influencer – build a diverse network to expand reach. Vague agreements lead to confusion, so ensure clear expectations and measurable goals in contracts. Don’t overcommit compensation without performance clauses tying payment to results. Neglecting asset and support provision hampers influencer creativity.
Compliance considerations matter. Proper FTC disclosure guidelines must be followed in every post. Have influencers indicate paid partnership using natural language. Comply with all platform policies regulating branded content.
Creating win-win partnerships requires going beyond transactions. Offer reasonable compensation and valuable exposure/resources. Genuine connections stem from collaborating, providing feedback, and brainstorming ideas together. Structure terms benefiting both parties – fair pay, creative input, exclusive access.
Conclusion
Influencer partnerships provide immense scalability for ecommerce brands looking to expand their reach and sales. The proven benefits span from driving discovery to consideration and ultimately conversions.
Getting started simply requires identifying relevant partners, structuring win-win agreements, creatively integrating content, tracking performance, and optimizing over time.
Activate these collaborations and watch your ecommerce brand thrive beyond its limits through the power of influencer marketing.
