Influencer marketing

Influencer marketing is a digital marketing strategy in which companies collaborate with influential people on social media to promote their products or services.

These influencers are content creators with a loyal and large audience on platforms like Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Twitter (X), or other networks.

The central idea is to leverage the trust and credibility the influencer has built with their followers: when a well-known figure recommends a brand, their followers tend to pay more attention and trust that recommendation much more than a traditional ad.

In practice, influencer marketing can take many forms.

For example, a brand might send a free product to an influencer to try and feature in their posts, pay for a sponsored mention where the influencer promotes the brand, or even build a long-term relationship by making them a brand ambassador.

In return, the brand gains visibility among the influencer’s audience and aims to generate engagement (interactions) and conversions (such as visits, sign-ups, or sales).

It is a less intrusive form of advertising since the content is organically integrated into the influencer’s style and the trust already established with their community.

Benefits of Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing has become enormously popular in recent years because it offers several clear benefits:

· Targeted reach:

It allows brands to reach specific audiences based on the influencer’s niche.

For example, if a company sells sports equipment, it can collaborate with a fitness influencer to reach people interested in exercise and health.

This ensures that the message is shown to a relevant audience with a high probability of genuine interest.

· Increased audience trust:

Influencer recommendations are often perceived as more authentic than traditional advertising.

Followers trust the opinions of the creators they follow.

If a trusted influencer recommends a product, their followers are more likely to take it seriously and consider trying it.

This borrowed credibility from the influencer can enhance the brand’s image and boost purchase intent.

· Engagement and virality:

Content published by influencers often generates a lot of interaction (comments, likes, shares).

A strong post from an influencer can spark conversations about the brand and even go viral, expanding its reach beyond the original audience.

Moreover, content created by influencers is often creative and engaging, which helps grab attention in an information-saturated ecosystem.

· Measurable results and ROI:

Unlike other purely visual branding strategies, influencer marketing makes it relatively easy to measure results.

Brands can provide each influencer with unique discount codes or tracking links (UTM) to monitor how many sales or visits result from their promotion.

This way, the company can calculate the return on investment (ROI) for each collaboration.

When executed correctly, influencer marketing can generate positive ROI by acquiring customers at a lower cost than other forms of digital advertising.

· Brand audience growth:

Beyond immediate sales, working with influencers helps increase long-term brand visibility.

Many users may discover a company for the first time thanks to an influencer.

Even if they don’t buy right away, they now know the brand and may follow it on social media or other platforms, expanding the company’s own community.

An indicator of the rise and importance of this strategy is the advertising investment allocated to it.

According to IAB Spain, investment in influencer marketing in Spain grew by 59% during 2024, reaching 125.9 million euros.

This upward trend confirms that brands are finding influencers to be one of the most effective ways to connect with today’s digital audiences.

Types of Influencers and Their Reach

Not all influencers are the same or have the same type of audience.

In influencer marketing, a common classification is based on the number of followers and their reach, for example:

· Nano-influencers:

These are the most modest profiles, with small communities (ranging from a few thousand to about 10,000 followers).

Although their audience is smaller, it is usually very specialized and engaged.

Nano-influencers can have very high engagement rates and a closer relationship with their followers, giving them authenticity.

· Micro-influencers:

This category includes those with approximately 10,000 to 100,000 followers.

They focus on specific niches (such as sustainable fashion, vegan cooking, or personal development) and offer a balanced mix of moderate reach and strong engagement.

Brands often collaborate with micro-influencers because they offer a good cost/benefit ratio: their rates are more affordable than those of celebrities, yet they still reach a significant and loyal audience.

· Macro-influencers:

These are creators with large audiences, typically between 100,000 and 1 million followers.

Their content usually has massive reach within their sector.

Collaborating with macro-influencers helps brands reach a broad and diverse audience. However, because their followings are so large, their engagement rate may be lower than that of smaller profiles, and the cost of collaboration is typically higher.

· Mega-influencers or celebrities:

This refers to individuals with over one million followers, including nationally or internationally recognized celebrities.

They have massive reach, allowing a message to be seen by millions.

Their involvement in campaigns can create significant media impact.

However, working with them typically requires a very high budget, and their recommendations may seem more commercial—since they partner with many brands—making it challenging to maintain authenticity.

When choosing the type of influencer for a campaign, brands must consider both reach and affinity with the target audience.

Sometimes a combined strategy works well: for example, hiring a couple of highly specialized micro-influencers for a niche audience and simultaneously a macro-influencer to gain general awareness.

What’s important is that the influencer’s profile matches the brand’s values and the message it wants to convey.

How to Create an Effective Influencer Marketing Strategy

Implementing influencer marketing requires planning.

These are some steps and best practices to develop an effective strategy:

· Define clear objectives:

First, the company must be clear about what it wants to achieve with the influencer campaign.

• Raise brand awareness?
• Get more app downloads?
• Drive sales of a specific product?

Setting clear goals (such as reaching a specific number of sales, clicks, or new followers) helps shape the overall plan and makes it easier to measure success later.

· Identify the right influencers:

Once the objectives and target audience are set, you must find influencers who match the brand.

Here it’s crucial to analyze several aspects:

• Relevance: the influencer’s content should align with the company’s industry or core values. For example, a beauty influencer to promote cosmetics or a travel influencer for a luggage brand.
• Audience: review their audience data (age, location, interests) to ensure it matches the desired target.
• Engagement: it’s not just about how many followers they have, but how many interact. A profile with 50,000 followers but few likes or comments on each post could indicate inactive or even fake followers. A smaller influencer with a truly active community is preferable.
• Authenticity: review how they’ve handled previous collaborations. A good influencer maintains their style and sincerity even when doing ads, which gives them credibility. If all posts on their profile seem like impersonal ads, their actual influence may be lower.

· Establish contact and collaboration:

After selecting the ideal candidates, it’s time to propose collaboration.

Many brands reach out to the influencer directly (through DM or the email listed in their bio) or contact their agent or agency if applicable.

The first contact should be clear and personalized: mention why you want to collaborate with them specifically and what you offer in return (monetary payment, commission, gifts, etc.).

Once the influencer expresses interest, the details are negotiated:

• Collaboration format: this could include an Instagram post, a series of stories, a YouTube video, a TikTok, a blog article, a live stream, and more.
• Key messages: share information about the product or service and highlight key points, but allow the influencer creative freedom to present it in their own style. It’s important not to suppress their style, because their personal style is what resonates with the audience.
• Campaign duration: whether it will be a one-time thing (a single post) or a longer campaign (multiple mentions over weeks or months).
• Legal aspects: in many countries, including Spain, sponsored content must be clearly labeled (e.g., using hashtags like #ad or #collaboration). Both parties must agree to comply with these transparency rules.
• Monitor content execution: during the campaign, the brand may request to review content before it’s published to ensure key info is correct (e.g., links or discount codes work, product descriptions are accurate). Still, avoid interfering too much in the creative process. Remember, the influencer knows their audience and how to communicate authentically; too many restrictions can make content feel forced.
• Measure results and build the relationship: once sponsored posts go live, it’s crucial to measure results against initial goals. You should analyze metrics like post reach, number of interactions (likes, comments, shares), traffic to the brand’s website (e.g., tracked with Google Analytics using UTM links), and most importantly, conversions (sales, sign-ups, downloads, etc. driven by the influencer). This data helps assess campaign effectiveness and ROI. If the collaboration was successful, maintaining the relationship with the influencer can be beneficial. A satisfied influencer aligned with the brand may collaborate again and even become a long-term ambassador. Long-term relationships are often perceived as even more authentic than one-off mentions.
• Adjust and learn: every influencer campaign offers lessons. Some influencers may work better than others, or certain messages may resonate more with the audience. It’s important to note what worked and what didn’t to refine future strategies. The digital landscape evolves quickly—trends, algorithms, and audience preferences—so a mindset of ongoing testing and improvement is key to staying relevant.

Influencer Marketing and Email Marketing: How Do They Work Together?

Although influencer marketing is mainly developed on social media, it doesn’t have to be isolated from the rest of your digital strategy.

In fact, combining it with other tactics can enhance results, and this is where email marketing plays a key role. Imagine an influencer campaign drives many users to visit your website or a promotional landing page.

It’s the perfect opportunity to turn that visit into a more permanent contact: you can invite those users to subscribe to your newsletter or mailing list in exchange for an incentive (special discount, exclusive content, etc.).

In this way, followers attracted by the influencer become part of your own email marketing database.

Once you have those potential clients’ emails, the influencer’s work is complemented by well-segmented email marketing campaigns.

For example, you can send a welcome email mentioning they arrived thanks to influencer X’s recommendation, offer more useful product info, and continue building the relationship with valuable content.

In the long term, email marketing will nurture those leads: keep communicating with them, share new offers, educate them about your product or service, and ultimately guide them to final conversion and loyalty.

On the other hand, content generated by influencers can also be reused in emails.

If an influencer creates a tutorial video or a positive review, you can embed that video or quote their words in your newsletter, providing social proof to your existing subscribers.

This reinforces potential clients’ trust from multiple angles: they see the recommendation on social media and then receive it in their inbox.

In summary, combining influencer marketing with email marketing (using tools like Mailrelay to manage bulk email campaigns) helps maximize the impact of both strategies.

Influencers give you reach and initial credibility, while email marketing allows personalized follow-up and sustained public interest over the long term.

Conclusion

Influencer marketing has become a key pillar of modern digital marketing.

Its ability to connect brands with audiences in a genuine and relatable way makes it especially powerful in an era where consumers value authenticity.

However, like any strategy, it requires thoughtful partner selection, clear objectives, and ongoing measurement to optimize results. When executed properly, it can drive highly targeted organic traffic, boost sales, and enhance brand image.

Ultimately, influencer marketing doesn’t replace other tactics — it complements them.

When paired with strategies like quality web content, traditional digital advertising, and email marketing, it can form part of a complete marketing funnel: attracting new users, converting them into customers, and building long-term loyalty.