With 90% of influencer marketers currently running gifting programs (and the last 10% planning to start one soon), it’s clear that gifting programs are highly effective for brand awareness, sales generation, and relationship building with new influencer partners. 

And ecommerce brands have taken note. 

We set out to find out exactly how 31 influencer marketers were running their influencer gifting programs, how they recruit new influencers for those programs, and the biggest challenges in gifting. 

Here’s a sneak peek of what we found:

• The most common goal for gifting campaigns was increasing brand awareness.
• Barter deals for deliverables are twice as common as a “no-strings attached” approach
• If your goal is sales-focused, you’ll want to let influencers choose from a curated list of products. This is the sweet spot between delighting your influencer and guiding them towards products that make sense for your campaign. 
• The top three highest rated gifting challenges all centered around outreach for gifting campaigns – followed by ghosting, which nearly 60% of respondents mentioned. 
• The top way marketers are improving their influencer gifting campaigns is by focusing on relationship-building with their creators. 

Why do brands do gifting?

First off, we asked influencer marketers why they’re doing gifting in the first place. What’s the primary goal?

• 48.4% said brand awareness
• 25.8% said direct sales
• 16.1% said to start new relationships
• 9.7% said to get content for paid ads

The best part of gifting campaigns is that no matter what your biggest goal is, a lot of these other goals can be achieved in tandem. 

How gifting campaigns are managed

We wanted to know how often influencer marketers implement contracts for their gifting campaigns.

Do influencer marketers create contracts for gifted campaigns?

• 35.3% of influencer marketers said they don’t create contracts for gifting
• 41.2% said they have a written agreement via email, but no contract
• 17.6% said they implement a contract every time
• 5.9% said it depends 

Abdullah Khan elaborated that it ultimately depends on whether or not it’s a paid collaboration.

Abdullah Khan

Influencer Marketing Manager

Generally, I don't create signed contracts for gifted collaborations because, in gifting, we are not offering a monetary fee to influencers for creating content and featuring our brand on their channels.

He continued, highlighting that he wants to make the process easy for the creators he works with – he outlines all the requirements when the deal is negotiated so everyone is on the same page.

If you’re creating contracts for your gifted collaborations, you might be able to save yourself some time and friction by opting for a written agreement via email. If the collaboration value is low, and there aren’t any unusual conditions at play, it might not be worth it to write up a contract at all.

However – be sure that if you don’t opt for a contract, you’re comfortable losing the product value that you gift those influencers with no ROI. If your products have a higher price point, or if you’re gifting a lot of products, protect yourself.

How often do gifting collaborations turn into paid collaborations?

A contract makes sense for paid collaborations – and we wondered how many gifting campaigns actually ended up turning into longer-term paid partnerships.

As it turns out, it’s not as often as we would have thought.

Over a third (35.3%) of marketers polled said fewer than 10% of gifted collaborations turned into paid partnerships:

• 16.1% said 11-25% turned into paid collaboration
• 25.8% said it was 26-50%
• 19.4% said that they never do this.

This question has a lot of dependant variables:

• How many gifted collaborations you run per month
• Campaign goals and objectives
• The quality of the influencers and partnerships
• The quality and brand fit of your products for influencers

The big takeaway is that it really depends on the brand, campaign, and influencer in question. Sometimes, gifting campaigns can be a gateway into longer-term paid collaboration – but only if that’s something you’re looking to get out of it.

If you find an influencer who is an especially good brand fit, it’s definitely worth it to try to turn a gifting collaboration into paid partnerships or affiliate relationships. This is a great way to transform a creator into a brand ambassador – and as they grow, so will the audience getting to hear all the great things they have to say about your brand.

Barter deals vs no-strings attached: What do influencer marketers prefer?

We also wanted to know whether or not brands put a formal agreement in place. Did they offer the products in exchange for specific deliverables, like posts, reels, or stories? Or did they offer their gifted products with no strings attached, and hoped that the creator would create content around them organically?

• 54.8% asked for specific deliverables
• 22.6% gifted with no strings attached
• 22.6% said it depends

For Megan Wilson, the answer ultimately depends on brand alignment. She said she’s more likely to agree with no-strings attached if a creator embodies their brand.

Megan Wilson

Influencer and Affiliate Marketing Executive Trtl Travel

“We usually wouldn't offer a 'no-strings attached' [product], but if a creator reaches out to us who aligns really well on brand, then we're happy to gift the product so they can try it out, see what they think and take it on their travels with them (we are a travel accessory brand) and we find that majority of the time they post about the product organically.”

According to Victor Wiśniowski, a no-strings attached approach helps open the door for more targeted gifting opportunities down the road. 

Victor Wiśniowski

Influencer Marketing Specialist, Amerpharma

It all depends on the product and the influencer. For most first-time gifting, we go for a “no-strings attached” approach, but as we build a relationship with the creator, we’ll ask for some specific deliverables that are in line with our brand content strategy.

Cheyanne Pettyjohn said that gifting products to influencers “no-strings attached” could actually help a brand access influencers that might be outside of their normal budget. 

Cheyanne Pettyjohn

Director of Influencer Marketing, Rookie Wellness

Depending on the existing relationship we have with those influencers, or if we know they are usually out of our partnership budget, we will offer ‘no-strings-attached’ gifting opportunities to try our products.

For other ecommerce brands, marketers said that the expectation of deliverables (or not) ultimately depends on the specific goals of the campaign. 

Senith Berhane explained:

Senith Berhane

Influencer & Content Marketing Manager, We Are Brands

If I want to build relationships and hope for some organic buzz, sending out products with no pressure can be great. It's like planting seeds and seeing what grows naturally. Plus, I get valuable feedback on how people feel about the products.

She also mentioned that if she’s got a new product to promote or specific goals to hit, she might ask for posts or videos in return. According to her, having control over the messaging and tracking how the campaign performs is the most important thing in that situation. 

Senith Berhane

Influencer & Content Marketing Manager, We Are Brands

It really depends on whether I want to nurture relationships or go for a targeted marketing punch.

Keep this question in mind – I’ll be circling back to it very soon. 

How many influencers actually accept gifted products (and how many actually post)?

We asked brands what percentage of influencers accepted gifted collaboration:

• 4% said it was under 10%
• 21.7% said between 11-30%
• 17.3% said between 31-50%
• 30.4% said between 51-70%
• 17.3% said it was over 71%
• 8.6% said they didn’t do outbound outreach for gifted campaigns

Outreach is a hot topic in influencer gifting. And mileage may vary depending on any number of factors. 

An influencer might not accept gifted collaboration: 

Seeing if an influencer has ever posted about gifted products in the past before reaching out is a great way to mitigate this. It saves everyone’s time! For some influencers, they’re not particularly interested in gifted products as much as they’re interested in paid promotion. 

Another great way to potentially get around this is through finding influencers that already love your brand. Your fans will be much more receptive to getting free products, and much more likely to shout about how great your products are at every opportunity they have. 

Cheyanne Pettyjohn said that one thing she’s been doing to improve her influencer gifting campaigns is to go for “warm leads.”

Cheyanne Pettyjohn

Director of Influencer Marketing, Rookie Wellness

We’re gifting to influencers we have already had a touch point with – whether that be they follow our page, we have commented on their content before, or have seen them engage with content from an influencer promoting our products.

‍Influencers just aren’t responding: 

Be more intentional with your outreach. Is this influencer really the right fit for your brand? Have they done collaborations in the past?

Are you engaging in good outreach practices? Outreach is very much an art (and kind of a science): 

• Being ultra clear about what you’re offering in the subject line helps get those emails opened in the first place. Test out different punchy hooks to grab attention. 
• Be clear and concise about what you want, and personalize the message. Mention things like what you like about their content, how they make a great fit for your brand, and what you hope to achieve together.
• Testing different templates (that you should absolutely be personalizing) and subject lines can help show you what’s working or not. 

Nicole Ampo agreed, explaining how being more intentional about which creators they contacted made all the difference. 

Nicole Ampo

Influencer Marketing Manager, American Hat Makers

Two things that improved our programme for gifted collaborations: 1. Scout specific influencers: Scouting influencers that create content that aligns with the brand really makes a difference. 2. Be very specific, direct, and open in your outreach message: this helps lessen confusion and the back-and-forth conversations between you and the influencer.

At what rate did influencers post content after being gifted products?

We also asked marketers to report on their success in actually getting the influencer to post content around the products they were gifted. 

• 13.6% said between 11-30%
• 18.2% said between 31-50%
• 36.4% said between 51-70%
• 31.8% said more than 71%

With numbers all over the board like this, we decided to compare these data points. 

While those who wanted specific deliverables for their gifted products had a harder time getting influencers to accept the gifted products, they had the best success rate for actually getting influencers to post content. 

Marketers asking for specific deliverables

• Had a 31% acceptance rate 
• But a 61% post rate

While marketers gifting “no-strings attached”:

• Had a much higher acceptance rate at 57%
• And a comparable post rate at 59%

You might be wondering if it’s worth it to ask for specific deliverables since the difference in actual post rate was only about 2% on average. However, those who are gifting products without post expectations are gifting double the products for a similar post-rate.

If your marketing goal is to build relationships with these influencers, and the posts are a bonus, this might not make much of a difference to you. But if you really want the posts from your gifting campaigns, ask for them.  

Barter deals: This is the way to go if you need to get content out quickly or consistently. 

• Target smaller profiles – they’ll be more likely to post in exchange for content – especially if they already know and appreciate your brand. 
• You have more control over the timeline and posting schedule, plus creative input and the ability to ask for hashtags/tags
• The acceptance rate might be lower, but you’ll lose less product overall, and have much higher posting consistency. 

No-strings attached: This is a great strategy for relationship-building and authentic content. 

• You’ll have to be okay with having less control over when/if the creator actually posts content. 
• This strategy can work with profiles of all sizes – including larger influencers who might be otherwise out of your budget.
• The content posted from this method will likely be much more authentic. However, it will be harder to track as they might not add tags/hashtags
• You’ll have a much higher acceptance rate, but there is no guarantee that your influencer will post. 

How marketers determine which products influencers are gifted

Another big question we had was centered around exactly what products were gifted to influencers. Was it a specific product the marketer wanted to promote? Or did they let the influencer choose, either from a specific range of products or from the entire catalog?

The results were pretty evenly split. 

Offering from a limited range of a brand’s product catalog

It turns out that giving the freedom of choice, but limiting the range was the sweet spot for many brands – a third saying that influencers could choose from part of their catalog. 

So we asked marketers to explain that choice. Michael Todner stated that his gifting programs were just part of a larger campaign focusing on generating content around certain products. 

Michael Todner

Influencer Marketing, Gear4music

I feel offering influencers a choice that best suits their needs will often lead to them producing said content.

Alycia Lykins, Influencer Marketing Manager at Trixxi Clothing, agreed with Michael, saying that it makes more sense for them to offer a limited selection as they have a particular campaign or sale they’re running. 

For some marketers, it was more of a question of logistics. According to Gabija Jankauskė, working in a smaller, slow-fashion business means she has to follow up on stock. 

Influencers can choose any product they like

For others, it made the most sense to let an influencer choose a product from their entire catalog. One marketer even said that it gives the influencer more motivation to sell the product that they liked the best. Brenna Clay agreed:

Brenna Clay

Digital Marketing Specialist, Chaco Footwear

They each have their own style! We want them to showcase what actually works with their lifestyle: something they genuinely use and love to their followers.

Miroslava Petkova added:

Miroslava Petkova

Regional Influencer Marketing Manager, COCOSOLIS

Because when you're not including them in a specific product campaign, gifting is about letting the influencer try your products and have the freedom to decide which product would fit them best.

Dragos Sebastian said it was about cultivating authenticity. 

Dragos Sebastian

Influencer Marketing and Affiliate Specialist, Ana Luisa Jewelry

Letting the influencer pick an item or more from the whole catalog makes them more enthusiastic in the deliverables, thus creating content that their audience trusts easier.

Offering a specific product for influencer gifting

For other marketers, it makes more sense to reach out to an influencer with a product already in-mind. 

Dana Bilodedenko is one such marketer. She mentioned that her company manages a diverse range of products. For her, influencer marketing doesn’t exist in a vacuum, but is tied to the campaigns they have running. Instead, they focus on personalizing the gifting offer to the influencer they’re reaching out to. 

Dana Bilodedenko

Influencer Marketing Manager, DRESSX

We meticulously align influencers with our campaign objectives, product specifics, and the desired target demographic. Each influencer receives a tailored proposal that reflects their interests and the thematic focus of their platform. This personalized approach ensures that posts resonate authentically with both the influencer and their audience, maintaining integrity throughout.

Other brands had better luck focusing on best-sellers – and some marketers chose to focus on the products their customers were most likely to love. According to Matheus Ribero:

Matheus Ribeiro

Influencer Marketing Coordinator, Cia. Hering

The main reason influencers have product limitations is because we send best-selling items, with a greater probability of sales and successful partnerships.

And then some brands decided to center their gifting campaigns around new product launches – at least, that’s the case for Sydney Gavrielov, Influencer Marketing Manager at AC Infinity. She mentioned that influencer gifting was part of product launches for AC Infinity 95% of the time. 

A mix-and-match method

Another 13.8% of marketers chose a combined approach where it made sense. Joshita Dodani, for example, highlighted an approach tailored to the goals of her campaign. 

Joshita Dodani

Head of Social Media and Influencer Partnerships, DigiOrange

For general gifting we provide an entire catalog to influencers. For new launches we tend to provide specific products.

“For general gifting we provide an entire catalog to influencers. For new launches we tend to provide specific products.”

It boils down to:

• For brand awareness/relationship building: Letting influencers pick from your entire inventory means they’ll probably be more likely to post. But they might pick something you know doesn’t sell especially well. 
• For maximum sales via codes/links: Letting influencers pick from a curated selection of your products means you can prevent them from choosing the products you know aren’t as popular, while still giving them the freedom to choose something they can create content around authentically. 
• For specific, targeted campaigns: Offer a specific product to your influencer. You might get fewer accepted products (and potentially a lower posting rate), but you have more control over the campaign. 

I don’t think there’s a right answer here – how you let influencers choose their products (or not) comes with advantages and disadvantages and it ultimately depends on what makes the most sense for your brand, products, and goals. 

The biggest challenges marketers face with influencer gifting programs

Running a successful gifting program is far from easy – there are a lot of moving parts that marketers have to keep on top of. We created a list of potential scenarios and asked marketers to rank the scenarios from the most challenging to the least. 

These first three challenges tend to fall into the general umbrella of influencer outreach. Picture this: you find the perfect influencer for your new campaign, and you send them an email. They either:

• Don’t respond at all
• Respond and tell you they’re only open to paid promotion

Sound familiar? These marketers thought so too. 

Challenge: It’s hard to get outreach replies for gifted collaborations/I don’t know if an influencer is open to gifted collaborations until I reach out.

• Spend more time vetting your influencers: Start with the people who already know and love your products. You’re much more likely to get a response from people who are already fans! Go smaller – it’s okay if an influencer has a smaller, but more attentive audience. 
• Review your offer: Is what you’re offering attractive and interesting to a potential influencer? Especially for unpaid gifting campaigns, is the trade-off of content for product worth it for them?
• Personalize your emails: We recommend using a template to speed things up a little, but it’s pivotal that the influencer understands that this email was written especially for them. Make them feel special. Tell them what you love about their content, and why you want to work with them. It makes a huge difference. 

Challenge: The influencer content you’re getting isn’t at the quality you’d prefer.

• Spend more time on influencer selection: (yes, again) Sometimes, the easiest fix is to just spend more time vetting the influencers you reach out to. If the creator really loves your product, it’ll be easier for them to create engaging, authentic content. 
• Help brainstorm the angle: An influencer promoting your brand is a partner. Work with them to create the content that’s going to be a little different from your typical unboxing or GRWM (get ready with me). Be sure to maintain their creative freedom, but there’s no harm in a little guidance. 
• Delight and surprise: How can you overdeliver to make the gifting experience as incredible as possible? Korean makeup brand TIRTIR illustrated this concept by gifting creators who’d previously criticized their shade range with their brand new shades, showing their creators not only that they’re listening to feedback, but they care. It’s a great way to turn negative feedback into lifelong advocacy. 

Challenge: Influencers ghost after you ship the products.

We also asked marketers what challenges they come across that we didn’t think of. Many of our marketers were the most concerned with ghosting – 59.1% of marketers who responded mentioned influencers ghosting at some point throughout the process. 

• Follow up: Make sure the influencer received your products and that they arrived in good shape. Ask for honest feedback and opinions on your products. If you can, offer different variations (flavors, styles, colors, etc.). This might not eliminate ghosting, but following up can help nudge otherwise forgetful creators. 
• Set expectations early by agreeing on a timeline: You don’t necessarily have to have a contract for your gifting campaigns, but it’s always a good idea to agree on a timeline via email. 
• Will this lead to paid collaboration? If there’s scope to potentially end with paid collaboration, or long-term partnership, put it on the table. A creator will be much more likely to prioritize your collaboration over others if so. 

While those challenges were the most popular responses, marketers also offered a few other challenges they experienced. It seemed like getting influencers to stick to a timeline was a challenge for some.  

Nicole Ampo, mentioned that the hardest part for her was waiting on the content. 

Nicole Ampo

Influencer Marketing Manager, American Hat Makers

I started without asking for a due date, and I'd end up sending probably three follow-ups in a month or a few months. What helped me was giving the influencers a timeline on when we'd need the content.

How brands are tracking gifted campaigns (and are they working?)

We started by asking our influencer marketers how they were keeping track of the data from their gifted campaigns and the social posts published from them. 

Over 65.5% mentioned that they were using the old faithful: the spreadsheet. 

For 27.6% of marketers, using influencer marketing software like Modash is the go-to method for tracking their campaigns. 

That explained how marketers were tracking gifted campaigns, but what exactly were they tracking? We then asked our marketers what metrics matter the most to them. 

Most marketers mentioned engagement and/or sales in their responses. Many others mentioned reach and impressions as well. 

Lee Drysdale has a pretty nailed down process for tracking his gifted campaigns:

Lee Drysdale

Influencer Marketing Lead

I keep a daily coverage log of everyone that posts, which includes where they've posted along with likes, comments, views and saves along with engagement rates. Some of our gifted followers also receive discount codes/utm links which are also reported on.

Other marketers mentioned that tracking metrics around influencer gifting campaigns was a significant challenge for them. 

Ashlee Rawlings noted the manual work around tracking these campaigns. 

Ashlee Rawlings

Influencer Marketing Manager, Nu Trail

It can be difficult and time consuming to track the post rate, especially since most organic content from PR gifting comes from IG stories. It is also difficult to get a trusted metric for audience reach/impressions from gifted content.

Tracking Instagram Stories is always a challenge – as they disappear after a certain amount of time. For other marketers, it had more to do with not getting the proper tags on social media, and losing potential posts that an influencer made. 

• Stay on top of things: You have a lot of little parts to keep track of. Be sure you’re checking on your creators and their posts to get the most up-to-date metrics. 
• Ask your influencer for metrics: Your creators will have more access to their own metrics within the platform than you will from an exterior view. Asking for the total metrics from their posts can help you get accurate performance data. 
• Outsource part of the tracking to software: Influencer tracking software can do a lot of the heavy lifting if you’re still manually tracking data in spreadsheets – including temporary Instagram Stories. 

Marketers found that despite the challenges around gifting campaigns, they were overall ROI-positive for their brands. 

In fact, 80% of marketers we surveyed said influencer gifting was definitely ROI-positive, and the remaining 20% said that it wasn’t yet, but they thought it would be soon (we promise that those weren’t the only two answers).

And when we asked if marketers would continue their gifting initiatives, the response was an overwhelming yes. Over 83% of the marketers said that they expected to do at least the same amount of gifting, if not more. 

Modash pro-tip:

Many marketers are saying influencer gifting is ROI-positive, and the vast majority looking to maintain or even expand their gifting efforts: if you’re not already engaging in gifting collaborations, it’s probably time to start!

How brands are improving their gifting campaigns

Relationship building for better influencer gifting

For some marketers, it was about creating lasting relationships with their new influencer partners. Noor Ahmed expressed how important it is to foster those relationships. 

Noor Ahmed

Influencer Marketing and Partnerships Manager, Mad Kicks

Building relationships with these influencers will get you everything you want, be nice and kind. It helps me get discounted rates or extra content for free.

Gabija Jankauskė agreed: 

Gabija Jankauskė

Influencer Manager, Son de Flor

Don’t forget existing influencers and make a strong, friendly bond with them. A new influencer doesn't mean more sales or more engagement.

For Lee Drysdale, it’s important to start that relationship-building process from the initial outreach email. 

Lee Drysdale

Influencer Marketing Lead

I always like to keep outreach super personal and to the point. I always make it clear that there's no obligation to post in the initial couple of emails.

According to Senith, relationship building doesn’t end after the influencer posts content. She consistently looks for feedback from her influencers, treating them like partners equally invested in the success of the content. 

Senith Berhane

Influencer & Content Marketing Manager, We Are Brands

After gifting products, I actively seek comprehensive feedback from influencers regarding their audience's response and the overall impact of their posts. This feedback loop allows us to refine our strategies and optimize future collaborations effectively. These refinements have significantly enhanced the strategic alignment and effectiveness of our influencer gifting initiatives, fostering stronger brand connections and driving meaningful engagement with our target audience.

Focus on relationship-building, especially for gifted campaigns. This might be a creator's first touchpoint with your brand, and you want to make a good impression. If they’re someone who already loves your brand, you want to keep that love going. Not only should you be concerned with that relationship during the partnership, but afterwards as well. Keep that relationship warm after the collaboration is finished!

Taking care of your influencers

As with any great relationship, you have to be willing to give. As influencer gifting programs have become such a standard in the creator economy, you have to go the extra mile to impress your influencers. 

Lauren Roth reinforced this concept, saying that she actually makes time for engaging in an influencer’s organic posts on social media to support and keep that relationship warm, even after the collaboration is already done. 

Lauren Roth

Influencer Marketing Consultant

I always test different genres, follow up after influencers receive products, and engage with their content separate from content about our brand.

For Brenna Clay, it’s making sure that influencers always have an option to be compensated for their time and work. 

Brenna Clay

Digital Marketing Specialist, Chaco Footwear

I think it's beneficial to offer an affiliate program along with gifting. Gifting doesn't pay the influencer's bills, so it's important to reimburse them for their work when we can. Offering commission on sales generated from organic posts is a great way to show you're invested in building the brand/influencer partnership.

Sometimes, it’s as easy as just being a joy to work with. Michael Todner explained that he tries to make it as easy as possible to work with his brand. 

Michael Todner

Influencer Marketing, Gear4music

I try to make the whole process as easy and little lift for the influencers as possible. No heavy briefings or expectations. “We find content performs best when the relationship between ourselves and the influencer is genuine, and they have a real desire to share the product with their audience.

Spend more time selecting and vetting influencers

For other marketers, they improved their gifting campaigns by being more thorough about exactly which influencers they decided to work with. 

For Miroslava Petkova, it was about letting things happen organically.

Miroslava Petkova

Regional Influencer Marketing Manager, COCOSOLIS

Pick genuine influencers who appreciate and like to review the products that they receive. Don't be pushy, if the influencer likes the product, he'll make sure the needed recognition is given.

Cheyanne Pettyjohn agreed, mentioning the importance of starting off from a “warm lead” so to speak. 

Cheyanne Pettyjohn

Director of Influencer Marketing, Rookie Wellness

We gift to influencers we have already had a touch point with: whether they follow our page, we have commented on their content before, or have seen them engage with content from an influencer promoting our products. We then have a communication sequence set in place after the influencer has received the product so we don't lose our momentum with them and turn the gifting into a relationship.

Senith Berhane outlined exactly what she does to properly vet the influencers she works with – prioritizing audience demographics in lieu of hard follower-counts. 

Senith Berhane

Influencer and Content Marketing Manager, We Are Brands

One of the key improvements I've implemented in our influencer gifting program is a more rigorous selection process based on alignment with our brand values and target audience. Instead of solely focusing on follower counts, I prioritize influencers whose audience demographics and interests closely match our ideal customer profile.

For Abdullah Khan, like Senith, it was about prioritizing brand fit over follower amount. He also mentions that he looks into an influencer’s previous collaborations to see how they’ve worked with brands in the past. 

Abdullah Khan

Influencer Marketing Manager

We target the micro influencer that aligns well with our brand and has high quality content. If we target the macro influencers their response and collaboration rate is very low. We also evaluate an influencer’s previous collaborations to make sure it will be worth collaborating. We use tools to verify the authenticity of an influencer's followers and engagement, ensuring that the audience is genuine and not inflated by fake accounts or bots.

More time spent on vetting an influencer today saves you time and money tomorrow. The better the brand and audience fit, the easier time you’re going to have overall. Focus more on whether the influencer’s audience makes the biggest difference for your brand, instead of how high their follower count is. Bigger doesn’t always mean more engagement. 

Key Takeaways

A successful influencer gifting program is going to have a lot of fiddly moving parts. When creating, managing, and scaling your program, it’s important to remember that there’s no single right way of doing things. 

What works for your brand won’t work for the next, and what works for this goal won’t work for another. So keep testing and improving your system until it’s down to an iterative science. 

• How you set up your gifting campaigns will ultimately depend on your specific brand goals. However, no matter what your goals are, influencer gifting has the unique potential to hit a variety of goals in tandem. 
• It’s fine to offer no-strings attached gifting, but be selective with who you’re gifting to and what they get. Asking for deliverables upfront won’t necessarily make a huge impact on the rate at which an influencer posts, but it can cut down on product loss.
• Outreach and back-and-forth emails with influencers is a huge time suck for marketers. Take the time to be intentional about who you reach out to – because that will make all the difference. 
• Building and maintaining strong relationships with influencers is crucial for gifting campaigns. Keep interactions personalized from outreach to follow-up, and treat your influencers like partners. 
• Not only are gifting programs working, but marketers are looking to maintain or expand their gifting programs over the next year. If you haven’t started a gifting program, the time is now!

Want to join our next influencer marketing survey and add your insights? Join our survey panel and make your voice heard!