How to gift influencers: A step-by-step guide by Shopfluence

Knowing how to gift influencers is one of the most important strategies and effective ways to spread the word about your brand, build relationships, and drive sales- all while creating buzz-worthy content. But if you’ve ever felt overwhelmed trying to figure out how to get started or make the process seamless, you’re not alone.

Whether you’re looking to boost brand awareness, connect with niche audiences, or build a scalable influencer gifting program, we’ve got you covered. With tips, tools, and strategies (plus a little help from platforms like Shopfluence), you’ll be ready to nail influencer gifting like a pro.

1. Understand your goals and purpose for gifting influencers. 

Before diving into the process, it’s crucial to clarify your goals. Why are you gifting influencers in the first place? What do you want to achieve from gifting influencers? 

• Brand awareness: By strategically targeting a group of niche influencers who align with your brand, you can create a ripple effect, reaching diverse audiences across different niches and platforms.
• Drive sales: Gifting influencers with affiliate links incentivises them to promote your products, generating direct sales while providing measurable ROI through tracked conversions.
• Building relationships: Gifting is an opportunity to create meaningful connections with influencers who can become long-term brand ambassadors for your brand.
• UGC: By gifting a volume of influencers, you’ll receive an abundance of authentic, high-quality content around the products they receive, providing you with valuable assets to share across your channels.

2. Identify influencers who best suit your brand and target audience

Selecting the right influencers is key to maximising the impact of your gifting program. Micro-influencers, in particular, are an excellent choice for gifting campaigns.

• Why micro-influencers? These influencers are often eager to build genuine partnerships with brands. They are typically happy to create content in exchange for thoughtful gifts, without requiring monetary compensation.
• Targeted niche’s: By gifting micro-influencers in a specific niche, who align with your brand’s values and whose followers match your target demographic, you can introduce your product to a highly engaged and relevant audience.

Platforms like Shopfluence can help you identify influencers whose niche and engagement align with your brand goals.

3. Connect your eCommerce store to an influencer gifting platform

Shopfluence offers easy integration with major eCommerce platforms like Shopify. By connecting your eCommerce store to an influencer gifting platform like Shopfluence, you’ll be able to simplify the distribution of discount codes and manage affiliate links, saving time. 

Once your store is connected, the platform automates key aspects of influencer management like outreach and recruitment, distribution of discount codes and affiliate links. 

• Unique discount codes: Save time, and automate repetitive tasks like creating discount codes. Shopfluence generates unique discount codes for each influencer. 
• Affiliate links: Shopfluence creates and assigns custom UTM links which are tied directly to your store and allow you to track the amount of sales driven by an influencer. 
• Scalability: Manage a growing number of influencers with ease, without increasing manual effort. Scale your influencer gifting program from 100 to 1,000 influencers per month.

4. Streamline outreach and recruitment

As your gifting programme grows, so do the complexities of managing outreach and recruitment. Communicating with influencers, tracking responses, and coordinating follow-ups can quickly become time-consuming, limiting your ability to scale effectively.

To simplify the process:

• Scale recruitment: Manage influencers collaborations more effectively. By working with platforms like Shopfluence, one person can go from manually managing 100 gifts to 1,000 gifts a month, freeing up more time for more valuable and important tasks. 
• Automate outreach: Use platforms like Shopfluence who will provide a managed service and do the recruitment and outreach for you. 

With Shopfluence, you can focus on building authentic relationships while letting technology handle the tedious tasks.

5. Time to gift your influencers! 

The gift itself plays a crucial role in making your campaign successful. Here’s how to stand out:

• Quality: Ensure the gift reflects the value of your brand. A well-packaged, high-quality product leaves a lasting impression.
• Gift value:  Influencers are more likely to accept a gift of higher value which is worth their time

6. Track your gift’s impact and engage post-posting

It’s important to track the success of your campaign and maintain the relationship:

• Engage with content: Comment on, like, and share the influencer’s posts to amplify their content and show appreciation for their effort.
• Measure performance: Use tools to monitor metrics like social media mentions, reach, engagement, and affiliate sales.

Engaging with influencers after they post reinforces the partnership and increases the likelihood of future collaborations and better content. 

7. Identify your best-performing influencers

Not every influencer will have the same impact. The key is to identify the ones who bring the most value to your brand.

• Analyse results: Look at metrics like engagement rates, follower growth, conversions, and overall ROI.
• Build long-term relationships: Once you’ve identified your top performers, focus on turning these relationships into loyal brand ambassadors.

This process ensures your future campaigns are even more effective, allowing you to refine your strategy and maximise your returns.

Conclusion

Knowing how to gift influencers is a powerful way to build brand awareness, foster genuine connections, and drive tangible results. By following this step-by-step guide, you can streamline your programme, make impactful connections, and scale effectively—all while letting platforms like Shopfluence handle the heavy lifting.

Ready to take your influencer gifting strategy to the next level? Start with Shopfluence today and discover how simple and effective influencer marketing can be!