How to Succeed in Influencer Marketing in 2025

Are you considering working with influencers but unsure how to get started? Wondering how to maximize your return on investment when collaborating with creators?

In this article, you'll discover proven strategies for influencer partnerships that deliver measurable results for your business.

Why Marketers Should Work with Creators in 2025

Many marketers are hesitant to embrace influencer marketing campaigns after reading about brands spending a lot on celebrity collaborations with little to show at the end of the campaign. However, according to Justin Moore, founder of Creator Wizard and author of “Sponsor Magnet,” there are compelling benefits to working with the right creators.

One often overlooked advantage is the ability to repurpose creator-generated content. “A lot of people think that the primary reason to hire a creator would be to get them to talk about you on their platforms,” Moore explains. But one of the things brands often overlook is that they can maximize their investment by securing usage rights to repurpose creator content.

This approach allows brands to use creator content:

• On the brand's owned and operated properties (website, blog)
• On the brand's social media accounts
• With e-commerce partners
• As paid advertising

When you consider the return on investment from this perspective, influencer marketing becomes much more compelling. “If you can get a more efficient ad spend on the Facebook ads or TikTok ads that you're running with creator content, it starts making a lot of sense,” says Moore.

Beyond content repurposing, influencer partnerships can lead to even more valuable opportunities. Moore has seen influencer collaborations that began as simple content deals evolve into ambassador relationships where the creator's face appeared on product packaging, creating a powerful shelf presence in retail environments.

#1: Influencer Discovery: How to Find and Vet Influencers

Marketers who are looking to identify potential creator partners have two choices. You can research creators on your own or use a 3rd party service.

Tools like Upfluence and Later.com (which recently acquired Maverick) can help you search for creators based on various criteria. Many of these platforms offer options for both self-service and fully managed campaigns.

Self-Service: For smaller budgets, you can pay a monthly or annual fee to access search tools that function like a CRM, allowing you to filter creators by demographics, geography, age, platforms, and other factors.

Fully Managed: For larger budgets, many platforms offer a white-glove service that handles creator identification, outreach, and campaign management based on your brief.

5 Ways to Vet Creators or Influencers Yourself

Creator Relevance: First, determine if creators influence your target customers. While younger demographics are generally more receptive to creator recommendations, don't automatically discount older audiences. “If your primary target demographic is Gen X,” Moore notes, “maybe influencer marketing strategies is not the best fit, or it shouldn't be the lion's share of your marketing spend.”

However, he clarifies that different social media platforms appeal to different age groups. Gen X might be more influenced by podcasters or Facebook creators rather than TikTok personalities. The key is understanding where your specific audience gets its information and who it trusts.

Creator Size: Moore recommends working with smaller, more focused niche creators rather than expensive mega-influencers. Smaller nano and micro mid-tier creators with hundreds of thousands or even less than 10,000 followers often have deeply engaged audiences who follow them for specific reasons, making their recommendations particularly powerful within their niche.

For example, John Deere partnered with Paul Jameson, who runs The Green Industry Podcast for lawn care professionals and has 19k subscribers to podcast live from their booth at an industry trade show, creating continuous content and drawing people to their exhibit.

Content Relevance: Ensure the creator consistently produces content related to your product category. Don't be swayed by a creator's past viral success if their recent content has shifted away from your industry.

Audience Engagement Quality: Look beyond follower counts for evidence of genuine community engagement that indicates the creator has developed loyal connections with their followers. Examine the quality of comments and be wary if a creator with 50,000 followers has only a handful of comments on their posts or if comments are limited to simple emojis rather than substantive responses.

Publishing Consistency: If someone hasn't published in months, there's no guarantee their next post will perform well even if previous content received high engagement.

#2: How to Approach Creators: Effective Outreach Strategies

The most common complaint Moore hears from marketers is that creators don't respond to their outreach messages. Typically, that's because brands are relying on mass outreach tactics. 

“My most sincere advice to any marketer is, don't do mass outreach,” he warns. “Do one at a time, individual outreach to creators.”

The key is crafting a bespoke offer that aligns with what's currently important in the creator's world. To develop these personalized approaches, research the creator's recent activity across platforms. What are they currently promoting? What appears to be their current focus? Understanding this context can help you craft an offer that genuinely excites them.

For example, Moore is currently promoting his new book.

If a company approached him with an offer to email their customer base of 10,000 creators about his book in exchange for brand mentions, he'd consider that.

#3: How to Ensure Influencer Content Aligns With Your Goals

According to Moore, the number one mistake brands make when working with creators is not having clear goals. Without clearly communicated goals, your campaign will likely underperform regardless of the creator's talent or audience size.

Moore recommends using the ARC framework when defining your influencer marketing objective. This framework helps you articulate one of three goal options:

• Awareness: Your primary goal is spreading the word about a product launch or market expansion.
• Repurposing: Your primary goal is securing content assets you can use beyond the creator's channels.
• Conversion: Your primary goal is driving measurable actions like sales, app downloads, or trial signups.

So, if you're working with a podcaster to promote a new AI feature and your goal is awareness, you might negotiate for a badge on the podcast cover art and a mention at the beginning of each episode (“The Creator Wizard podcast, powered by Brand XYZ”).

If your goal is conversions, ask the creator to focus on incorporating direct response elements like custom discount codes and strong calls to action (“Click on the link CreatorWizard20 to get 20% off your first purchase”).

#4: Influencer Marketing Budgets: Determine a Compensation Model

Moore outlines three primary pricing models for creator partnerships:

• Affiliate: With affiliate partnerships, creators earn a commission on sales they generate through tracked links or discount codes. While this approach seems ideal for brands (paying only for performance), Moore cautions that motivating creators through affiliate relationships can be challenging, especially as they're likely affiliates for multiple brands competing for their promotional attention.

• Hybrid: Hybrid compensation combines a guaranteed base payment with performance incentives. You acknowledge that it is a non-trivial amount of work for the creator to generate content containing a promotion of your product, so you compensate them with a base fee ($1,000 or $1,500 or whatever it is) plus a 15% ongoing kicker on the backend. This approach de-risks the partnership for creators while maintaining performance incentives, often resulting in more enthusiastic participation.

• Flat Fee: With flat fee arrangements, brands pay a set amount for specific deliverables without performance-based components. While many marketers prefer performance-based models, Moore notes that working with in-demand creators often requires flat fee arrangements due to market dynamics. Interestingly, Moore points out that sophisticated creators don't always prefer flat fees. Those who know their conversion metrics and believe strongly in a product might choose higher commission percentages over guaranteed payments if they're confident they can drive significant sales.

Regarding the duration of affiliate relationships, Moore cautions against arbitrarily changing terms after creators have come to rely on commission income. A clear time boundary (like 12-month terms with renegotiation points) is preferable to an open-ended arrangement that might change unexpectedly.

4 Implementation Tips for Successful Influencer Campaigns

Start with Repurposing Goals

For marketers new to influencer marketing with limited test budgets, Moore suggests focusing initially on content repurposing: “Rather than blowing the entire $25K test budget on a large influencer, I'm a much bigger fan of going out there and hiring 10 people who are smaller, getting a bunch of great content.”

This approach delivers tangible assets you can show to stakeholders, even if the creators' posts don't immediately drive massive results. When these assets perform well as ads or on your channels, it becomes easier to make the case for expanded investment.

Be Strategic with Test Budgets

Moore cautions against allocating a small “rounding error” budget to test influencer marketing. Without sufficient investment to work with enough creators to provide meaningful data, you might incorrectly conclude that influencer marketing doesn't work for your brand.

Build Long-Term Relationships

Rather than viewing influencer partnerships as one-off campaigns, consider developing ongoing relationships. “It's going to be very difficult to accomplish multiple objectives in a single activation, in a single post,” Moore explains. Building partnerships over time allows creators to address different campaign goals through multiple pieces of content.

Look to Your Affiliate Network for Deeper Paid Partnerships

If you already have an affiliate program, Moore recommends identifying your most effective affiliates when vetting creators to engage in hybrid or flat fee arrangements. “Just go and work with the people who have already illustrated that they're advocates of you,” he advises. This approach eliminates the need to educate new partners about your brand and builds on established relationships.

Other Notes From This Episode

• Connect with Michael Stelzner @Stelzner on Instagram and @Mike_Stelzner on X.
• Watch this interview and other exclusive content from Social Media Examiner on YouTube.

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