Tool Shortlist
Here’s the list of the best influencer marketing systems that I’ll cover in this article.
Influencer marketing can be a great way to build brand awareness. A recent survey found that 80% of marketers find it to be effective, while 58% say it is the most effective form of marketing.
But working with influencers isn’t always easy. A typical campaign involves multiple people, each with different platforms, audiences, and styles.
You have to find suitable partners, create deals, and then manage them throughout the campaign. And the experience becomes even tougher if you manage multiple campaigns at once.
Influencer marketing tools can help. They streamline the entire process, from searching for influencers to making payments. This article will look at what I think are the best influencer marketing software platforms currently available.
Comparison Criteria
What do I look for when I select the best influencer marketing system? Here’s a summary of my evaluation criteria:
- User Interface (UI): A good UI makes finding and managing influencers easy. Look for simple search features and clear information about each person.
- Usability: I look for databases that are searchable and filterable so it’s easy to find relevant people. The software should also have solid influencer management tools to streamline your campaign.
- Integrations: Influencer marketing tools can link up with payment software, communication platforms, accounting tools, and, of course, social media platforms to simplify the management of influencers and content.
- Value for $: Most of the tools on this list don’t advertise pricing so you’ll have to contact them for more information. But if you manage multiple campaigns and influencers, it’s easy to see how they can offer value for money. The tools have different plans suitable for both large and small businesses.
Influencer Marketing Solutions: Key Features
The key features of the tools on this list are influencer directories and management. But they also offer plenty of extras, too.
Here are the main features to look out for.
- Influencer directory: An influencer directory is a key part of all these platforms. It allows companies to find creators and also provides important details about each one, such as their reach and the platforms they operate on.
- Filters and recommendations: Many of the databases have millions of influencers. It’s essential that your platform has ways to find the best-suited people. Filters are a common feature, and some tools even have AI recommendations.
- Influencer management: Some of the platforms have influencer management features that allow you to manage your campaigns and communicate with your brand’s influencers.
- Influencer import: If you already partner with influencers, you need a way to bring these relationships into your new platform. The best solutions make this easy to do.
- Payment: Making payments to multiple influencers is a complex process, especially if they are spread across the globe. Some of the tools on this list handle payments for you.
- Affiliate management: If you want to run affiliate campaigns, your influencer marketing software should manage commissions and referrals. Some of the tools on this list have these features.
- Paid ad integration: Some tools integrate with paid ad platforms so you can quickly spot high-performing content and use it in your ads. It’s an easy way to manage and optimize paid digital marketing campaigns.
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Overviews Of The 10 Best Influencer Marketing Software Solutions
Here’s a brief description of each influencer marketing platform to showcase each tool’s best use case, some noteworthy features, and screenshots to give a snapshot of the user interface.
Grin
Influencer platform with a huge directory
Grin is an all-in-one creator management platform. It has features that help you run your entire influencer marketing program, from finding talent to reporting and analysis.
The tool has a huge list of over 32,000,000 creators you can search through to find potential influencers. Each profile contains information such as the social networks the creator is active on and how many followers they have. You can also bring over your existing list of partners if you have one.
Once you have found your content creators, the app simplifies the communication process. You can reach out to your partners from within the app and provide everything they need to create great content.
The tool also has a ton of reporting and analysis features you can use to track campaigns in real-time. Use this to see metrics like revenue, conversions, ROI, and engagement rate.
Another cool feature is the live URL. This is a proposal page you can create and send to influencers. It helps simplify campaign management by including all the information influencers need, as well as some self-service style features. For example, they can use this page to request products or view their contract terms and conditions.
Grin integrates with a ton of relevant tools, including social channels and e-commerce providers like Shopify and WooCommerce. The tool doesn’t promote pricing, but you can contact the team via the website.
Klear
Influencer management platform with powerful discovery tools
Klear is an influencer marketing platform with all the features you need to manage campaigns.
The influencer discovery tool is central. It lets you search through profiles to find the most relevant creators for your campaign. You can narrow down the list based on filters such as location, category, and level of influence.
Once you have a shortlist, it’s easy to see each person’s statistics, such as follower count, the platforms they are active on, and the engagement each post receives. There is also a brand safety tool that highlights potential issues such as fake followers or frequent explicit language use.
The tool has plenty of features for managing influencer relationships, such as a CRM and communication platform. This makes it easy to share the information influencers need to run successful campaigns, such as briefs, content approval, and payments.
I also like that you can see an influencer’s previous brand affinities from within the search platform. This provides crucial insight into your competitor’s marketing strategies.
Klear has integrations for tools such as Shopify, TikTok, and Slack. The company doesn’t advertise pricing, so you’ll have to contact them to find out more.
Upfluence
Gain in-depth insight into your entire campaign
Upfluence is influencer marketing software with all the features you need to manage campaigns, from finding talent to analyzing results. It has powerful search features with in-depth details about each person’s reach, audience, and the platforms they operate on.
The tool stands out due to its automation features. One example is the Gmail and Outlook integration that streamlines creator communication. The tool also has templates you can use to quickly create effective emails. Just modify the templates to fit your brand and product.
Upfluence has payment features, which are useful if you work with a large number of influencers across different regions. The tool handles payments to people in over 200 countries. It also has an algorithm that analyzes each creator to advise you on how much to pay for a campaign.
Social listening is another feature I like. It tracks all mentions of your brand and your competitors across different channels. It provides you with reports, making it easy to see discussions around your brand and measure campaign effectiveness. Another useful reporting feature is the ability to use tracking links to see which influencers generate the most clicks.
Upfluence integrates with plenty of CMS, affiliate, analytics, and communication tools. It will also connect to your eCommerce software. The tool has three plans and you can contact the company to find out more about each one.
Refersion
Best for affiliate marketing
Refersion is a platform that helps you connect with influencers to run affiliate marketing campaigns. It has a marketplace that makes it easy to connect with affiliates, or you can bring your own contacts into the platform.
Creating an affiliate campaign is easy. You just have to connect your ecommerce store provider and then create commission offers. It’s possible to create tiers so you can offer different percentages to specific groups of referrers. You can also create coupon codes that turn customers into affiliates by paying out if a friend they refer buys.
The tool makes it easy to pay your affiliates. You can create custom commission schedules and then automate payment via common methods like PayPal or bank transfer. The platform will also take care of any taxes and manage forms like W-9 or 1099s.
Pricing for Refersion starts at $89 per month and allows you to track up to 130 conversions. They also have enterprise pricing for businesses that need to handle more conversions.
#paid
Best for turning influencer content into paid ads
#Paid is a platform with specific features for matching with top creators and then turning influencer content into assets to use for paid ads.
It stands out due to the unique way it connects creators and brands. Rather than using an influencer search engine, the tool automatically recommends creators who are a top match for your brand.
The creators chosen through this tool are all pre-qualified and have audiences that match your target market. They will even pitch ideas so your marketing team will get an idea of the type of content they will create for your campaign.
When you find someone to work with, there are plenty of tools to streamline communication and help with content management. You can share feedback with creators within the app to ensure it meets your needs exactly.
The tool also has ad whitelisting features. If you like a particular piece of content, you can use it to build ad sets for Facebook or Instagram. You can then see key campaign metrics such as the number of people you reach and the Return on Ad Spend.
Pricing for #Paid starts at $499 per month for a minimum of three months. To access creator licensing for ads, you’ll need the $699 per month Grow plan.
Brandbassador
Best for fast-growing brands
Brandbassador is an influencer management platform. It helps brands manage ambassadors and create effective influencer programs.
The Brandbassador influencer app is an interesting take on relationship management. It gamifies the content promotion process by letting you create tasks with specific rewards such as gift cards, cash, or free products.
You can send these tasks to specific groups of ambassadors—which you can define based on factors like their region or their tier. The chosen influencers then choose which tasks they want to complete. As they complete tasks, the platform gathers performance statistics and displays KPIs in your dashboard.
Brandbassador has integrations with all the major eCommerce platforms including BigCommerce, Shopify, and Magento. If your platform isn’t included on the list of existing integrations, the product’s development team can help you with custom integration.
The tool has two plans but it doesn’t advertise pricing for either. You can contact the company for more information.
CreatorIQ
Build and manage your own network of creators
CreatorIQ is influencer marketing software used by huge retailers like H&M, Sephora, and Unilever. The software platform has plenty of the features that brands this size need when building out campaigns.
The tool’s CRM features let you build a customized influencer network you use to manage all creators in a single place. It’s possible to store and highlight relevant campaign data while keeping contracts, payments, and historical data together. You can even create an onboarding experience so creators can fill in their own data so you don’t have to.
The tool also has features to streamline repetitive tasks. For example, you can create an onboarding process with all the information creators need to get started. You can then reuse this whenever you sign a new creator. This is a good way to save time and ensure you get the best possible results from each experience if you work with a large network.
Other notable features include the ability to streamline payments and the ability to create combined organic and paid strategies. Brands can also access integrations with tools such as Shopify, Google Analytics, Salesforce, and Tableau. You can access the CreatorIQ API if you need to create custom connections.
CreatorIQ doesn’t advertise pricing. Contact the company or request a demo for more information.
IZEA
Powerful search and campaign analysis toolkit
Izea is a selection of influencer marketing tools that you can purchase separately. It’s a good option if you have specific influencer marketing needs.
Discovery is the influencer search tool. It has a huge database of influencer profiles with in-depth information about each person. Meanwhile, Shake is the tool you can use to connect with these people and then pay them. Some influencers even have pre-made offers that you can choose from to get started quickly.
Another tool is BrandGraph, which helps you measure campaign performance based on factors like engagement, mentions, and hashtags. You can also view general trends which is a good way to see information about your industry and benchmark your own campaigns.
Pricing for Discovery starts at $169 per month, while BrandGraph starts at $149 per month, and Shake starts at $50
Captiv8
Quickly identify the best influencers to work with
Captiv8 is a tool with plenty of features to help you discover creators, run campaigns, and measure results.
It has a huge influencer marketplace with over 30 million people. While this could be overwhelming, it also has AI-powered discovery features and over 500 filters you can use to narrow this list down to the top influencers.
The software also has some cool features to help you plan your strategy. For example, you can analyze your competitors’ social activity to see what works for these brands. And you can launch paid advertising campaigns from within Captiv8 to boost campaign impact.
Captiv8 integrates with social platforms like TikTok and ecommerce platforms like Shopify. It also connects to data tools like Tableau and Google Analytics. The tool doesn’t advertise pricing, but you can contact the company for more information.
NeoReach
Full-service influencer marketing platform
NeoReach is an influencer marketing tool that stands out due to its full-service offering. It’s part software, and part influencer marketing agency.
If you choose the managed services plan, the NeoReach team will run your entire influencer marketing strategy for you, from sourcing influencers to reporting. It’s a unique solution if you want to completely hand off campaign management to someone else.
There is also a non-managed service plan which provides access to the NeoReach platform. You can search through the huge database to find the right people for your campaign. Here you’ll see data about each person such as target audience demographics, reach, active platforms, and estimated price for a campaign.
When you sign up for the platform you also get access to the API so you can integrate data into your own workflows and dashboards.
The company doesn’t promote pricing for either the managed or non-managed service. Contact NeoReach on the website for more information.
The 10 Best Influencer Marketing Software Solutions Summary
| Tool | Free Option | Price | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Grin Influencer platform with a huge directory | Not available | Visit Website | |
| 2 | Klear Influencer management platform with powerful discovery tools | Not available | Visit Website | |
| 3 | Upfluence Gain in-depth insight into your entire campaign | Not available | Visit Website | |
| 4 | Refersion Best for affiliate marketing | Not available | From $89 per month | Visit Website |
| 5 |  #paid Best for turning influencer content into paid ads | Not available | From $499 per month | Visit Website |
| 6 |  Brandbassador Best for fast-growing brands | Not available | Visit Website | |
| 7 |  CreatorIQ Build and manage your own network of creators | Not available | Visit Website | |
| 8 |  IZEA Powerful search and campaign analysis toolkit | Not available | From $169 per month | Visit Website |
| 9 |  Captiv8 Quickly identify the best influencers to work with | Not available | Visit Website | |
| 10 |  NeoReach Full-service influencer marketing platform | Not available | Visit Website |
Need expert help selecting the right Influencer Marketing Software?
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Other Options
Here’s a few more tools that didn’t make the top list.
- AspireIQ - Connect with a network of over 6 million influencers
- Influence.co - Create briefs and let influencers come to you
- Mavrck - Influencer marketing for enterprise customers
- Influsoft - Generate in-depth insight into influencer marketing campaigns
What is Influencer Marketing Software?
Influencer marketing software helps brands connect with influencers and then manage the campaigns. Features typically include a searchable database of creators, communication tools, and campaign management. The software may also have tools to help with other parts of your digital marketing campaign, such as affiliate marketing and paid ads.
What do you think about this list?
Most of the tools on this list have a relatively similar feature set. They have databases of creators that you can search through and ways to communicate and manage the process of creating content.
But there are points of differentiation. For example, some tools have features designed for affiliate marketing or paid ads.
One issue is that not many tools offer free trials. Instead, you have to contact the company sales team to try them out. With that in mind, I recommend choosing a few platforms you like the sound of and then asking for a demo. All the tools use a SaaS model which means you pay a monthly fee to access the software.
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Related Read: How You Can Use Influencer Marketing To Boost Ecommerce Sales
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