Should You Choose Influencer Marketing Over Facebook Ads?

Two of the strongest gladiators in the ecommerce marketing arena — Influencer Marketing and Facebook Ads — often find themselves pitted against each other. 🤼

Each strategy carries its unique strengths. There's the intimate and targeted connection of influencer marketing versus the extensive reach of Facebook ads.

Knowing which of these power players to put your money behind can be confusing.

👉 In this blog, we'll look at the pros and cons of each strategy to help you make an informed decision. By analyzing the advantages and disadvantages, you can choose the approach that offers the highest potential for growing your business.

Before we move forward, let me address that at SARAL, we're in the business of Influencer Marketing.

We understand that this fact might raise eyebrows, leading you to assume this analysis could tilt in favor of influencer marketing.

⚖️ But we're also believers in balanced and informed decision making. We recognize that each business has its own unique marketing needs and that no one-size-fits-all solution exists.

That's why this blog will show you both sides of the coin, and help you craft a final strategy that gets you maximum ROI.

👍 👎 Pros and cons of influencer marketing and facebook ads

In the tables below you will find the comparison categorized into 5 tables, each focusing on a specific aspect: cost & efforts, ROI, long-term impact, engagement & audience reach, and reliability & control.

💸 Cost & Efforts

📊 Return on Investment

🗓 Long-term impact

📣 Engagement & audience reach

🚘 Reliability & control

🤔 Can a hybrid of influencer marketing and Facebook be the best option?

Influencer marketing and Facebook ads have traditionally been viewed as distinct strategies, each with its own strengths. But what if you could merge the power of both to create new, efficient strategies? 🔥

There are 2 ways you can mix influencer marketing and Facebook ads.

🤳 Influencer-generated content as ad creatives

The first method involves collaborating with influencers or creators to generate content that is later repurposed as ad creative for your Facebook ad campaigns.

Here's an example of a brand, Native, that uses this strategy:

This is better than creating content in-house because of:

👍 Authenticity: Influencers have their unique styles and personal connections with their audience, which makes the content more relatable and engaging. When repurposed into Facebook ads, this content can retain that sense of authenticity, making the ads feel less intrusive and more trustworthy.

👍 Savings in Creative Development: By using influencer-generated content, you could potentially save resources that would otherwise be spent on creating new ad creative. This allows them to focus their resources on other aspects of the campaign, such as targeting and optimization.

👍 Building on Social Proof: Using influencer content into Facebook ads allows you to build on social proof. Potential customers seeing a product or service endorsed by a trusted influencer can help crush any doubts and improve sales conversions.

Another approach to mix influencer markting & ads is — Whitelisting Ads.

⚡ Whitelisting Ads

Influencer whitelisting involves partnering with an influencer and gaining access to their social media accounts to boost posts related to your brand via paid advertising.

Athletic Greens is known to invest in influencer-whitelisted ads:

It helps you tap into the influencer's loyal and engaged fan base. It increases the likelihood of your ads being seen by your target audience.

Since the ads are running through the influencer's account, they carry a certain level of trust and authenticity, as they are being seen as recommendations from the influencer themselves.

This approach can enhance the effectiveness of your ads by leveraging the credibility, relatability, and engagement of influencer-generated content.

Also, influencers are akin to one-person production teams, capable of creating compelling content on their own. They are swift, efficient, and can turn around high-quality content much faster than professional photoshoots. Moreover, you can engage multiple influencers for the same price as one branded shoot. This strategy allows for a continuous flow of fresh, engaging content in a shorter time frame, making it highly scalable.

🏌️ Here's how you can execute these hybrid strategies

• Identify the right influencers: Find influencers who align well with your brand values, and have an audience demographic that matches your target market.

You can use SARAL's Chrome extension to vet the influencer in terms of engagement rate, expected likes etc. Add them to a list to do quick outreach. It's FREE! You can check it out here.

• Reach out: Contact the potential influencers with a product seeding strategy (send them free products hoping for social media review or shoutout in exchange)
• Create a collaboration agreement: Once influencers create content about your brand, contact them to get usage rights, and build a long-term relationship.
• Test different creatives: Run small-scale tests with different influencer creatives. Measure engagement and conversion metrics to identify the best-performing content.
• Launch ad campaigns: Once you've identified the most effective creatives, use them in your Facebook ads. Monitor performance regularly and make adjustments as needed.

Final thoughts

The choice between them isn't a simple black-and-white decision; it's a strategic move that should be aligned to your long-term vision.

In such decisions, budget is usually also a constraint. 💰 😞

But not today.

⭐ We want to offer you a free trial of SARAL — an all-in-one influencer marketing tool.

SARAL is a powerful, affordable, and user-friendly platform designed especially for emerging DTC brands. It helps you effortlessly discover and manage influencers. You can automate follow ups with influencers. Track sales easily and nurture enduring relationships without drowning in tedious manual work.

All this without shelling out $10,000+ upfront for complicated tools that leave you with more questions than solutions.

Claim your free trial for SARAL. Start testing. Learn what works for your brand and scale your brand. ✨

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