As a marketing professional for DTC brands, you’ve probably heard about the growing success of influencer marketing campaigns.
However, you’re probably still wondering what makes this marketing strategy so popular and effective.
Well, long story short, traditional marketing strategies have mostly been replaced by digital marketing strategies.
On top of that, people started to place less trust in brands than they used to.
Instead, customers now look for recommendations from people they know and social media influencers.
Overall, if you find a successful TikTok or Instagram influencer to promote your brand’s products and come up with a winning influencer marketing strategy, you’ve got a lot to gain.
Two of the benefits that might pique your interest are increased brand awareness and ROI (return on investment). But there are many more.
Of course, you might need a bit of help when you first get into influencer marketing.
However, using an influencer marketing platform like Insense can make your life a lot easier.
Still not convinced?
No worries, we’ve compiled a list of 12 influencer marketing case studies of DTC brands to show you all the perks and amazing results.
So, let’s dive in!
Case Study #1: Digital Beauty Group
Industry: Beauty
Digital Beauty Group is a brand created by a married couple, Craig and Amy Romero, who provide high-quality skincare and makeup products to their audience.
They use customer-demand data and innovation to come up with exquisite, high-performing products for everyone.
The challenge
With so many skincare and makeup products on the market, Digital Beauty Group needed to find a way to grab the attention of its target audience.
So, it decided to try organic social media posting for product endorsements with the help of influencers.
However, finding the right people to create user-generated content for its beauty brand proved to be harder than expected. Plus, time was not on their side.
Overall, trying to make videos that stand out on TikTok was draining the Group’s budget. A more cost-efficient solution was needed.
The solution
Using Insense, one of the top influencer marketing tools, Digital Beauty Group was able to easily identify and communicate with top Instagram influencers that aligned with its beauty brand.
The content creators posted pieces of content to their Amazon storefront and Instagram stories for 6 months to generate brand exposure.
Results
The beauty brand gained 100+ UGC pieces in 6 months, at a cost of approximately $67 each.
Sounds too much?
Well, not if you take into account the resulting boost in brand awareness, reach, and ROI, with a 38% conversion rate (per product) on Amazon listings.
Plus, DBG was able to reuse the influencer content on its social media platforms and website. So, this solution proved to be very cost-effective.
👉 Check out the full case study here.
Case Study #2: goPure
Industry: Beauty
goPure is a small business with a big goal: to provide natural and safe skincare products to its clients.
It uses only natural botanicals and vitamins that protect the skin from irritation.
The challenge
Just like any other small retailer, goPure needed to gain reach and credibility in the beauty and care industry to boost sales.
And what better way to achieve that than by posting trustworthy, authentic content through influencer marketing campaigns?
The only problem: the budget. After all, it’s not uncommon for small businesses to struggle with investing a lot in digital marketing.
The solution
Using Insense’s Creator Marketplace feature, goPure was able to contact and start collaborating with over 160 micro-influencers.
The best part: the brand used product seeding and influencer gifting, aka offered giveaways, to finance its influencer marketing campaigns.
So, the costs were minimal!
Results
In just 2 months, the content creators who worked with goPure generated 147 video content reviews with zero cost.
Due to the authentic content, goPure’s conversion rates reached an astonishing 26%.
But even more impressive than that is the revenue generated by these influencer marketing campaigns — it exceeded $200K and registered a 204x ROI.
👉 Learn more about this case study here.
Case Study #3: Nesto
Industry: Business and finance
Nesto is a Canadian pioneer in online mortgage lending. The platform offers an easy mortgage application process that saves people a lot of time.
How? By eliminating the need to show up in person and fill out loads of paperwork. Instead, you consult with Nesto’s experts and upload your documents online.
The challenge
Nesto had leveraged the power of user-generated content in the past and knew how well it could work.
However, in the past, the content was generated in-house by the two business owners. So, it was neither creative nor diverse but it was very time-consuming.
To increase brand awareness and conversions, Nesto needed to find a large number of experienced content creators and collaborate with them seamlessly.
The solution
The advanced search filters provided by Insense allowed the company to find the right influencers without the need for time-consuming influencer outreach.
It also used Insense’s creative brief template to help the influencers create testimonial videos based on Nesto’s requirements.
Results
Nesto received over 150 influencer applications and gained over 60 high-quality and unique video testimonials.
Then, it repurposed the video content for its ads and registered an incredible 23% reduction in Cost Per Lead (CPL) compared to the regular ads on Meta.
👉 For more info, read the full case study here.
Case Study #4: BabyQuip
Industry: Lifestyle
BabyQuip is a leading baby-gear rental service and marketplace that operates in over 1,000 cities across the globe.
It offers safe, clean, and insured baby equipment for traveling parents.
The challenge
Since BabyQuip operates worldwide, it needed to enhance brand awareness and reach in different countries.
To do that, it needed to find TikTok influencers (aka traveling parents) from different countries who aligned with the brand.
The solution
Using Insense, BabyQuip was able to search for content creators in 5 different countries.
Even more so, it used the advanced search filters to narrow down its search by location, follower count, engagement rate, and average views.
Results
After just 1 month, BabyQuip started collaborating with over 25 content creators for its TikTok influencer marketing campaigns.
Plus, those influencers matched the exact requirements: 2k-200k follower count, 8% engagement rate, and over 1,000 average views.
👉 Learn more about this influencer marketing case study here.
Case Study #5: Solawave
Industry: Beauty
Solawave offers science-backed skincare topicals and tools that reduce the appearance of fine lines, wrinkles, and blemishes.
The best part is that people of all genders, ethnicities, and skin tones can use its products.
The challenge
Solawave needed to boost brand awareness and reach on social media platforms.
However, because of a limited budget, it wanted to use product seeding instead of monetary compensation for UGCs.
The solution
Through Insense, Solawave managed to connect with 244 influencers who wanted to create pieces of content for it in exchange for free products.
Results
Solawave paid $0 and received 180 pieces of influencer content in a month.
The retailer also asked those influencers who showed real interest in its products to post their UGCs on TikTok.
The result?
A surprising 5% average engagement rate for each post.
👉 To find out more, check the full case study here.
Case Study #6: Zing Coach
Industry: Sports and fitness
Zing Coach is a mobile fitness app that allows you to create customized workout plans to improve your health.
It’s designed for both men and women and it uses body data to create personalized workouts.
The challenge
Zing Coach wanted to know what type of ads resonated best with its target audience to ensure campaign success.
It wanted to find male, athletic, and charismatic content creators who matched Zing Coach’s target audience demographic, to generate UGCs for creative testing.
The solution
Zing Coach partnered with Insense to search for the right influencers by niche and gender.
Then, it used the brief category filters and screening question field to narrow down the search.
More precisely, it asked the content creators to send an audition video answering questions about their fitness routine and journey.
Results
Zing Coach obtained 22 pieces of content per month for creative testing and influencer whitelisting.
Then, based on the creative testing, it discovered that the specific influencer profile it searched for lowered its Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) by 25%.
👉 Learn more about this strategy in the full case study.
Case Study #7: Particle for Men
Industry: Beauty
Particle for Men is a DTC brand that offers skin, hair, and body care products for men to enhance their looks.
The challenge
Particle for Men needed to find a more affordable way of identifying content creators for whitelisting.
It was also seeking a tool that could streamline influencer relationship management and the whitelisting process.
The solution
The brand switched from an alternative platform to Insense, which was much cheaper.
In addition, using the Creator Marketplace and Direct Chat features, Particle for Men was able to look for influencers who aligned with the brand and manage its communications with them in one place.
Results
By switching to Insense, Particle for Men saved $425 per month.
It also found 21 content creators matching its requirements in only one month.
As a result, it was able to run 11 whitelisted ads in just one month.
👉 Take a look at the full case study here.
Case Study #8: Any Age Activewear
Industry: Sports and fitness
Any Age Activewear is an e-commerce brand that offers activewear to women over 50.
Its mission is to help women in this age group feel good about themselves regardless of their changing bodies and the underserved marketplace.
The challenge
Any Age Activewear needed to enhance brand awareness. And since it had a large stock of products, it decided to use giveaway campaigns for creative testing.
However, that meant finding a large number of creators who fit the brand, using a time- and cost-effective solution.
The solution
Using the campaign management feature on Insense, the brand ran 7 product seeding campaigns.
At the same time, Any Age Activewear set a 2-week content lead time.
Results
The e-commerce brand’s 7 giveaway campaigns produced a 90% conversion rate.
As a result, Any Age Activewear was able to identify and hire 36 influencers who matched its target audience demographic of active women over 50.
Plus, in just 2 weeks, it received 43 user-generated content assets, which it repurposed in different ads.
👉 For more on AAA’s amazing results, read the full study.
Case Study #9: MadeGood
Industry: Health and wellness
MadeGood is a brand whose main focus is to offer organic snacks that promote overall health and make people happy.
Its products are allergen-free and consist of pure, organic, gluten-free oats. And on the plus side, they are delicious.
The challenge
MadeGood wanted to boost brand awareness, engagement rate, and, ultimately, conversions through seasonal influencer marketing campaigns.
To achieve this, it needed a user-friendly and highly effective tool that would make it easier to use influencer marketing.
The solution
MadeGood used Insense’s creator filters to identify Instagram influencers who perfectly matched the brand’s identity.
Then, using the campaign management feature, it ran 5 successful campaigns.
Results
MadeGood identified 75 content creators who fit its criteria and partnered up with them.
The user-generated content boosted the brand’s overall engagement rate by between 0.4% and 2% and it only took 5 influencer marketing campaigns to achieve that.
Plus, its campaigns achieved a total reach of 280K!
👉 For more on this success story, take a look at the full case study.
Case Study #10: Social Fire Media
Industry: Lifestyle
Social Fire Media is a digital advertising agency that focuses on social media advertising, Google AdWorks, SEO, and even web design.
Its goal is to drive profitability and growth to businesses of all sizes that operate in various industries.
The challenge
Since Social Fire Media manages influencer marketing campaigns for many clients, it needs a solution that facilitates this process.
At the same time, it needed to source more high-quality influencer content in a budget-friendly manner.
The solution
Insense offered Social Fire Media the option to manage all of its clients’ influencer campaigns in one place.
In addition, Insense also facilitated the process of finding the right content creators for different industries, through its advanced search filters.
An added bonus was Insense’s Direct Chat feature that allowed Social Fire Media to communicate effectively with all the content creators.
Results
Social Fire Media was able to successfully launch and manage 12 product seeding campaigns for 6 different clients at the same time.
Insense also helped it partner up with 106 talented influencers at zero cost.
Out of all those creators, Social Fire Media even identified some that loved its clients’ products so much that they posted their product endorsement UGCs on their TikTok profiles, producing a 6% engagement rate.
👉 More on this in the full case study.
Case Study #11: NutraChamps
Industry: Health and wellness
NutraChamps is a natural supplements DTC brand whose goal is to help people improve their health to live long and happy lives.
Its supplements include naturally sourced and safe ingredients that promote heart health, good digestion, weight management, and much more.
The challenge
NutraChamps wanted to increase reach for its new product, Super Green, to drive sales.
At the same time, it needed to find a larger number of influencers who aligned with the brand’s identity to create unique and authentic content for the product.
Plus, it was looking for a solution that would save time and money in terms of managing influencer campaigns.
The solution
Insense allowed NutraChamps to discover health and wellness creators who fit their brand, through the Creator Marketplace feature.
Insense also provided a time- and cost-effective solution for managing new influencer campaigns and collaborations.
Results
With the help of Insense, NutraChamps started collaborating with 322 Instagram influencers who matched its brand.
The organic content generated by these influencers produced 99K video views on Instagram, enhancing the new product’s reach.
The best part was that Insense was so easy to use that NutraChamps only needed 2 social media coordinators to manage the entire influencer marketing process.
👉 Do you want to learn more about it? Check out the full case study, here.
Case Study #12: Easy A Media
Industry: Lifestyle
Easy A Media is a digital marketing agency that uses data-driven marketing, store optimization, and brand strategy to boost sales for DTC e-commerce businesses.
The challenge
Easy A Media was in dire need of high-quality authentic content for creative testing of its ad.
It also wanted to identify a cost-effective solution to sourcing large volumes of user-generated content with which to service its clients.
The solution
Insense offered Easy A Media an easy way to identify micro-influencers who fit its clients’ different niches.
At the same time, the Creative Brief templates and Direct Chat feature helped it easily communicate the specific requirements for each campaign to the Instagram influencers.
Results
Easy A Media was able to hire 100 Instagram micro-influencers from different niches who generated 100 product testimonials and review videos.
All that took only 45 days. Plus, the influencer content came at zero cost because the brand used giveaway campaigns.
👉 For more on this successful influencer marketing strategy, read the full case study.
Ready to Dive Headfirst Into Influencer Marketing?
There you have it; 12 successful real-world influencer marketing case studies.
As you can see, this digital marketing strategy can be extremely rewarding.
Influencer marketing can boost brand awareness, reach, engagement rates, conversions, and ROI.
Plus, whether you’re using TikTok, Instagram, or Facebook influencer marketing, it’s as effective for small DTC brands as it is for bigger brands.
So, are you ready to dive headfirst into influencer marketing campaigns?
If you still have some doubts or questions, don’t hesitate to contact us.
Then, when you’re ready for the next step, book a demo with Insense!
