A New Era of Influencer Whitelisting: A Game Changer for Brands

After hearing so much about influencer marketing, you decided to give it a go. 

But … things aren’t going as expected. 

You seem to be spending more with nothing to show for it. 

“Perhaps it’s something I’m doing wrong,” you say to yourself.

But you’ve studied competing brands for a while so you’re certain leveraging influencers is an effective marketing strategy. 

So, maybe you’re not doing anything wrong.  

You see, sometimes, you just need to change your approach and the digital stars will align. 

Now, guess what?

You’re about to discover a new strategy for influencer marketing you can leverage in this guide. It’s called influencer whitelisting.

As you go further, we’re going to unpack:

• What influencer whitelisting means.
• How to launch a campaign. 
• Tips to help you scale your efforts. 

Ready?

Let the show begin!

What Is Influencer Whitelisting?

Influencer whitelisting is an agreement between a brand and an influencer that sees the influencer give brands access to the influencer’s social media accounts. 

To put it simply, brands negotiate with creators or influencers so they can use their handles to run Facebook or Instagram ads. 

So when the brands run promotions, the influencer’s audience sees the ad coming from the creator’s page. Just like this ad from Hannah Brown:

Now this agreement is a win-win situation for both the influencer and the brand. 

How?

For the brand, you’ll be leveraging the social credibility of the influencer to promote your product or services. 

So because the influencer approves of you, people who look up to them will be more than happy to engage with the ad post and your product. 

And for the influencer, their account will have an extended reach. They’ll be exposed to people who’ve probably never engaged with them. That means an increase in their following. 

“But why should I spend time running whitelisted ads on an influencer’s account when we have ours? Isn’t that a waste of resources?”

Well no, it’s not. 

You see, research has shown that 81% of consumers have purchased a product after seeing a friend or an influencer post about it. 

See what we mean?

That’s not even all.

Let’s take you through other reasons why influencer whitelisting can be a game changer for your brand.

Benefits of Influencer Whitelisting

You know how we said consumers are very likely to buy a product after it’s been posted online by an influencer?

Well, they also trust the influencer’s recommendation over a brand’s. 

According to research, 69% of consumers trust the recommendations of their friends, family, and influencers more than they trust a brand. 

As a result, over 80% of survey respondents decided to create a budget for influencer marketing this year.

Now, why are brands so devoted to making this influencer marketing strategy work?

Because of the doors it opens…

✅Increases brand’s reach

Running ads under an influencer’s profile doesn’t look salesy or corporate so users are more likely to engage with them. 

This way, people get to learn about your brand from someone they trust. A good type of brand awareness in our books 😉.

You can also target lookalike audiences that match the influencer’s existing follower demographics. In other words, more reach for you or even new customers.

✅Promotes authentic engagement

When you whitelist influencers, you’ll have organic content from the influencer being promoted on their page. So it’ll be more boosted content from the influencer’s page…making it easy for existing and new audiences to engage. 

✅Gives you access to dark posting

In case you’re bothered about the influencer getting most of the benefit of this agreement, that’s where dark posting comes in. This type of ad doesn’t appear on the influencer’s feed but will show up on your targeted audience’s feed. 

✅Allows you to track, test, and reiterate

Influencer whitelisting also allows you to track an influencer’s performance within a specific audience so you know how well they’re doing.

And if your investment was worth it or not. 

But here’s something you should know: you can’t do this properly with traditional creator licensing. 

It has some limitations which we’re going to talk about next.

Downsides of Traditional Influencer Whitelisting

Now you see the traditional influencer whitelisting you’re used to — the one that shows the creator handle + “Sponsored.” 

It has some limitations. 

For one, influencers will need a Facebook page before you can connect Instagram accounts. 

And speaking of connecting accounts, you can only add between 3 and 5 influencers per day. So scaling up is a li’l bit challenging while also presenting integrity risks.

What’s more, there’s a chance you’ll experience technical glitches with this traditional option. Meta can block your ad account right in the middle of a campaign. 

So are we now saying this traditional influencer whitelisting is bad?

Far from it! 

What we mean is that we realized it kinda puts a cap on how much you can do when running a campaign, not to mention the stress you might go through.

So, what’s the better alternative then?

That’s what you’ll find out in the next section.

Meta Partnership Ads: A New Era of Influencer Whitelisting

And now, ladies and gentlemen of the marketing universe for the main act …

Introducing a new form of influencer whitelisting…Meta Partnership ads!!!

Just like it says in the name, it’s a partnership between brands and creators or other businesses that allows them to create ads hassle-free. 

In this digital partnership, the influencer grants advertising access to the brand. But both the advertiser and the influencer’s accounts are placed in the ad’s header with a sponsored post label. Just like this:

So you’ll be leveraging the reach of both parties to have even better ranking and ad performance. 

Now Meta Partnership Ads used to be called Branded Content Ads (BCA). 

But earlier in the year (May 1, 2023) Instagram renamed BCA as Partnership Ads.

And with this rebranding came other goodies. 

For instance, you can now promote organic posts in different ways including:

• Paid partnership ads. For this ad, an influencer receives payment, products, or services in exchange for posting whitelisted content for a brand. 

• Instagram collabs posts. This kind of post may have no compensation. It’s just two entities coming together to create whitelisted posts, providing value to both parties. The collaboration can be between brand partners or creators in the brand’s niche.

• Product tags. With this option, any IG user can tag products from your Instagram shop and share them with their audience. In turn, you can use that content when running an ad campaign, as long as you have their consent. 

• People tags. Here, creators and influencers can tag you in their posts while narrating their experience with your brand, location, product, or service.  

• Mention. Anyone can @ your brand in the caption and you can promote it in your ad campaign. The same product tags and people tags work too. 
• Expanded partnership. It’s also known as organic posts. Here, your team can develop the ad creative and promote it under the influencer’s handle so you have more control over the ad. 

Just so we’ve turned every stone, let’s show you how this new partnership is different from the creator licensing (whitelisting) you’re used to.

Meta Partnership Ads vs. Traditional Influencer Whitelisting 

If you look closely, you’ll notice a lot of similarities between both concepts. So let’s use the image below to explain their similarities and differences.

So what you see on the left is traditional whitelisting and what’s on the right is an example of a partnership ad.

You’ll notice that both posts have a sponsored label. 

For traditional whitelisting, it shows that the post is sponsored but doesn’t name the brand sponsoring the post. As such, users have to probe a little bit further to find that information. 

But that’s not the case with partnership ads, thanks to the accounts in the ad’s header. Users know upfront that this is likely a paid post and know who is sponsoring it. 

Secondly, influencers have more control over the kind of content a brand can use for advertising as opposed to traditional whitelisting. This way, they get to retain the originality their audience likes about them. 

Now, how do you run a partnership ads campaign for your brand?

Let’s show you how.

How to Launch a Meta Partnership Ads Campaign

So, there are two ways to do this — the long and the short way. 

The long way is going through the Meta platform.  

And the shorter way? Directly through Insense. 

Here’s a detailed video showing everything you need to know about launching a partnership campaign step-by-step. 

{Recommended to embed this YouTube video}

When it comes to the long route, you need to be logged in to your personal FB account and have access to a Facebook Business Manager account. 

That’s because you can launch a campaign from either account. 

So first, 

1. Head over to Facebook Business Manager (ads manager)to create a new campaign. 

Here, you’ll need to: 

• Set your campaign objective. 
• Fill in the campaign details.
• Select conversion location. 

You know, just like you do when running traditional paid ads. 

2. But then when you get to the last stage of the ad settings where you have your ad name and are ready to add the creatives, you’ll see a Partnership ad option as shown below. Toggle it on. 

Select Primary Identity > Show more options.

You’ll see collaborators who have given you advertising permission to use their accounts.

Then you can choose the influencer you’re collaborating with … and publish. 

Now, let’s talk about the short way. 😉

The good thing about this option is that it can help you find influencers open to partnership and match your needs. 

First, log in to Insense (feel free to sign up if you don't have an account with us yet).

1. Go to Campaigns > New Campaign.
2. Proceed to create a brief and ensure you select Creator Ads under campaign type.

3. Now after choosing and negotiating with creators via the chat, select ‘Connect to Facebook Ads Manager’ to connect with their Facebook or Instagram. 

And just like that, the rest, as they say, will be history. You can repeat this process for as many influencers as you wanna work with. 

All of this is pretty straightforward, right?

Well, pretty much.

However, you need to have a proper plan for influencer whitelisting to work and be free from hiccups.

So, what should you do?

We’ve got some suggestions in the next section.

Influencer Whitelisting Best Practices

Wanna get the best out of your influencer whitelisting campaign?

Here are some best practices for you: 

Work with the right influencers 

By “right,” we mean influencers that embrace your brand’s values and resonate well with your audience. 

Not sure how to find influencers like that? 

That’s where Insense comes in. It’s a platform that helps you find the right creators on your preferred social media platforms to launch influencer ads.

Be clear about your expectations 

One of the things we help you do when searching for influencers is to set expectations by creating a brief. Here, you outline your campaign needs and the type of content required for a successful campaign. 

And there’s even a chat feature where you can further have conversations about goals and objectives with the influencers. 

Negotiate the partnerships

You wanna agree with creators about how the partnership will work. Leave no i’s undotted here!

Clearly communicate everything there is to say about payment structure, products, expectations, goals, audience, and more. 

‍Track results

Your campaign has goals and objectives, right? Then, you need to commit to tracking the campaign’s progress using metrics like conversion rates, engagement rates, etc. 

Which influencer is bringing in more engagement? Who’s driving sales? Are there new followers?

Are you seeing a high or low return on ad spend (ROAS)? 

You know, questions like that. 

Taking all of these practices into consideration will set you on the right path for a successful influencer marketing campaign.

Increase Your Ad Performance

If you made it to this point, then congratulations are in order.

All you probably wanna do now is launch your influencer whitelisting campaign and see how it will perform. 

Well, that’s what we want for you too. 

To help you get started and ensure your campaign runs smoothly, book a demo with Insense so you have a template for success.

See you soon!