Here at Referral Rock, we’re committed to making it easier for businesses to harness the power of word of mouth. One common strategy that falls under the word of mouth category is influencer marketing. Influencer marketing software (influencer software) can make it much easier to leverage this marketing strategy.
But what is influencer marketing software, and what types of businesses should use it? How can you determine which influencer software is best for you? Find out the answers as we compare 30+ different influencer marketing software tools, and unearth the best influencer marketing platforms.
What is influencer marketing software?
Influencer marketing software provides a platform for social media influencers and brands to meet. A brand sets up a profile and sets filters for their target influencers. Short-term marketing campaigns, based around a given product or product type, then become available to good-fit influencers who are on the platform.
But how does a brand know if an influencer is a good fit? An influencer submits their profile to the brand campaign. Campaigns will only become available to an influencer with matching demographics and interests.
After finding and recruiting influencers, the software helps with influencer relationship management – it lets marketing teams manage influencers and track the progress of their campaigns.
Influencer marketing campaigns are relatively short in duration. Each campaign consists of just one, or just a few, posts or content pieces at a time.
Evaluating influencer software
There are so many influencer marketing platforms out there. How to pick the best influencer marketing software for your business? We’re here to help with our comprehensive review of over 30 options.
Before we review each software, let’s break down the criteria we’ll be using to evaluate them.
Evaluation Criteria
Description
Demo available
Can you request a demo before deciding to buy the influencer software?
Run unlimited campaigns
Does the software let you manage as many influencers and campaigns as you wish? Or does it place restrictions on this?
Customer service
What support features and platforms does the software offer to help make running your influencer marketing campaigns seamless?
Pricing
What is the pricing model, if available? And how much does it cost to recruit the influencers?
Review score
How do people who have used this influencer software rate their experience? This score, out of 5 stars, is based on reviews from popular software review sites. We’ve also included the number of people who reviewed the software.
Who uses this software?
Notable brand names that trust this influencer marketing software.
Top 3 features
What key features make this influencer software stand out?
Our take
Our review of standout elements, what customers say about the software, and/or our opinion on the software’s business fit.
The top influencer marketing software platforms
Let’s introduce the influencer software and dive into each one a bit more. Here you’ll get a brief overview of the company and see some of their top features that can help make your influencer program a success.
Our top picks for influencer marketing software
Best influencer marketing software for enterprises: Klear
Best influencer marketing software for smaller companies: trendHERO
Best influencer marketing software for finding micro-influencers (ecommerce space): Sideqik
Best influencer marketing software for finding video influencers: NoxInfluencer
Best AI-powered influencer marketing software: Linqia
Best influencer marketing software for reaching Gen Z: Fanbytes (by Brainlabs)
Best influencer software alternative / Best for sales tracking:Referral Rock
Klear
Best influencer marketing software for enterprises
Klear is one of the world’s leading influencer marketing platforms. The platform offers a powerful yet simple influencer search engine, influencers’ profiles, campaigns analytics, and campaign reports.
Klear’s focus is to show marketers data that matters, tie it to a clear call-to-action plan, and provide users with invaluable intelligence that will give their brand a strong competitive edge. The platform provides the deepest available information on more than 500 million social accounts.
Top 3 features
Influencer search engine: Klear offers marketers an easy way to find influencers by social network, location (country, state, and even city), demographics, hashtags, gender, and more.
Influencer database: More than 500 million social accounts on Instagram, Twitter, Youtube, Facebook, and blogs, plus over 500,000 influencers highlighted in the database.
Campaign measurement: Measure campaigns, monitor brands and mentions of products and see how influencers mentioned them and what was the campaign’s performance.
Our take: The filtering features for influencer discovery seem very comprehensive, but easy to use. You can even search by hashtag, known engagement, and detailed niche, and there are influencers within all reach categories on the platform. It’s like a brand mention tool, but just for finding verified creators.
All that, on top of an “influencer CRM” that makes communication and management easy, plus a dashboard with lots of campaign analytics. Klear does look meant for bigger businesses only, though.
trendHERO
Best influencer marketing software for smaller companies
trendHERO is a powerful influencer marketing platform for Instagram. With its main features being discovery, fake follower detection, and audience growth tracking, it’s a great platform for monitoring how your brand connects with influencers. Small companies use the tools for a quick start with influencer marketing, while agencies choose it to find hundreds of creators for any niche.
Top 3 features
Massive influencer database: Over 80 million in their database, with advanced keyword and search filters.
All-in-one platform: Search, analyze fake detection, check ad efficiency, and track items daily for all your influencer marketing efforts.
Check similar accounts: See your audience interests, favorite brands and creators with aggregate information on your competitors or similar accounts.
Demo available
Unlimited campaigns
Customer service
Pricing
Review score
Who uses this software?
Yes
Yes
In-App Chat, Email, Messenger, Phone, Video
$0-$120 /month
4.4 (73 reviews)
Mostly brands from Ukraine and Russia
Our take: trendHERO seems accessible to businesses of all sizes, including smaller companies. We appreciate the fake follower detection to help all companies avoid influencer fraud, as well as the competitor analysis. Unfortunately, though, it works for Instagram only, so you can’t use it to scale your influencer strategy to other platforms.
Sideqik
Best influencer marketing software for finding smaller influencers (ecommerce)
Sideqik is a single hub for teams to collaborate and execute campaigns. It allows you to centralize your creator relationship management and measurement in one place.
Sideqik’s platform helps brands understand the impact of social influence on their brand, their competitors, and their market. It can measure content performance, power up word of mouth, host campaigns, and track them all in real-time. Sideqik works with brands to power the most engaging and sophisticated marketing initiatives in the world.
Top 3 features
Identify trends in your market: Insights that help you better understand your brand and industry
Measure the impact of creators: Understand the value of your creators and gain insight on their reach
Vet potential creators: Evaluate every creator at a glance and recruit dozens of relevant influencers who are willing to collaborate with your brand
Our take: One feature Sideqik has that we don’t see in many platforms is the engagement feature, which lets you launch UGC campaigns to encourage engagement from micro-influencers. We also appreciate the strong suite of integrations. Keep in mind that Sideqik is designed only for ecommerce brands, though.
NoxInfluencer
Best influencer marketing software for finding video influencers
NoxInfluencer streamlines the workflow of influencer marketing for both brands and influencers. Backed by a global social media creator database that is dynamic and updated in real-time, this influencer marketing platform covers over 30 million influencers across YouTube, TikTok, Twitch, and Instagram.
Top 3 features
Influencer discovery: Discover any social media influencers from YouTube, TikTok, Twitch, and Instagram. NoxInfluencer provides granular search filters based on its proprietary collection of 65,000 niche tags and 17,000 brand tags.
Social media analytics: Based on Nox’s powerful data processing technology, NoxInfluencer can automatically generate a dynamic analytic report for each of 30 million influencers across YouTube, TikTok, Twitch, and Instagram.
Influencer management and outreach: Directly contact influencers, or save influencer profiles in customized resource lists to create bulk outreach campaigns. Proposal letters will be automatically sent to chosen influencers for your promotion.
Demo available
Unlimited campaigns
Customer service
Pricing
Review score
Who uses this software?
Yes
Yes
In-App Chat, Email Support, Phone support, and Help Center knowledge base
$3,899-$7,999/year (custom plan also available)
5 (2 reviews)
Bytedance, Huawei, FunPlus, Wondershare, Shopee
Our take: Looking for YouTube influencers? You might benefit from NoxInfluencer’s focus and expertise in the YouTube space, an area that not many influencer platforms focus on. Based on its other platforms of choice (TikTok, Twitch, and Instagram), NoxInfluencer has a lot of know-how in the video marketing area.
Linqia
Best AI-powered influencer marketing software
Linqia combines the science and accountability of online media with award-winning service. Their AI-driven platform and team of experts is leading the transformation of influencer marketing. Their Performance Platform also serves as a social content lab. So, marketers can test and amplify the best performing influencer content to drive greater ROI.
With Linqia, marketers can store and manage all their influencer content. Brands can view influencer content and program analytics in real time. Program analytics identify which pieces of content perform best with each audience segment. Therefore, brands can take that content and amplify it on their paid, owned, and earned media channels.
Top 3 features
AI delivers ROI at scale: Linqia Performance Platform’s machine learning technologies from Google and Facebook help drive greater ROI for customers. AI-driven analysis and audience targeting analyze influencer content and identify patterns that determine which influencers will deliver meaningful results.
Target audiences: Linqia combines proprietary data with data from Facebook and Twitter to determine the demographics of influencers’ audiences across multiple platforms. Target influencer audiences by age, ethnicity, location, education level, and annual income.
Goal-based pricing: Pricing aligns with customer objectives, whether that be Reach (CPM), Engagement (CPE), or Traffic and Conversions (CPC).
Demo available
Unlimited campaigns
Customer service
Pricing
Review score
Who uses this software?
Yes
Yes
Email Support, Phone Support
N/A
4.7 (19 reviews)
Black & Decker, Gerber, McDonald’s, NBC, Uniqlo, Viacom, Walmart
Our take: Linquia is firmly an enterprise platform. Expect white-label features, bespoke service, third-party validation of results, and even AI-driven analysis to deliver high ROI. But also expect a very expensive price that reflects the clientele it aims to attract. Stay away from Linquia if you aren’t an enterprise.
Fanbytes (by Brainlabs)
Best influencer marketing software for reaching Gen Z
Fanbytes’ network consists of thousands of influencers and pages on TikTok, Snapchat and Instagram, each of which has a highly-engaged community in a particular niche Fanbytes distributes organic creatives at scale and allows you to drive conversions at scale so you can get millions of views without the hefty price tag.
Top 3 features
Targeting and distribution: Whatever your ideal audience, you can define your targeting criteria on the Fanbytes platform
Analytics: Measure views, CPM, clicks, CPC, CTR, and more
Creative: Creatives are custom built to resemble the look and feel of Snapchat and Instagram’s most popular content
Demo available
Unlimited campaigns
Customer service
Pricing
Review score
Who uses this software?
No
Yes
In-App Chat
N/A
No reviews available
Deezer Lens, Warner Bros., Oevo, Charlotte Tillbury
Our take: The Fanbytes team members are experts on engaging Gen Z with influencer content. So, if you’re looking for influencers to reach a young adult market, the team’s knowledge about Gen Z’s wants and behaviors might pay dividends (especially if you want to recruit influencers on TikTok).
Aspire
Aspire’s enterprise-grade software suite is built for social, digital and PR teams to generate branded content at scale via hundreds of thousands of influencers worldwide.
The platform’s analytics leverage millions of data points to provide real-time content feedback, increasing ROI across paid, earned, and owned channels.
Aspire automates responding & negotiating proposals, setting guidelines and reminders, product shipments tracking, content review, tracking posts. Creators, on the other hand, can set their terms and find brands that they want to work with. Creators also get paid quickly – right after they share content.
Top 3 features
Influencer database: Powerful search and filtering options like follower size, follower demographics, hashtag, keyword, age, location, and more help you find the right influencers.
Automatic staging and workflow: Their CRM-like solution makes it easy for a single user to manage hundreds of influencer relationships from outreach to payment.
Content library: The content library gives teams a single source to view and collaborate on the content influencers create for you.
Demo available
Unlimited campaigns
Customer service
Pricing
Review score
Who uses this software?
Yes
No
In-App Chat, Email Support
N/A
4.53 (107 reviews)
Ipsy, BareMinerals, GrubHub, Walgreens
Our take: Aspire lets brands streamline influencer communication, making it easier to build relationships and work with them on content. Ways to screen influencers, as well as filter out bad-fit influencers without their knowledge, appear to be limited, though.
Heartbeat
Heartbeat’s genuine, tailored influencer platform is changing the way brands connect on social. Real people are their influencers, and these creators are helping to change the brand-consumer relationship. Heartbeat influencers provide authentic content for brands. Heartbeat bridges the gap between brands and influencers to create fluid marketing movements.
Top 3 features
User-generated content at scale: 10,000 hyper-targeted creators to choose from.
Authentic engagement: Average engagement on campaigns is above 7%.
Cost-efficiency: A 90% discount on traditional influencer cost.
Demo available
Unlimited campaigns
Customer service
Pricing
Review score
Who uses this software?
Yes
Yes
Email Support, Knowledge Base
Depends on the rate of each influencer
No reviews available
Netflix, Bebe, Amazon, H&M
Our take: If you’re looking for Instagram or TikTok influencers, Heartbeat may be a solid choice, as the platform specializes in Millennial and Gen Z influencers on Instagram and TikTok. The platform also has both self-service and managed service options for maximum flexibility, and lets you invite and register almost anyone as an influencer. But Heartbeat doesn’t have sales tracking capabilities (it primarily tracks reach and engagement-related metrics, plus clicks).
HypeAuditor
HypeAuditor is an end-to-end influencer marketing platform that helps marketers create effective influencer marketing campaigns using a data-driven approach, machine learning, and artificial intelligence.
Top 3 features
In-depth audience and creator analytics: HypeAuditor helps to analyze social media influencer accounts with over 40 valuable metrics including unique metrics like AQS, Audience Authenticity, Comments Authenticity, and many more.
Leading fraud detection system based on 53 behavioral patterns: Machine learning helps identify fraud, gives you specific metrics to evaluate potential influencers, and helps you avoid unreliable creators.
25M+ influencer discovery database: HypeAuditor has a large database of high-quality active influencer accounts — over 25 million influencers on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube,Twitter and Twitch (with a focus on influencers who have over 10K followers).
Demo available
Unlimited campaigns
Customer service
Pricing
Review score
Who uses this software?
Yes
Yes
Email Support, Phone Support
N/A
4.62 (111 reviews)
Dior, Unilever, Influence4You, GroupM, Ogilvy
Our take: We love all the filtering features that help you select influencers based on audience quality and brand fit. The competitive analysis also sets it apart from most other platforms, and the detailed fraud detection helps prevent you from spending money on unethical creators.
But HypeAuditor seems best for larger brands, given its huge library of influencers with over 10k followers. You’ll probably want to use a different platform if you’d like to search out smaller influencers, or if you’re just starting out with influencer marketing.
Upfluence
Upfluence allows brands to manage influencer campaigns all the way from the identification process to the payout.
By providing brands with a way to share impactful content, brands have an easy way to get more clients. Upfluence helps brands with the entire process of planning, creating, publishing and amplifying content.
Top 3 features
Identify influencers: Customize your search with criteria such as keywords, follower count, engagement level, geolocation, language, and social platform, and view live analytics for any influencer.
Manage the campaign: Contact influencers directly within the software, manage responses, and coordinate campaigns with helpful templates. Know when your mail has been opened, negotiate contracts, and easily track influencer posts with their Publisher tool.
Track success: Social listening and reporting tools provide analytics of published content throughout the campaign. Easily accessible reports include CTR, engagement, and shares so success metrics can be measured instantly.
Demo available
Unlimited campaigns
Customer service
Pricing
Review score
Who uses this software?
Yes
Yes
Email Support
N/A
4.23 (129 reviews)
PayPal, Ralph Lauren, Havas, Ricola
Our take: Although Upfluence seems to have pretty comprehensive tracking and management features, the pricing of their tiered plans is not transparent (and reviewers say that it’s on the expensive side, so it likely won’t work well for small to medium-sized businesses). Also, some users report that the customer service experience is mixed, and the learning curve to use the software is steep.
Influenster
Influenster is the leading influencer marketing platform that helps brands make connections, drive engagement, and create advocates. The Influenster community is huge, with 4 million+ members that help brands gain conversations and valuable user-generated content. A community of social savvy shoppers that stay up to date on the latest products, provide reviews and share their thoughts on tested products.
Brands can hyper-target influencers to boost conversation around products and/or services. This is done by sending out VoxBoxes, which are complementary product packages sent to targeted Influensters based on their social media presence and other demographic information. Not only do influencers have to show off these specific products, but they’re also asked to provide reviews and feedback across various platforms.
Top 3 features
VirtualVox: Whether brands are looking to drive contests, sweepstakes entries, attendance at events, or promote in-store deals (and more), Influenster helps amplify the brand’s conversation and buzz.
Consumer insights: Influenster delivers fast results at a fraction of the cost of traditional market research.
User-generated content: Content is authentic and original. Influencers interact with brands by creating original content that encourages word-of-mouth marketing.
Demo available
Unlimited campaigns
Customer service
Pricing
Review score
Who uses this software?
No
Yes
Email Support
N/A
No reviews available
Boulder Brands, L’Oreal, Living Proof, P&G
Our take: Since it depends on free product sampling, you must be an ecommerce brand willing to offer your products to a large amount of influencers for Influenster to work for you. It also doesn’t seem like you have much of an opportunity to communicate with influencers or vet their campaigns (although this could be advantageous as it means all reviews are authentic).
It’s important to note that the Influenster website is geared towards influencers themselves. Brands desiring to use Influenster will need to sign up through the Bazaarvoice platform.
IZEA
IZEA is an influencer marketing platform for agencies and brands that automates influencer campaigns. The platform shortens the process and workflow, on top of providing great features for campaigns.
In 2006, Izea created the influencer marketing space. The goal was to pay bloggers for producing content for brands. Now, with over 3 million transactions under their belt, they offer marketers a software platform that covers every inch of influencer discovery, as well as influencers’ content production and distribution.
Top 3 features
Content direction: Brands can collaborate with creators using the platform tools. This helps keep content and messaging consistent.
Secure payments: Accounting headaches are eliminated. Brands can negotiate fees with two-way bidding, make direct offers and securely manage payments for campaign expenses.
Content distribution: Content can be published to all major social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, blogs, YouTube, and many more.
Demo available
Unlimited campaigns
Customer service
Pricing
Review score
Who uses this software?
Yes
No
Email Support
By campaign
3.9 (32 reviews)
Kraft, Dell, Levis, Pottery Barn
Our take: Izea is definitely an influencer software pioneer. We appreciate that Izea lets you either pay by campaign, purchase access to their full service enterprise software, or select a fully managed campaign service, for maximum flexibility.
However, some features might not be the most intuitive to use, both on the brand and influencer ends. Also, keep in mind that the influencer library is mostly ecommerce and B2C, with not many B2B influencers.
Mavrck
Mavrck was named a “strong performer’ as an influencer marketing solution by Forrester, and is an official TikTok marketing partner. This all-in-one influencer platform provides relationship management, workflow automation, and influencer measurements for brands to create a completely comprehensive program.
Unlike calculating the typical impressions, engagements, and clicks, Mavrck also measures online conversions, offline sales, and brand lift. They also offer proprietary fraud detection, making it much easier to calculate real engagement.
Brands choose to use Mavrck to create powerful influencer marketing programs at scale. The platform makes it easy for brands to discover and activate thousands of influencers.
Top 3 features
Automated fraud detection: Mavrck offers proprietary fraud detection for followers and engagement.
Activation use cases: Creating blogs, posts, videos, links, videos, ratings, reviews, and research surveys has never been easier for a brand.
Reward fulfillment: Brands never have to miss an influencer payment or product shipment. Mavrck increases your efficiency and manages fulfillment for you.
Our take: Mavrck is consistently named a leader in the enterprise influencer space, and the TikTok partnership highlights their expertise even further. There’s even a brand safety feature that flags content that could reflect negatively on your brand, to stop potential problems before they go live.
Mavrck also claims to help brands activate many different types of influencers: influencers with many different reach levels, both on and beyond social platforms. However, it’s only meant for enterprise B2Cs and ecommerce brands. If you don’t fit into that profile, Mavrck won’t be a suitable choice.
Obviously
Obviously is a full-service influencer marketing agency. They offer innovative marketing packages like white glove service to help you handle all aspects of your influencer marketing campaigns. Obviously helps you to build and manage your influencer network, so all you have to do is focus on developing authentic relationships and accomplishing your marketing goals and strategies.
Top 3 features
Influencer identification: Use a database of over 400,000 influencers by age, gender, location, interests, quality, and aesthetic to build the community that is the perfect fit for you.
Shipping and logistics: Obviously’s team handles packaging, shipping, and returns so you can focus on building the best relationships with your influencers.
Relationship management: Obviously knows that to give your influencers the best experience you need to be organized. Filter and sort the exact information you need.
Demo available
Unlimited campaigns
Customer service
Pricing
Review score
Who uses this software?
No
Yes
Email Support
N/A
No reviews available
Sephora, Uniqlo, Google, Clairol, Lyft, Coca-Cola
Our take: As a white-glove platform that runs like an agency, Obviously is another influencer marketing software designed for enterprise-level companies. It’s not suitable for smaller to medium-sized brands. It does handle every aspect of campaigns, though, and campaigns can include influencers in the thousands. So, it is a strong consideration if you do happen to be an enterprise.
Traackr
Traackr powers influencer marketing programs for brands across the globe. All needs from management to measurement are tracked with the platform. Enabling organizations to optimize and scale their influencer marketing programs. The Traackr platform allows brands to determine the ROI, establish custom workflows, and everything else needed to support ongoing influencer campaigns and relationships.
Top 3 features
Global influencer network: Along with their already hefty database, you can upload and manage your own influencers, to keep all your data in one place
Scoring algorithm: Gain intelligent insights and grow your global network based on real metrics
Analyze 360: See metrics on each and every influencer initiative, between content and platform
Demo available
Unlimited campaigns
Customer service
Pricing
Review score
Who uses this software?
No
Yes
Email Support
N/A
4.35 (177 reviews)
Nissan, L’Oreal, Orange, Travelocity, 3M, Capital One, Garmin
Our take: Designed for strategy, Traackr provides a smart analytics dashboard for educated campaign management. They boast what they claim is “the largest global influencer data set,” along with “one-of-a-kind market benchmarking.” And they’re more accessible to smaller teams than most other influencer platforms.
NeoReach
NeoReach has managed over $250 million worth of influencer marketing campaigns to date. So whether you are looking for a YouTube superstar or an Instagram micro-influencer, you’re in good company. Analyze the fans of influencers with our comprehensive audience demographics and insights, and start exploring the influencer partnerships, campaigns, and metrics of various brands.
Top 3 features
Creator and industry analysis: Unlock historical performance and pricing insights on social influencers
Cross-channel social profile and conversation analysis: Access cross-channel social footprints and analyze audience demographics and psychographics
Custom reports: Customized influencer lists and reporting available upon request
Demo available
Unlimited campaigns
Customer service
Pricing
Review score
Who uses this software?
No
Yes
In-App Chat, Email, Phone Support
N/A
4.6 (8 reviews)
Airbnb, Robinhood. Walmart, Netflix
Our take: There are two main options with NeoReach. The first is to pay by the campaign for full-service influencer management, including strategy, negotiation, reporting and payments. The second, recommended for large businesses and enterprises, is full access to the NeoReach software platform, including its API. This option lets you search for influencers as often as you’d like, project and track the sales of individual influencers, and access a dedicated account manager to customize and set up the platform for your needs.
Influencer
Influencer is a complete self-service solution for brand’s that have experience in running collaborations. With this platform, brands can run complete campaigns from start to finish.
Influencer enables you to search and speak directly with their vetted creator community. Brands can also negotiate prices and terms with influencers as well as review creative content, and run reports on influencer content.
Top 3 features
In-depth, data-driven reports: Measure the growth in engagement and audience, while finding out the location of where those engaged are from
Content approval process: Only approve the content you feel suits your brand best
Vetted network: An extensive match-making search tool to find creators that best suit your brand
Demo available
Unlimited campaigns
Customer service
Pricing
Review score
Who uses this software?
Yes
Yes
Email and Phone Support
N/A
No reviews available
gowithYamo, Urban Fruit, Nokia
Our take: We love how the functions are easy to understand: “Plan” campaigns by looking at influencers’ comprehensive metrics and approving the creators of your choice; “Activate” the influencer content you want with a detailed, multi-step screening and approval process; and then “Measure” your campaigns’ results in real time.
Lefty
Lefty is a powerful technology created by a team of big data engineers and data scientists. The team is made up of individuals who come from research facilities to include ENS, Stanford, Imperial College, and Google Search. Lefty has turned billions of social data points into the world’s most intelligent influencer software.
Lefty makes finding the right influencers for your brand’s objectives easy. By using smart algorithms, you can turn raw data into thorough profiles, to help you select the best content creators.
Top 3 features
Influencer platform: End-to-end platform to manage influencers relations
Competitive watch: Access to on-demand annual benchmarks and monthly reporting to monitor closely your efforts
Recruitment program: Recruit dozens of relevant influencers who are willing to collaborate with your brand
Demo available
Unlimited campaigns
Customer service
Pricing
Review score
Who uses this software?
No
No
In-App Chat, Email Support
N/A
4.7 (17 reviews)
Louis Vuitton, Swatch, Sephora, Dior, Chanel
Our take: We appreciate the focus on data, especially when it comes to the detailed competitive analysis feature and the ability to measure the ROI of influencers’ Instagram stories. The feature that lets you find influencers who match your existing promoters is also an interesting touch. But Lefty seems very focused on fashion and lifestyle brands, so it’s hard to say if it works well for companies outside of this niche.
Tidal Labs
Tidal Labs is a platform for building and managing influencer relationships across the globe. It uses a proprietary influencer platform that combines the tools needed for a business to build a private network of influencers. The platform allows brands to manage their relationships, communication, and incentives.
Top 3 features
Track and optimize: Report ROI across campaigns, teams, brands, and regions
Customize and integrate: Bring your influencer programs into all of your enterprise
A full CMS built for social: Review, edit, rate & distribute all your influencer content in one place
Demo available
Unlimited campaigns
Customer service
Pricing
Review score
Who uses this software?
Yes
Yes
Email Support
N/A
No reviews available
Reebok, Uniqlo, Old Spice, Banana Republic
Our take: The robust features for managing influencers’ content, including the capabilities to give feedback on, edit, and publish content right from the platform, are a definite plus. And the seamless integrations with your other software is the icing on the cake.
Captiv8
Captiv8 connects brands to digital influencers and creators to further reach Millenials and members of Gen Z. The core of the platform is held together by social listening, insights, and self-serve platform. As a brand, you can also predict engagement from influencers for every campaign. Then sit back and monitor in real-time and optimize as you go.
Top 3 features
Deep demo data: Learn more about your audience by also analyzing HHI, religion, language, and top interests
Competitive benchmarking: Track their growth by geography and benchmark your content performance
Trending content: Know what posts are trending and learn what your fans want to see
Demo available
Unlimited campaigns
Customer service
Pricing
Review score
Who uses this software?
Yes
Yes
In-App Chat, Email Support
N/A
4.6 (234 reviews)
Honda, Nissan, Dr. Pepper, Amazon, Clamato
Our take: Most influencer platforms give you campaign data, but Captiv8 takes things one step further and makes that data easier to understand and leverage for a higher ROI. The predictive analytics and open API are two more highlight features. Plus, reviewers report that the platform i seasy-to-use with a stellar support team.
Webfluential
Webfluential is an influencer marketing platform that hosts influencers and helps rising social media celebrities with their influencer marketing campaigns. The platform focuses on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, and even websites built with WordPress. Webfluential helps thousands of types of customers – from e-commerce shops to big brand names – helping them craft stories and share them with their audience.
Top 3 features
Collaborate with influencers: See the content that matters most to your audience and drive the conversation
Manage progress: See how your message was received and which influencers resonate best with an audience
Free trial: Start a free 7-day trial
Demo available
Unlimited campaigns
Customer service
Pricing
Review score
Who uses this software?
No
Yes
Email Support
$100-$5000+ / month
No reviews available
Range Rover, Samsung, Absolute, PayPal, Mazda
Our take: Webfluential breaks down how much you’ll need to spend to get access to different features. We appreciate this because not many platforms are transparent about pricing. Another plus is the affordable option for small businesses, an option not many platforms offer.
Tagger
Tagger is a time saver when it comes to streamlining influencer campaigns. The platform helps from the very start of discovery, planning, activation, and reporting. Now your team can stop the guesswork and start building influencer relationships that will take you to the top. This platform offers an over one million influencer database and an opt-in marketplace. With plenty of insights and behavior tracking tools, you can find the perfect fit for any of your influencer jobs.
Top 3 features
Review relevant audiences: In-depth audience insights that resonate with your social audience
Search filters: Make it easier on yourself by using quick search filters to find the best match
Two-way messaging: Send emails to any Creator via Tagger or their email address
Demo available
Unlimited campaigns
Customer service
Pricing
Review score
Who uses this software?
Yes
No
Phone Support
N/A
4.33 (105 reviews)
Warner Music Group, Undertone, Tinder, American Eagle Outfitters
Our take: Reviewers say that the social listening features, influencer discovery tools, and support team stand out most. Some users even go beyond finding influencers, and use the software to discover trends based on what content creators talk about.
Openinfluence
Openinfluence is for everyone from small companies to large agencies who want a place in the influencer marketing world. The platform supports brands across a variety of social media platforms. Openinfluence also allows for rate negotiation and even payment processing.
Top 3 features
Management tools: Manage everything from influencers, contracts, scheduling, and client dashboards
Advanced search: Search by demographics, topics, interests, keywords, and image recognition labels
Content analytics: Analyze each piece of content, and see each aspect drives performance
Demo available
Unlimited campaigns
Customer service
Pricing
Review score
Who uses this software?
No
Yes
Email Support
N/A
No reviews available
Fossil, Marie Claire, Digitas
Our take: OpenInfluence lets you choose from bespoke, fully managed campaigns and their Go Prism software. While the Go Prism software offers detailed influencer discovery tools (including a feature that gauges influencers’ safety to work with), it doesn’t appear to have management features. Where do you go from there, once you’ve selected influencers and are ready to manage them?
The Cirqle
The Cirqle is an online marketing and creative department. The kicker is that it comes with free and unlimited creative resources, along with access to top creators. On top of that brands also receive a sales attribution infrastructure. The platform uses an estimated impressions number to put in perspective the potential reach an influencer has. The Cirqle provides the exact tools you need to track content performance.
Top 3 features
Library of tools: An all-in-one platform gives you everything you need to run your business
Free expert insights: Experts share strategies from past clients to bring you success
Full support: Chat about your influencer marketing strategies 24/7
Demo available
Unlimited campaigns
Customer service
Pricing
Review score
Who uses this software?
No
Yes
In-App Chat, Knowledge Base, Email Support
Approx. $1,015-$2,031/month; enterprise plan also available
No reviews available
Jimmy Choo, Belstaff, ING, Sony Music
Our take: The Cirqle is a Meta partner, which means their expertise in working with Facebook and Instagram influencers is certified by the platforms. Another plus is that all influencers on The Cirqle are already vetted.
Matchmade
Matchmade is an easy-to-use influencer platform that helps brands create targeted and measured campaigns with YouTube influencers. You only pay for performance, meaning you pay for actualized campaigns only. Matchmade is geared towards game developers and their algorithm matches your game with the best and most relevant influencers in the market.
Top 3 features
Logistic bliss: No monthly fees and they handle all influencer payments for you
Full service: A fully managed custom solution if a self-service platform isn’t your thing
Negotiate with ease: The team can recommend prices based on channel data but ultimately it’s up to you
Demo available
Unlimited campaigns
Customer service
Pricing
Review score
Who uses this software?
Yes
No
In-App Chat, Email Support
N/A
No reviews available
Wooga, Tilting Point, Plarium, Social Point
Our take: Matchmade is one of the most niche influencer platforms on this list. It’s designed only for working with YouTube creators, and tailored for online and mobile game developers. If you fit that narrow niche, you’ll benefit from their expertise… but most businesses will likely have to look elsewhere.
Julius
Julius allows brands to discover influencers with just a few keystrokes and over 50 search filters. Finding an influencer for your target audience has never been easier. The platform offers in-depth campaign management and messaging to better help get your brand’s message and voice across. The in-house research team makes decision making a breeze, and following influencers is simple with the built-in CRM.
Top 3 features
Quick campaign launch: Launching is easy when you can easily organize communications, track deliverables, and manage payments
Exportable and customizable data: Make presentations and run an analysis with fully customizable data exports
Reporting metrics: Whether it’s cost per engagement, engagement rate, or earned media value, you have all the data at your disposal to evaluate your campaign
Demo available
Unlimited campaigns
Customer service
Pricing
Review score
Who uses this software?
Yes
Yes
Email and Phone Support
N/A
4.5 (179 reviews)
Nordstrom, McDonalds, Bonobos, Philips
Our take: Julius uses both algorithms and nuanced human analysis to help you find the right influencers, which we appreciate. Customers also rave about their compassionate support team, wo offer help every step of the way as you build and manage campaigns.
inzpire.me
inzpire.me is a platform dedicated to scaling your influencer collaborations. With one tool, you can run impactful campaigns on seven social media channels. You can easily target your audience by matching with curated content creators, and easily make use of audience demographics, personalized templates, campaign management, real-time reporting, and a content library to push images directly to Facebook Ads Manager.
Top 3 features
Instant results from Instagram’s API: Optimize current and future campaigns by tracking their performance in real-time
Automated creative delivery: No need to manually gather content from your influencers – everything’s uploaded automatically on the platform.
Monthly invoicing: Save time on creating individual invoices or credit card payments with a monthly invoice for all collaborations.
$289+/month for Business,
$599+/month Enterprise, and 25% of budget for Full Service
No reviews available
Dentsu Aegis, Publicis Groupe, Monster Energy, Nestlé, Coca-Cola, Nescafé, Universal Music Group, Zenith, Mediacom
Our take: We appreciate Inzpire.me’s pricing transparency. It seems like a platform that could work for a wide variety of businesses. Some businesses report that it has helped them organize hyperlocal campaigns.
Shopping Links
Shopping Links provides the perfect platform to help brands track creator’s media in one space. The platform aims at pairing the perfect influencers for each brand. By assessing each influencer’s audience and measuring their authenticity, brands can have a campaign that leads to increased ROI.
Top 3 features
Influencer analytics: Access social and website following, engagement, audience demographics
Content gallery: Access, download, store, and search influencer images created for your brand
Campaign analytics and tracking: Track individual performance along with conversion metrics for both web and social campaigns
Demo available
Unlimited campaigns
Customer service
Pricing
Review score
Who uses this software?
No
No
Email and Phone Support
$1,850-$3,800 for influencer allocations; $10,000 for a fully customized campaign.
No reviews available
Nasty Gal, Alex and Ani, Macy’s, Boden
Our take: Like Influenster, Shopping Links seems very giveaway-based, so you’ll need to be comfortable with giving away physical products for this software to be worthwhile. It appears that you don’t have to give away as many products as with Influenster, though.
indaHash
indaHash works with micro-influencers who have anywhere from 10,000 to 100,000 followers. Meaning the message is more personalized than and honed into your target market than with a regular influencer campaign. The platform focuses on three different spaces, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. The platform operates all over the world and in 80 markets, meaning brands have a great chance of exposure.
Top 3 features
User-generated content: Content is made by digital influencers themselves
Regram or repost: There is also the option for digital influencers publish the same photo provided by the brand
Credibility and engagement: Content is published on the influencer’s own profile and therefore are not perceived as an advert
Demo available
Unlimited campaigns
Customer service
Pricing
Review score
Who uses this software?
No
Yes
Email Support
N/A
No reviews available
Electrolux, Evree, Fanta, KFC
Our take: We appreciate IndaHash’s focus on micro-influencers, as smaller influencers’ high follower engagement and network of trust makes them valuable promoters. Plus, they may be more accessible to brands that haven’t yet reached the enterprise stage. (With a 10,000 follower minimum for influencers, though, the IndaHash influencers still might not be the most accessible to newer and smaller brands.)
Socialix
Socialix is an influencer marketing platform that will help your programs and help you improve performance with its end-to-end solution. The platform connects influencers and bloggers with brands and talent agencies. The whole process is done in four simple steps. Starting with media kit creation, then the partnership with advertisers, followed by content creation, and finally receiving payments.
Top 3 features
Automated workflow: Streamline your entire collaboration process in an automated workflow
Custom integrations: Connect Socialix to your existing technologies and centralize your data
Influencer CRM: Organize your influencer community and track all communication
Demo available
Unlimited campaigns
Customer service
Pricing
Review score
Who uses this software?
Yes
Yes
In-App Chat, Email, Phone Support
N/A
4.8 (8 reviews)
None listed
Our take: One advantage of Socialix is that you can upload any influencer’s data (they don’t have to already be on the platform to add them). The “influencer CRM” makes it easy to add, manage, communicate with, and track influencers all in one place. And the custom integrations make it easy to move the data across platforms when needed.
Tribe Dynamics
Tribe Dynamics allows users to discover, track, and measure their best influencer relationships with a robust marketing platform built to grow your business. Using a comprehensive set of tools and services, Tribe Dynamics helps identify and activate influencer relationships so you can maximize your earned media, cut through the media noise, and grow your brand.
Top 3 features
Discover: Find and build your most productive influencer base.
Track: Surface and organize the most impactful influencer content about your brand.
Grow: Build a custom competitor dashboard to gain insights that inform your brand strategy.
Our take: The social mention tool is very powerful, and even tracks Instagram Stories without an opt-in. Tribe Dynamics also lets you track your campaign’s performance against competitors and your wider industry. Reviewers say it’s user-friendly with excellent customer service, but warn that the price point may not be accessible to smaller brands.
Tracking features of influencer marketing software
Influencer software allows brands to track and manage influencer requirements, as well as gather analytics from their influencer campaigns.
Common analytics for influencer marketing software includes:
Engagement level of influencers’ followers
Activities completed
Crowd response
Some influencer software provides content creators with a checklist to finish. Others allow brands to assign single tasks at a time (which usually means one task must be completed before the influencer can move on.)
Influencer marketing software also weeds out poor performing influencers. This way, brands always have a reliable list of influencers to choose from. For example, influencers who miss campaign requirements can become blocked from the platform, or become blocked from future campaigns with that brand. Some platforms may even charge the influencer the price of the product(s).
FAQs about influencer marketing software
Still trying to decide if influencer software is right for you? These FAQs may help you make your decision.
What is an influencer program?
Influencer marketing programs use influential people to spread the word about a business. They become promoters and advocates of the brand. Most common influencer programs rely on public speakers, celebrities, bloggers, social media gurus, and vloggers. These individuals cast out their branded content to as many people as they can, and this serves as an advertisement for a brand.
How do influencer programs work?
The gist of an influencer program is that influencers create content and share it with their audience. They may review, try, or wear a product and display that experience to their following (similar to how a brand ambassador vouches for a specific product). The terms depend on what the brand is wanting to achieve.
Most of the time, an influencer program will contain a checklist of actions the influencer is to do. For example, a makeup brand may want influencers to create a Snapchat video using the product. Then they may request the influencer to upload an image of them with that product to their Instagram. They may also want the Instagram post to include a certain phrase or hashtag. On top of all that, they may want the influencer to write a review of the product.
Keep in mind that influencer marketing campaigns operate in the short term – each campaign consists of just one, or just a few, posts or content pieces at a time.
Are influencer programs effective?
Influencer programs incentivize the influencer to share by giving them freebies. Some programs take it up a notch and provide cash or other incentives for sharing. Certain brands consider the number of followers an influencer has as a way of determining the amount of compensation. As you can imagine, this creates a pretty good marketing campaign.
What is influencer marketing software also known as?
Influencer marketing software is also known as:
Influencer software
Influencer marketing hub
Social influencer platform
Influencer marketing platform
Influencer platform
Influencer management software
Some brands might use different words to describe their influencer software platforms. While each software program might have different features and products, they all still fit into one category – influencer marketing – based on their structures.
Does influencer marketing software help save you time?
Content marketing is still king. However, the second runner up is influencer marketing. The increase of marketing budgets has fueled the growth of influencer marketing software. So, these software programs have become more and more effective at helping you manage your marketing and time.
We noticed that most experts based on our research spend more time using an influencer platform versus those who aren’t. Now, you can interpret this in a number of ways. But shouldn’t using a software save you more time? The way we see it is that those who do use software tend to be more proactive, and possibly produce more successful influencer marketing.
What’s one example of a brand that used software to manage influencers?
Hair care brand Bumble and bumble ran an influencer campaign through Influenster. There were specific tasks users had to complete after receiving the product. Each task came with its own specific set of instructions.
For example, when reviewing the product online influencers had to state that the product to them for review purposes. Then, when posting about the product on social media, the influencer had to use certain hashtags in their posts. They also had to mention the product was a complementary product. The result? Instagram shows 490 posts have already used that specific hashtag.
What businesses are a good fit for influencer marketing software?
Businesses of almost every type use influencers – they’re an especially popular choice when marketing to younger, social media-savvy audiences, because of their online focus.
Figuring out whether your business is a good fit for influencer marketing software is all about determining whether it’s beneficial for you to recruit influencers in general.
Even though they don’t always have a substantial following, influencers always have a substantial reputation: they are always highly trusted by their audience.
And whether they’re a celebrity, a social media star, or a trusted individual with a relatively smaller following, influencers must always be compensated in some way. This can get expensive, especially if you want a higher-profile influencer to represent you. And since influencers are paid by the campaign, and only serve you for a shorter time, things can get expensive quickly. Thus, influencers tend to be a better fit for established, medium to large businesses.
Smaller businesses should consider recruiting brand ambassadors instead, as they serve your brand in the long term, and as they can be much less expensive if you recruit the right ambassadors.
Plus, most influencer software programs aren’t built with small businesses in mind. But there are brand ambassador software platforms – like Referral Rock – that are well equipped to serve businesses of all sizes.
What are some alternatives to influencer marketing software?
These types of software are often confused with influencer marketing software, but they are distinctly different. Consider these alternatives if you aren’t sure whether influencer software is right for you, or if your business doesn’t seem like it’s a good fit for influencer marketing.
Brand ambassador software
Brand ambassador software helps you find existing fans of your product to recruit as long-term brand ambassadors. It also helps you manage a brand ambassador program.
Influencers and brand ambassadors both represent your brand on social media, but there are several key differences between brand ambassadors and influencers:
Influencers represent your brand in the short term, while ambassadors represent your brand in the long term.
Influencers haven’t necessarily used your product before you recruit them to promote it, but brand ambassadors are always existing fans of (and advocates for) your product.
Influencers promote your brand online, but brand ambassadors promote your brand both online and offline.
Because brand ambassadors and influencers differ in these ways, you need different types of software to manage them. Brand ambassador software is a very distinct category from influencer marketing software.
Referral marketing software
Referral marketing software helps you set up a referral program, which makes it easy for your customers to personally share your brand with their friends. In a referral program, your customers directly share your brand with people they know personally. Referral software then tracks all of the shares, links the person doing the sharing with the referred friend, and offers rewards to both the referring customer and their peer.
In contrast, influencers share with all their social followers at once, many of whom they do not know personally. Success is tracked post by post, rather than individual share by individual share. This is why referral marketing software is clearly different from influencer marketing software.
Affiliate marketing software
Affiliate software lets you create affiliate links for content creators to use on their own blogs and social media platforms, when they promote your products and services.
Affiliate links are a great way to directly track the sales that social media influencers create, a feature that many influencer software programs lack. So, it’s a smart idea to recruit influencers as affiliates, and use affiliate marketing software as your creator management platform. Plus, affiliate software tends to be a better fit for software businesses and B2Bs, compared to most influencer software that’s built for ecommerce and B2Cs.
Brand mention software
Brand mention software, also known as social listening software, alerts you whenever someone mentions your brand name online, sorts these mentions based on whether they are positive or negative, and alerts you to the reach of each person or account mentioning you.
A brand mention tool can help you find influential people on social media who are already talking about your brand, and enables you to contact these people right through this software. Thus, you could use it to find and contact influencers, so you don’t have to spend countless hours searching for potential good fits.
However, brand mention software doesn’t help you manage and track the success of influencer marketing campaigns. That’s why it’s clearly a different category than influencer software.
Advocate marketing software
Advocate marketing software is an umbrella term. It refers to any software used to find representatives to promote your brand through word of mouth. Thus, influencer marketing software is one type of advocate marketing software.
Sometimes, advocate marketing software is used to specifically market employee advocacy software. Employee advocacy software empowers your employees to represent and advocate for you in the long term, online and offline. So, it’s very different than influencer software – it’s much more similar to brand ambassador software.
Referral Rock: Best alternative to influencer marketing software
Referral Rock lets any business get more customers using the power of their own network. Our platform is flexible enough to run referral programs, brand ambassador campaigns, affiliate programs, and more.
Any type of business can design programs to easily enroll long-term ambassadors and advocates, capture the new leads they bring in, and instantly issue rewards for every sale.
If you’re interested in starting an influencer program (or have already started one), but want to take things to the next level with detailed tracking, Referral Rock can help.
Since Referral Rock is an affiliate and ambassador software, it lets you create unique affiliate links, and directly track the sales that social media influencers create. This way, you’ll know exactly how your influencer-affiliates are performing and how many sales each one brings in. Remember: Many of the typical influencer marketing tools lack this detailed tracking feature.
You’ll also be able to pay your affiliate-influencers automatically, based on the sales they drive, so you’ll only pay when you see results. And since your advocates have lasting affiliate links and get paid for performance, they will become more like long-term brand ambassadors who are motivated to keep promoting you.
Plus, Referral Rock automates every step of the process, including advocate engagement, so you can focus on the success of your program.
With 25+ integrations, you can get a brand ambassador or affiliate program up and running in just a few steps.
And if you need any help, our dedicated customer service team is known for its expert services and support. But don’t just take our word for it – see what other businesses have to say.
Demo available
Unlimited campaigns
Customer service
Pricing
Review score
Who uses this software?
Yes, demo and free trial
Yes
Onboarding specialists, customer success managers, chat support, product and resource guides, support center, webinars
$200-$800+ /month
4.5 (55 reviews)
B2Bs and B2Cs in all industries that want to create long-term advocates
Wrapping up
Influencer marketing programs use the power and influence of highly followed individuals. Unlike referral marketing, this type of marketing is for larger groups of people and is a less individualized and personalized action.
Even though influencer marketing is powerful, it’s very short-term, and it’s hard to measure the sales influencers bring in. An affiliate program or ambassador program may be a better choice if your team is interested in tracking your advocates’ sales. If you’re interested in those types of programs, you’ll need another digital marketing tool (and not the typical influencer software).