12 Must-Have Influencer Marketing Tools to Boost Your Campaign Performance in 2024

Digital Marketing Institute has revealed that 49% of consumers depend on influencer recommendations, making influence marketing in the goods and services promotion a significant feat to grow awareness.

However, the collaboration process is quite complicated. Traversing through the varied stages, from audience research to long-term campaign management, will open a door of opportunity. 

The influencer marketing industry, according to Statista, hit $15.2 billion in 2023. However, with its increasing requirements and effectiveness in garnering results, the industry is expected to reach $22.2 billion by 2025. 

89% of marketers, according to Statista report, agreed that Instagram is the number one influencer marketing platform. Youtube and Facebook came in second and third, respectively, with 70% and 45% usage. 

Moreover, multiple influencer marketing tools are available to accelerate each procedure phase.

Most influencer marketing platforms have many functions and are useful in different contexts. They can assist in connecting with the influencers, managing the campaigns, and getting valuable insights.

The strong growth of social media and the multi-faceted nature of influencer marketing are turning this channel into a powerful tool for lead generation, revenue generation, and brand promotion. So, let's look at these 11 types of influencer marketing tools that will make it easier to work with influencers to find, manage, and measure the performance of their campaigns.

Remember that they have different functions when choosing the most suitable influencer marketing tool for your projects. And even when you opt for an all-in-one platform, remember that some features may not work as well as expected.

Influencer Marketing Tools for Social Listening

Social listening is keeping an eye on internet discussions to learn what people are saying about your company, its products, services, and other matters that can be important to your organization. It can dramatically improve your social media strategy.

1. Sprout Social

It’s a platform for social media management with robust social listening capabilities. With Sprout's listening technologies, you can monitor conversations, brand mentions, and market trends to find brand advocates and influencers interested in your products. It can also provide actionable reporting insights for social media campaigns. These powerful features are also available in other social media analytics tools.

Apart from that, the tool allows you to:

• View information and visual ideas on any topic;
• Monitor consumer responses to advertising initiatives;
• Analyze consumer opinion;
• Monitor changes in audience activity;
• Engage brand advocates by answering comments.

Pros

• User-friendly UX/UI;
• Multiple pages management;
• Posting time recommendations.

Cons

• High price;
• Video duration limitation.

Pricing: Minimal monthly payment is $249. Listening is a premium Sprout Social feature. The price should be discussed individually

2. Brandwatch

Brandwatch is a platform for consumer research that aids marketers in better understanding their target market and keeping tabs on brand mentions. With Brandwatch, it’s possible to track anything, including brand names, subjects, keywords, and phrases, as well as optimize searches with advanced settings.

You can monitor and interact with followers anywhere if you have a large audience. Other filters allow you to access and see data by keyword, source, demography, influencer, and content type.

Among other features of the platform are:

• Competitor analysis;
• Follower analysis;
• Post-performance analysis;
• Social listening;
• Sentiment analysis;
• Trend analysis;
• Report customization and exporting.

Pros

• Covers a wide range of sources;
• High speed;
• High level of customization.

Cons

• Occasionally inaccurate sentiment categorization;
• Inability to answer the messages in the tool.

Pricing: The minimal monthly payment is $108 with a 14-day free trial.

3. Awario

Awario is an excellent resource for discovering influencers. You can monitor brand mentions and detect the most enthusiastic users. The platform lets you watch a brand's competitors and specialized keywords. Apart from that, Awario has rating functionality. You can view relevant influencers based on the number of followers, reach, and daily visits.

One of the most distinctive capabilities of the tool is competitive brand monitoring. Track and examine various client comments, analyze the tone, and build personalized reports using the platform.

Other features of the tool are:

• Sentiment analysis;
• Social reporting;
• Social measurement.

Pros

• Strong filtering options;
• Good presentation of data;
• Keeps track of every mention.

Cons

• Impossible to eply to tweets directly from the tool;
• 7-day limit on historical twitter data.

Pricing: Awario offers three plans starting at $24 per month.

Influencer Marketing Tools to Drive Engagement and Conversion

Influencer marketing tools can not only help somehow manage the projects but can provide additional capabilities to boost them and drive engagement and conversions.

4. Xoxoday Plum

The digital platform assists companies in managing incentives, bonuses, and other promotions. These may be directed at both influencers and their followers. Your brand can improve relationships with influencers by providing instant payouts and exclusive gift vouchers.

At the same time, if your company gives bonuses to the customers, influencers can accent it to keep your prospects excited and improve your influencer marketing campaigns' engagement and conversion rates.

Among the features of the tool are:

• Clever architecture;
• Integration of rewards into an existing system;
• Gamified rewards;
• Campaign effectiveness analytics.

Pros

• User-friendly;
• Seamlessly integrates with a number of notable systems;
• Message templates are available;
• Easy incentive distribution.

Cons

• Transactions fail occasionally;
• No direct communication between the merchant and the voucher provider.

Pricing: The minimal monthly payment is $199.

Influencers Marketing Tools for Searching Influencers

For most businesses, finding influencers is a difficult marketing challenge. Fortunately, various marketing tools were developed to assist with the task.

5. CreatorIQ

CreatorIQ is an intelligent influencer marketing platform with several creator identification tools. It can discover relevant influencer profiles, apply filters to focus your search, compare profiles, and evaluate performance indicators. Nowadays, the platform has more than 15 million creator accounts on the system.

CreatorIQ has a "content first" approach to discovery, which means it doesn't only scan for keywords in a bio or caption and doesn't just index and categorize material based on what the creators say about themselves. Instead, the AI analyzes every component of any piece of content, including the image itself, location, mentions, and emojis, and draws conclusions based on these insights.

Among other valuable features are:

• Content approval;
• Data importing and exporting tools;
• Social commerce;
• Influencer scoring;
• Campaign analytics;
• Influencer whitelisting;
• Audience analysis;
• UGC-management.

Pros

• Personalized reports;
• Great user support;
• Automatic content retrieval.

Cons

• Confusing navigation;
• The creator onboarding questionnaire is limited.

Pricing: The pricing for the platform usage should be discussed individually.

6. TrendHero

TrendHERO is an all-in-one Instagram influencer marketing tool with search capabilities. It gathers the account's active followers, determines who they follow, then aggregates this information to create a list of relevant influencers.

The '500 similar accounts' feature allows users to acquire a list of competitors and influencers in just two clicks.

Among other valuable features are:

• In-depth Instagram research (90+ metrics);
• Fake followers and likes identification;
• Daily tracking for any Instagram account, including your own and your competitors';
• Tracking every mention made by businesses and influencers.

Pros

• Audience quality calculator;
• Reasonable price;
• Convenient interface.

Cons

• It takes several hours to create a report;
• Poor audience interest descriptions

Pricing: The platform offers a free plan. The minimal monthly payment is $9.99.

7. Social Blade

SocialBlade is a platform that monitors user data for Twitter, Instagram, Twitch, and YouTube. It provides access to a public database that lets you view stats for any company, live streamer, or influencer.

Additionally, it displays information about the account's creation date, geography, and the number of views. SocialBlade shows progress graphs for each influencer based on their monthly subscribers and views.

Apart from that, the tool has the following capabilities:

• Report customizability;
• Competitor analysis;
• Follower analysis;
• Post performance review;
• Paid campaign tracking

Pros:

• Detailed analytics;
• Engagement rate calculator.

Cons

• Slow loading;
• Includes few social media.

Once you complete the signup, Social Blade is free to use. You can upgrade to a premium membership for a minimum of $3.99 per month if you require more features.

8. Heepsy

The platform offers you a choice from seven million influencers. All of them have at least 5,000 followers, which is a minimum to consider them influencers, according to Heepsy.

Additionally, it displays the frequency of influencers' posts and growth rate while filtering out suspicious and phony accounts. The app displays the area, engagement level, and audience demographics and calculates collaboration costs. Without leaving the platform, you can create a list of influencers, start a conversation, and export data.

Other features are:

• Audience demographics;
• Authenticity analysis;
• Bulk lists and exports.

Pros

• Highly accurate filtration;
• Shows the price of collaboration with each influencer.

Cons

• Slow loading;
• The free plan offers few capabilities.

Pricing: Heepsy offers a free plan. The minimal monthly fee for premium features is $49.

Influencers Marketing Tools for Outreach

Your influencer outreach strategies determine whether you will receive a response from your target influencers and build the groundwork for a long-term connection. You should have a solid influencer marketing outreach strategy and a good outreach platform before you start.

9. Pitchbox

Pitchbox is an outreach and link-building platform. Brands use it to track down contacts, locate influencers, and send automated follow-up emails and pitches. You may also make data-driven decisions with analytics and reporting features.

Other capabilities of the platform are

• Control of time zones, days of the week, and the times of the day;
• Product tracking;
• Reports and visualization;
• Campaign analytics.

Pros

• Great customer support;
• Intuitive and well-organized dashboard;
• The integration with third-party software.

Cons

• No email open rates information;
• No option of a short-term subscription.

Pricing: The price should be discussed individually.

10. Ninja Outreach

With the help of the influencer outreach platform NinjaOutreach, you can locate email addresses, social media accounts, and more in various regions or fields. It also allows you to schedule emails, record chats, and keep track of interactions. You can be sure that you will discover the appropriate fit since there are 82 categories to choose from.

Another great feature is handling several tasks without losing sight of anything. You can segment your leads by client or project and other factors like SEO and social media. Relationship status labels enable the tracking of every lead interaction, and you will always be updated on the effectiveness of your marketing.

Other advantages of the platform are:

• Newsroom;
• PR planner;
• Response desk;
• Unlimited searches;
• Unlimited email scheduling;
• Leads segmentation.

Pros

• Cost-effective;
• Quick help desk.

Cons

• Charges fee even when you sign up for trial;
• Contact information is not always accurate

Pricing: The minimal monthly payment is $389.

Influencers Marketing Tools for Management

On behalf of a brand, the influencer marketing manager is in charge of overseeing creators. The manager oversees reporting, influencer relationship management (IRM), and influencer recruitment. Since the scope of work is extremely large, it's almost impossible to handle without specialized tools.

11. Influencity

Influencity allows you to locate, assess, and coordinate influencers. Additionally, brands may use it to organize workflows, manage campaigns, anticipate sales, and evaluate performance.

Influencity also includes clustering influencers into lists, which allows you to estimate the results, manage multiple campaigns, keep track of the tasks assigned to the influencers, and analyze posts with comprehensive reports for influencer campaigns.

Other features of the tool are:

• Content approval;
• Campaign analytics;
• Audience analysis;
• UGC management;
• Reporting and dashboards;
• Social commerce.

Pros

• Great customer support;
• Regular influencer's data updates.

Cons

• Search limitations per month;
• Slow loading.

Pricing: The minimal monthly payment is $148 with a 7-days free trial.

12. Upfluence

You may search through a database of 3 million influencers using Upfluence. View the influencer's most recent posts and social media statistics, like monthly visits and interaction rates.

Upfluence allows marketers to use their existing consumer bases to find influencers. The concept is straightforward: your customers are the finest brand ambassadors and can help spread the word about your products.

If you own an eCommerce company, you can use the Reveal function of Upfluence's software to identify influencers visiting your website and provide them with a reward for posting about your brand.

Among other features of the platform are:

• Influencer comparing;
• Influencer segmentation;
• Ranking function;
• Campaign analytics;
• Audience analysis.

Pros

• Sends notifications when the influencer opens your email;
• Has a Google extension;
• Shows the suggested price for cooperation with an influencer.

Cons

• Search filters are not always accurate;
• Few micro-influencers.

Pricing: The platform offers three different plans. The price should be discussed individually.

What are the benefits of influencer marketing?

According to Mediakix, 80% of brands find influencer marketing an effective promotion channel. Over the years, influence marketing proved to work well for the overall brand performance improvement and achieving more specific marketing goals.

1. Improves brand awareness

Your digital presence may be dramatically increased with the help of influencer marketing. According to ShaneBarker, almost 40% of Twitter users have bought something directly from an influencer tweet. Collaborating with bloggers and experts whose audience coincides with yours will help you:

• Reach out to thousands of prospective customers.
• Get more creative and engaging advertisements.
• Make people feel more connected to advertisements and get encouraged to put an item in their shopping cart more easily.

2. Building trust

According to the Digital Marketing Institute, 70% of teens trust influencers more than traditional celebrities. And here’s why:

• Influencers develop a positive rapport with the audience.
• Followers see the influencers as an authority.
• Recommendations received from an influencer don't feel like advertising.

3. Generating leads

Lead generation is one of the biggest advantages of social media for business. Most social networks today provide opportunities to post ads. These ad options were carefully crafted and specially created to gather leads and aid businesses in generating site traffic and enhancing their social media presence.

• Instagram allows you to place the ad with a link in a post, Story, or Reel.
• In TikTok it's possible to launch pre-roll ads or in-feed ads.
• Facebook offers Images, Videos, carousels, Slideshow, and other types of the ads.

4. Driving conversions

According to the Digital Marketing Institute, influence marketing campaigns earn $5,78 for every dollar spent. Influencers can point their followers toward a brand's goods or services by:

• Including a call-to-action in sponsored postings;
• Posting a promo code
• Including a link to a post.

This benefits the followers and aids companies in gaining clients quickly. Apart from that, social media can instantly redirect users to a product page.

Tips to boost your influencer marketing campaign

Small and large businesses have actively been using influencer marketing for several years. During this time, social media changed several times. But there are some universal influencer marketing tips that remain relevant no matter what.

1. Work with those who love your brand

Influencers who already promote your business without compensation do so because they like your product and brand values. This indicates that they already have an audience likely to be receptive to your message. Apart from that, loyal influencers will be more honest in their promotions.

To identify such personas, track the mentions of your account and search for the branded hashtags on social media. You can also benefit from social media listening tools. They indicate all the mentions of your company on the Internet. Among the popular social listening tools are SproutSocial, Hootsuite, Buffer, Buzzsumo, Mention, and Oktopost and their alternatives.

2. Encourage creativity

The content is where influencer marketing shines. Bloggers are gifted people with the capacity to produce something extraordinary. Don't limit their creativity with your scripts, style guides, etc.

See how it works for Daniel Wellington.

3. Share user generated content

In general, people tend to trust other people more than brands. However, finding pictures and materials created by someone outside your team might take a lot of work. You may ask an influencer you're working with for permission to utilize their material on your page. Then, you'll be able to repost their material so that both their photos and copy are visible to your audience.

Make a plan for distributing UGC to get the most out of it. Save your UGC for a product you'll be marketing so you can use it when it comes, especially if you know you'll be promoting a particular product soon.

4. Provide rewards

Consider launching an affiliate program so the influencers can receive additional rewards the more they sell and feel motivated to promote your product more actively. Before the campaign begins, highlight the perks they can receive.

Today it's more widespread to give money rewards. Still, other gifts, like discount cards, selections of complementary goods, or invitations to significant events, nurture loyalty to the brand and help build good relations with influencers. You can also benefit from letting influencers offer rewards to their audience. For instance, they can provide the followers with a personal promo code, ensuring a discount for the purchase.

5. Work with micro-influencers

Micro-influencers have from 1000 to 10000 subscribers. Since they have a smaller social media following, developing deeper relationships with their subscribers is easier. And as a result, their audience is far more active on social media and is more inclined to listen to their advice.

Micro-influencers typically concentrate on a narrow niche: they may cover fashion, literature, education, and other topics. This makes it easier for you to pick an influencer whose followers are definitely in your target audience.

The location of the influencer should also be considered. A group of bloggers residing close to your place of business can be a part of your brand advocates. Close location helps to maintain communication, manage postal items, and organize events.

Final Words

Influencer marketing can be easy. However, many businesses are unaware of how important it is to use the correct tool for an influencer marketing campaign.

First, you must establish your goals and understand what you offer. Contact influencers who share the principles and objectives of your company. And always listen to the other side's thoughts and concerns while maintaining clear communication.

With the list of influencer marketing tools provided above, you should be able to find the most suitable platforms for your projects.

Frequently asked questions related to influencer marketing

Here are some frequently asked questions related to influencer marketing:

Q. What is Influencer Marketing?

Influencer marketing is a social media technique that involves product placement and brand mentions from individuals who are regarded as subject matter experts or are identified as influencers by their following.

Q. How do you find influencers in marketing?

There are several ways to do it:

• Through social media, using hashtags, look-alike feature, etc.;
• Through Google search;
• With social listening tools;
• Through influencer marketing agencies;
• With influencer marketing tools.

Q. Which brands are the best at influencer marketing?

Many brands successfully implement influencer marketing strategies. To see some examples, you can monitor how brands like Daniel Wellington, Audible, and Clinique do it.

Q. What is the most effective platform for influencer marketing?

Your choice of influencer marketing platform should depend on your projects and requirements since different tools have different capabilities. Some of the most prominent platforms of the kind are Sprout Social, CreatorIQ, Heepsy, and Xoxoday Plum.

Q. What are the top 5 tips for implementing influencer marketing?

There are many valuable strategies and tips for collaboration with influencers. Here are some of them:

• Work with your brand advocates;
• Encourage creativity and creative freedom of the influencers;
• Share user-generated content;
• Provide both influencers and followers with rewards;
• Work with micro-influencers.