Why The Influencer Game Is No Longer Paid Or Organic — Danil Saliukov | How To Find Creators For Your Goals, Why Focused Briefs Create Better Content, Best Influencer Pricing Models, What Makes UGC Scalable, How Whitelisting Boosts Ad Performance (#386)

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In today's episode, we dive into why the influencer marketing landscape has evolved beyond simple paid or organic approaches. 

Joining us is Danil Saliukov, CEO & co-founder of Insense, who explains how combining both strategies creates maximum impact, with particular focus on the growing importance of "whitelisting" - running ads through influencer handles. 

The discussion covers finding the right content creators, crafting effective briefs, and leveraging TikTok Shop not just as a sales channel but as a powerful product discovery platform that can complement existing e-commerce platforms like Amazon and Shopify.

Special offer for our listeners: Book a demo with Insense to claim your $200 bonus at https://hubs.la/Q039VGYJ0 

Topics discussed in this episode: 

• Why influencer marketing is no longer just paid or organic – it’s both. 
• How whitelisting influencers in ads boosts performance. 
• What makes UGC scalable and impactful in paid campaigns. 
• Why clear, focused briefs lead to better content. 
• How to find the right creators based on your goals. 
• Why TikTok Shop changes the game for product discovery. 
• How gifting filters top influencers with low risk. 
• Why TikTok content can spike Amazon sales indirectly. 
• What to pay influencers – pricing models that work. 
• Why channel diversification is key to brand survival. 

Links & Resources 

Book a call to claim your $200 bonus: https://hubs.la/Q039VGYJ0
Website: https://insense.pro/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danil-saliukov/
X/Twitter: https://x.com/DanilSalukov 

Get access to more free resources by visiting the show notes at
https://tinyurl.com/yt3jvj4j 

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Transcript

[00:00:00] This episode is sponsored by Brevo. Time to take your marketing to the next level.  Brevo is the all-in-one marketing platform that helps you connect with customers through email, SMS, WhatsApp and automation, all from one easy to use platform. Keep your customer data organized, personalize every message and drive real engagement effortlessly.

Try Brevo for free or use [00:00:20] ECB to save. 50% on start and business plans for the first three months of an annual subscription. Head to brevo.com/ecb today, you will find a link also in the show notes.

Hey there. Welcome to the e-Commerce Coffee Break podcast, where we share actionable tips and strategies to help you grow [00:00:40] your online store and sell smarter. I'm your host, Claus Lauter. In today's episode, we discuss why the influencer game is no longer paid or organic. Joining me on the show is Danil Saliukov, CEO & co-founder of Insense

so let's dive right into it. Hello, welcome to another episode of the e-Commerce Coffee Break podcast. Today we wanna find out [00:01:00] why the influencer game is no longer paid or organic, and what that means. We'll dive really deep into that. Joining me on the show today is Danil Saliukov he's the CEO and co-founder of Incense, a leading UGC and influencer marketing platform.

Partnering with Be TikTok, TikTok shop, and other platforms with over a decade in business development B2B sales and uh, in the [00:01:20] market space. He helps e-commerce brands connect with top BGG creators and micro influencers to drive growth through authentic content and affiliate marketing. So I wanna dive into this and I want to welcome to the show.

Hi Daniel. How are you today? Hey Claus. Uh, I'm doing great. How are you? Very well, great to have you on the show. So you say working with influencers isn't just [00:01:40] about paid or organic anymore. What does that mean for brands? I think, uh, many brands, they approaching influencer marketing, uh, primarily from, uh, organic perspective, meaning that, uh, paper post or affiliate game, or just as gifting campaign.

And nothing wrong with that. Moreover, I think, uh, the whole [00:02:00] space of influencer marketing is striked back right now. Uh, meaning that, uh, um, TikTok shop changed the game, right? Uh, it's also showcasing us how eCommerce brand they can partner up with influencers and drive and drive, not. Only impressions, but also, uh, real sales.

Though at the same time, [00:02:20] even on TikTok shop right now, if you're approaching the whole game with only organic perspective, meaning that I'm gonna be paying to influencer some money for the post and then I'm gonna be doing the gifting campaigns and then affiliate campaigns, uh, I go, I really winning. I really.

Top of the mind in top a hundred of, uh, [00:02:40] brands in your space? I believe not. And the reason why, because paid, paid acquisition is one of the most scalable way how to get, uh, your clients and you can actually inject the best. Things coming from influencers into your paid strategies while you're doing [00:03:00] organic.

Uh, so you can partner up with influencers and you can leverage their content in your ads. And as we know that after is 14 creatives are the most important part in paid advertising. That's number one. And secondly, you can also scale influencer whitelisting campaigns, meaning that you can bring info identity in your paid advertising.

So that's why. [00:03:20] It's not longer about only organic when it comes to influencers, but uh, it's also not only about Pete right now, you need to put, uh, a mix. Mm-hmm. No, that makes perfectly sense. I wanna dive a little bit more in this whitelisting topic. I haven't heard about this before. Explain to me how it works and what the outcome can be abs.

Absolutely. Uh, so [00:03:40] whitelisting as a concept is, uh, where you can whitelist info handles directly to your Facebook ads manager. That allow you to run the ads on behalf of influencer handles, though you are gonna be managing the whole campaign budget and everything. So this setup is gonna be yours, right?

So the way how it works, you, you would be [00:04:00] established these, uh, connection with influencers, uh, that is, will be coming with their permission. And instead of running the, let's say D two C brand.com. Uh, like your brand handle, it'll be running as the, uh, influencer or let's say cloud, uh, with D two C brand.com.

So in that [00:04:20] case, it's actually drives the best outcome and the reason why, um, many brands, uh, especially top brands, they experimenting with that, uh, is because it's just drives a different angle. When you, as the user of Instagram, let's say, you are just scrolling and swiping, uh, content. Easiest way to approach this [00:04:40] audience is, uh, coming from the other human, right?

Uh, mm-hmm. That's why, um, the way how I explain it is just a one more multiple for your efforts. So when you're running the paid adss, uh, you can run and you can get the content, uh, from the influencer. That would be one of the dimension and the number of creative, [00:05:00] uh, creatives and copy, that's the only lever that you can play with.

The amount of the content, uh, and the outcome that you can, uh, get though, imagine you're doing absolutely the same, same content coming from the influencer, same audience, same setup, different copy paths, different, uh, different content, right? Though you're gonna be multiple [00:05:20] by twice. Using that not only from the brand handle, but also using the whitely access, meaning that info handle.

So you're just basically fitting twice more, um, uh, ad sets to Facebook. Mm-hmm. And as well as, as we know right now, we need to feed more information to net. So in that case, they can [00:05:40] justify what gonna be the winner. So you just multiple your efforts and. You know what, like you already have done the heavy lifting.

Working with the influencer is a heavy lifting to negotiate to get the continent. This is the heavy lifting, getting the access to, uh, influencer handle. Actually, it could be automated by solutions like incense. Mm-hmm. I think there's a lot of [00:06:00] synergy effects in there, and I like the approach. You get the best of both worlds.

You get the power of paid ads, and you get the content from QGC creators, from influencers and merger together, but still it's manageable. So you have a tool to really manage these campaigns, which in the past was a lot above, like herding fleas. You had different areas that you need to [00:06:20] manage and they never came together.

I wanna talk a little bit about finding the right content creators. The right influences. I think that's a very difficult task for a lot of brands out there. How would you approach this? My God. Uh, there are different ways how to approach that and say it really depends on, uh, objectives. [00:06:40] Uh, for instance, if you are looking for, I.

Partner up with influencers more from the paid, uh, perspective, meaning that getting the better content, the UGC style as well as the whitelisted ads, uh, this is like one of the way how you're gonna be approaching. Because in that case, you're gonna be less care about, uh, how many followers do they have, [00:07:00] uh, what is the quality of the followers?

Because in the end of the day, you're gonna be leveraging a paid, and in that case you can target to, uh, some custom audience. Uh, and it's, it's meaningless, right? So, um. Uh, but when it comes to, uh, partner with influencers from the organic perspective, uh, meaning, uh, gifting campaigns, uh, affiliate campaigns, [00:07:20] I think the quality of the audience, uh, it's uh, definitely number one priority that you want to aim for.

Uh, so I. That really depends on the objective. But, uh, in the nutshell, I would say the number one, if you have smaller brands, uh, the way how I would be approaching, if you're looking for UGC creators, I'll go to just Twitter and, uh, and, and, and [00:07:40] seeing all of this UGC creators, you're gonna be typing in, you'll see a lot of UGC creators.

Yeah. It's gonna be the question about the quality of some of the folks, even though they have portfolio maybe that they're not. Good in communications or whatsoever, but it's least likely you are not paying, uh, any subscriptions for any software out there. Uh, but then when it comes to the influencer marketing, um, one of the way [00:08:00] how to establish, uh, the, the, the, the search is by, uh, looking for the hashtags, similar profiles inside of the Instagram or TikTok.

We just leveraging the, uh, native TikTok, uh, creator marketplace. This is like a old, cheap, uh, solutions. Uh, though if your brand who is doing above 1 million. In annual revenue, [00:08:20] I would say, uh, those solutions are gonna be, um, not really scalable. So, uh, in that case, I would be considering to use, uh, specific software or marketplaces, uh, where you can find, uh, influencers, uh, based on the different, uh, categories, uh, gender, age, uh, [00:08:40] audience quality, uh, filter group.

Uh, so those, those are really important. And that's gonna be, uh. It's providing a lot of efficiency and speed to as such. Um, for us, I think one of the most advantage is that, uh, we have built, uh, 60,000 vetted, uh, network of, uh, vetted creators. [00:09:00] So in that case, we not only know that those creators are actually, uh, um, like exist and they're open to communication and, uh, brand collapse, but also they, uh.

They have some ranking there, like Uber driver, right? You see that? What was the performance on the marketplace? You, you will see the pages. [00:09:20] Uh, some of the creators are top creators, some of them, uh, rising stars, right? Uh, at the same time, you would be able to see the first party data about the audience because they connected, uh, uh, the profiles via TikTok and Instagram.

So in that case, it's uh, uh, it's, it's a real data that is coming directly from the platforms. Uh. [00:09:40] That, that would be my suggestion. But again, it's really depends on the objectives, uh, and, uh, your budget and stage of the company. I like what you do with incense because there you have, as you a lot of KPIs where you basically can see if that is a trustworthy creator.

I think a lot of brands have been burned in the past years ago by just looking [00:10:00] at followers and likes and whatever came from the creator and then at the end of the day they run a campaign and the outcome was basically zero. Now with your system, that has completely changed. I want to talk about, I think that the most important part is the brief.

Um, how. Do you brief your creator, um, so that they can deliver the right content? What's your approach [00:10:20] there? What's best practice? Yeah. The, again, everything starts from the objectives, right? Uh, what, uh, what I'm, I'm trying to get, uh, out of, uh, out of this. So let's say our approach would be if you are trying to get, uh, creative data, primarily usage is gonna be in paid.

Uh, we would recommend to provide [00:10:40] really detailed, uh. Script for call to action. And hook because, uh, creators and influencers, they are not professional marketers. So it's your job to educate and to provide those, uh, things because again, hook and, uh, call to action is the most important part in the inside of the ad creative, right?

But for the body, you can [00:11:00] keep it a flexible. But when it comes to more like organic approach, so if we are aiming to partner up with the influencers, uh, from that perspective, let's say just the driving breadth awareness, or maybe it's a field deal or TikTok shop. So in that case, uh, I would be, uh, providing a.

Way more flexibility and not really providing any scripts because in that case, [00:11:20] info, they know how to speak to the audience or the audience that, uh, um, likely will react on the on, on the post, right? So in that case, I wouldn't avoid trying to script, uh, anything. It's more about like the guidance that you need to provide with.

So, um, it's really important, important to remember that, uh, you, you need to [00:11:40] mention about, uh, certain, um, unique, uh. Value of your product, uh, unique, uh, like key feature basically of your product that they need to highlight. But, uh, just to remember that if you are trying to feed more information inside of one video, one, like one brief for the creatives, so basically [00:12:00] you are putting everything, uh.

Um, mingles. So meaning that if it's a sugar free and that's the topic that you want to describe inside of this creative, say just sugar free, do not bring anything else, that it has also protein and has the collagen, uh, collagen, like just [00:12:20] doesn't make sense. So it's better to have like three different, uh, briefs or.

Three different ask for the same creator, even though, so one of them is gonna be, let's play around sugar free. That's gonna be something that it's really important to say and mention. The second one is gonna be about protein. Once you are trying to fit everything at once, you basically make, [00:12:40] uh, the feeling of the customer who's gonna be scrolling this, uh, this, uh, video that, oh.

Is it like about sugar free? Is it about protein? It's what, what, what this is about. So that's why my recommendation is gonna be always focus on one thing as well as the one call to action if you want to sell. So in that case, you need to provide [00:13:00] a special offer right now to sell, to click and so on. If you want to educate, just educate and then, uh, ask them to go to website and I know accomplish some quiz to get some.

Bonuses, future bonuses, whatever. So it's really important for the call action is also not trying to put, uh, everything at once. So just one idea, [00:13:20] just uh, one problem, one solution, uh, inside of the video. And now a quick break to thank the sponsors of today's episode. Are you looking to take your business marketing to the next level?

Meet Brevo, the All-in-one marketing and CRM platform designed to help you connect with customers, drive engagement, and grow your business. With Brevo, you can manage all your customer interactions in one [00:13:40] place. Nurture leads through their build in CRM. Reach them through email and SM. S and Goose.

Retention with powerful automations effortlessly create personalized multi-channel campaigns that ensure every single customer gets the right message at the right time. And that's not all  Brevo offers. AI driven personalization, advanced analytics, seamless integrations and more. Giving you everything you [00:14:00] need to market smarter, not harder.

Get started for free. Or use code ECB to save 50% on starter and business plans for the first three months of an annual subscription. Head over to Brevo.com/ecb and take your marketing further with Brevo. You will find the link in the show notes. I think there's very good marketing advice that you just gave, um, the one call [00:14:20] to action.

I think most people have heard about that, and then they still try to cram as many benefits and features as they can get into text, into audio as they can. And I people have a limited attention span. I think really focusing on one feature on one. Benefit with one Call to action definitely works best. So for our listeners, listen to that again.

Um, that's, that's [00:14:40] gold. Now I want to talk a little bit about TikTok shop and other retail platforms. Uh, merchants out there might not necessarily have a TikTok shop, so they want to drive traffic from TikTok off platform like the Shopify or Amazon. Is that possible? What would you recommend? Yeah. Um, we've been a partner of, [00:15:00] uh, TikTok shop, uh, for over a year, uh, in both agency and tech specialty.

Mm-hmm. Uh, so learning a ton, uh, from our customers and from TikTok shop, uh, team itself. So, um, we've been observed that, uh, many Amazon sellers, they, uh, have been driving, uh. Traffic from TikTok to Amazon product [00:15:20] pages. And, uh, the key goal was not even driving the sales. I mean, some of them that were trying to drive the sales, but, uh, I don't believe that, uh, it was, uh, a huge success.

The key thing actually, and the most smart, uh, marketers, uh, the reason why they, they, they, they have done this is because they. We're trying to [00:15:40] drive external traffic to a product page and Amazon search engine will recognize as the external traffic and it's highly appreciated. And moreover, you can partner up with the influencers.

They're gonna be post this organically, people will follow. And then you can boost that in Spark Ads, which is tiktoks White listing ads. [00:16:00] Though, like it's a paid ads, Amazon will still recognize that it's, uh, organic and appreciate this, uh, again, the most. So that's why it's more about like how to increase the product page ranking rather than, uh, driving the sales TikTok shop, uh, has changed the game.

Um, that's what we've been observed, uh, a [00:16:20] lot because right now you don't need to drive the traffic, the whole transaction, the whole like, uh. Journey of a customer mm-hmm. Could be happening within the same platform. So you can, and find the product, whether it's, uh, coming from the influencers who are acting as the affiliates or from the just, uh, TikTok shop, uh, pages.

Right. You can just [00:16:40] observe this content and then, oh, it's interesting, this, uh. Wherever, like supplement brand, it's interesting for me. So, uh, and then you, you can purchase this product right away. Uh, you can pay for that. It is gonna be shipped to you. Uh, the shipment information is gonna be saved, uh, as well as the payment information.

So basically it's a seamless, it's like Amazon, uh, Amazon, like [00:17:00] Amazon plus, uh, TikTok. That's exactly TikTok shop, right? Um, at the same time, what we've been observing that, uh. And TikTok shop, uh, team is hate, uh, to hear that. But, uh, it's unfortunately, it's true that, uh, it's not, it didn't become the, on the only, uh, [00:17:20] sales channel for merchants.

But so also it became a new way how to find, uh, new audiences for you. So what I'm saying here is that. Instead of, uh, expecting that, uh, TikTok shop will become for you a huge sales channel, that you're gonna be getting a lot of tons of the, uh, [00:17:40] sales right away within the first year. Uh, and you'll put this for the Shopify, Amazon, and then TikTok shop as a channel.

Many merchants, again, they're approaching this, uh, about how to tap into the audience that you cannot. Target them on Facebook ads. You cannot find them on Amazon. The only place that this audience is live [00:18:00] and it's TikTok for whatever reason, it's a younger generation, or it's even the older generation, but they spend more time on TikTok and they're not going, uh, really on Amazon to browse for the new products.

Though, like on TikTok, they open to that. So what we, uh, what a lot of merchants, they've been observed that even though, uh, many folks, they are not, uh, accomplish, accomplish the full [00:18:20] transaction right away on TikTok. Shop though, they, they didn't recognize the spikes on Amazon sales because of TikTok shop.

So some of the merchants, they actually, what they have done and there, they, they, there were a few, um, uh, key studies out there in the market. They stopped doing any [00:18:40] marketing on Amazon. They pushed hard on TikTok shop. You would surprise, there is a huge spike that is coming from, uh, to Amazon and there is no links to Amazon Zero, but mm-hmm.

People discover the product on TikTok shop. They're starting considering the product. [00:19:00] Once they feel that, oh, wow, yeah, I'm, I'm down. Like, I will try to try this creating supplement, right? And they go to Amazon, type in go and purchase. So this is the influence of, uh, TikTok shop. I truly believe that it will become a, one of the main, uh, sell channel.[00:19:20] 

But at the same time, uh, you can also consider that it is the additional booster to existing sales channels. That is so interesting. I think that also shows that you cannot really plan a customer journey because the customer, they do what they feel best and if they have more trust in putting their credit card details, or maybe they [00:19:40] have, um, Amazon premium accounts and, and I.

Just prefer Biome in Amazon. Um, the discovery happens on TikTok. So that, I think that's very, very interesting. There also might have direct influence on where you put your marketing budget. 'cause Amazon is a very expensive, uh, marketing platform with Amazon ads, so you might be better off, as you said, [00:20:00] not spending on Amazon, but put it into TikTok now within sense, your help on the whole, um, usage C creator, um.

Journey. And the last part is obviously paying affiliates, paying creators, influencers. How does that work? What's the normal standard procedure there? Mm-hmm. Uh, for us, uh, there are [00:20:20] like, I. Different ways how you can partner up with influencers. One of them is just a fixed fee, right? Uh, I'm just paying fixed fee for the, like either organic posting or, uh, just the content.

The second one is more like a feel it, so you can, uh, partner up with the influencers and pay the commission out of the sales, right? Uh, and the third one, uh, it's a gifting campaign, so no [00:20:40] payments. You are just stay, uh, in exchange of the product, you'll receive either content or organic posting. No strings attached.

Meaning that some of the influencers, they might receive the product and uh, they will get back to you. S but it's, uh, actually, it's a good news because, uh, you just identify those infos that you don't want to work with, uh, further, [00:21:00] uh, with a really literal investment if your product is not high a UV. But anyway, so there are like different ways how, how it works.

Uh, when it comes to the, uh, fixed fee, uh, ranking, uh, we've been analyzed this, uh. Thousands of deals that is happening every single month. So, uh, last year I think, [00:21:20] uh, we, we were close to 70,000 deals that happened through the marketplace. So, uh, we have seen the different price, price, price points and, uh, we actually put together the recommendations or guide, let's put it like that.

Uh. Depends on [00:21:40] how many pieces of the content for what platform for, uh, what audience, let's say number of followers or whatever, uh, you, you want to partner up, uh, with the influencers, uh, we recommend the price. You can follow that. You can place less price. You can put higher price. It really depends on you.

And what we [00:22:00] also been absorbed depends on the, how difficult the creative brief to produce the content. Uh, how. Niche, your audience, let's say male, 50 plus years old. It's niche and those guys actually charging way more compared with, uh, [00:22:20] 20 years old, uh, women. That's kind of like the, uh, the, the, the point is like, uh, what if it's coming like a niche?

Then, uh, then those folks are gonna be pricing you more, uh, then the market. Prices, uh, as well as the, some of the verticals. So, uh, automotive, uh, influencers, they're gonna be charging more because there are not that many folks who are doing this content. [00:22:40] That's kind of, uh, things that, uh, might influence on, uh, the final pricing.

But again, like we have a guidance, uh, that we can follow. And then, uh, it's really up to you, uh, whether you're gonna be following or not. 'cause we're open marketplace. You can negotiate the price points directly with influencers and came up with some, uh, ideas and so on. Our recommendation is gonna be.

Starting with [00:23:00] a gifting campaign, especially if you're a smaller brand. Um, because in that case, again, you're gonna be sitting a lot of products for free with covering the shipment process, uh, shipment processes and so on. But at the same time, you're not gonna be paying like anything. And, uh, it will help you and find those people who genuinely love the product.

That's the reason why they [00:23:20] actually circle back with content or even organic posting. Continue working with them, continue exploring, like you can pay some fixed fee to those folks and so on. And for those folks who didn't react well, they're not good fit for you. So, uh, in that case, it helps you to start over.

Lastly, I want to also mention that, uh, if it's a [00:23:40] bigger brand or like already well known brand in the space, uh, people would. Be open to less pricing because they want to put, uh, your name in their portfolio. Let's say if L'Oreal is coming, they're kind of like ready to work with that, especially like smaller ones [00:24:00] almost for free, because it's great to mention that you partner up with L'Oreal, right?

Mm-hmm. Uh, again, it's not applicable for the, for the bigger brands, uh, bigger influencers, sorry. Um, because bigger influencers, they're gonna be charging you. But they already have L'Oreal and other bigger brands, uh, in that space that allow them to say like, [00:24:20] why they're gonna be charging you more. Okay.

Yeah, there's a, there's a lot of to unpack there. First of all, I think we have good advice here for influencers themself, um, how to attract a bigger brand and also for bigger brands on how to get more. And I, I like the approach to just, um, gifting them and sort of the, the rotten apples get rid of them very, very quickly.

So I think that's, that's a great [00:24:40] tip there. Now you mentioned you have done a ton of, um, brand deals there. Who's your perfect customer? For us, perfect customer. When it comes to the, uh, brands, I would say D two C, Shopify doing above 1 million annual revenue. [00:25:00] Mm-hmm. Those who are spanning, uh, around. 20 5K on, uh, uh, advertising.

It could be combined, uh, paid social plus influencer spend. It could be only paid social. Uh, definitely the brands who are willing to grow their business and they're looking for different, uh, [00:25:20] ways, how to make it more efficient, scalable, um, and those folks who have a team member or an agency. Who is willing to work with influencers.

So basically influencer marketing and UGC became for them essential part of their strategy. So that's why they're ready to invest their time. Uh, I can [00:25:40] provide you a different example who is not ideal customer profile. It's a smaller brand. They're doing, let's say 250, uh, 250 K. They're growing. They're ready to go though.

It's a two-man show. Meaning that two co-founders, uh, they might hiring one more person for something they don't have like any capabilities. And whenever we're [00:26:00] asking who's gonna be managing, uh, the conversation with 50 info that they are supposed to hire on incense, they're saying, oh, me as the owner, because I'm CO well you as the CO you need to build your brand.

You need to make sure that you are, uh. Uh, paid agencies working well, you need to make sure that email marketing work, uh, well, and the whole [00:26:20] lifecycle, uh, in lifecycle retention loops are there for your brand. You don't want to chat with a few influencers. It is, it just like, doesn't make sense. So that's why this is a completely opposite.

Uh, that's the feel, uh, that uh, for those brands who are actually practically saying that incense is a not great solution for you right now. Come to back to us like a bit later. Try to. [00:26:40] Go to Below, below, or like trend io, like the, all of this like, uh, smaller. Um, uh. Platforms because they are good starters.

Quality is questionable. The level of, uh, key studies that you can, uh, and like capabilities is way less, but it's good. Uh, good to start, uh, instances more about solution for the [00:27:00] scaling. So that's why, uh, we even name, uh, some of our ERs saying that, uh, do not pay to incense. Like, uh, you are not gonna be getting develop.

So ideal customer profile for us, it's a big, a bit bigger brand, like let's say 1 million plus. Yeah. I think that's, that's a very honest feedback there. And I think as you mentioned, having the time, because you [00:27:20] build up a community and a relationship with your influencers. In best case scenario, you wanna work with them long term.

Exactly. So you need to have the time. And it's not just a sidekick. Um, could you share some success stories? Okay. Studies, you don't need to name the brands or who has worked with you and what kind of results they saw. Uh, absolutely. So one of the brands, they were able to partner up with [00:27:40] hundreds of influencers doing the gifting campaigns.

So they actually, uh, I, uh. I don't remember the exact num numbers, to be honest. Like, uh, it's a, it's all available on our website, uh, in the case studies section. But, uh, those in, uh, those, those team actually came there and they were saying that we're not gonna be reviewing every single video, uh, [00:28:00] you know, like every single word there, because it's a Singapore, we're not paying money for that.

Uh, so that's why they were approaching that. We need to bring a scale and, uh, again, uh, just to build the flywheel of getting a lot of UGC. As well as the organic, uh, presence and trying to define those influencers who might become ambassadors, [00:28:20] affiliates, uh, just the influencers that we want to continue working with.

So they have built a system where they allocated enough resources. So one dedicated person who is spending, uh, the entire time like working, uh, inside of the instance. And I think they were managed to get around, uh, 100 to a hundred, uh, deals per month. [00:28:40] Like, uh, 200 info actually delivered something during month.

And again, it's another big brand. It's uh, it's not like nine figures, uh, company. Uh, I think they're doing around, uh, 5 million annual revenue. So is it possible? Yes, it's possible if you are ready to play hard. Another example is that, [00:29:00] uh, bigger brand, um. They actually came to us, uh, particle, that's, that's the name of the brand.

So they actually came to us and they were saying they, they were paying twice more for Whitelisting software. Uh, and they were surprised to know that [00:29:20] whitelisting is actually including. In the subscription of incense and it's scalable, it's easy, it's, it's makes sense. So they basically save the half of the budget, uh, when it comes to the white listing only.

And they were able to do not only white listing on incense as opposed to with the other compar, but they were able to do, [00:29:40] uh, UGC campaigns or sitting campaigns, anything. And then that's, uh, everything is included. So I think that's also showcasing the. Why incense is different. Incense has built for creator marketers who are looking for achieving the results in both organic and compete in a really scalable way.[00:30:00] 

Okay. Talk me through the typical onboarding process of a new customer. How does that work? How long does it take? Uh. It, it's super fast. And to our surprised around 50% of, uh, new customers, they actually coming, uh, with no pro product demo. [00:30:20] They never talk to any sales, uh, sales person. So basically, can you start, uh, your work, uh, on instance without, uh, any touch without team?

Yes, you can. Though we actually almost chasing you to make sure that we're gonna be running the, uh, onboarding call and making sure that you know, the all, uh, um, [00:30:40] power of the platform and you can get the most out of this. So, uh, basically, uh. Once you subscribe with incense, the first, uh, and natural way is to kick off the first creative brief.

You need to understand what is the goal and what is the objective for this, uh, campaign. Again, like if you're looking for scaling the content, they choose the UGC, uh, [00:31:00] UGC type campaign. If you're looking for a setting campaign, it's a different, right? But once you hit that, uh, you fill out the brief, uh, you put some references, you went this live, and then, uh, we're gonna matching.

To only those creators who are filling you with these prompts, and they're gonna be coming in and [00:31:20] applying for this campaign. So they're coming for you. They're gonna be, uh, there in the applicant step, and then you can review them and those creators that you like, you can hire them and continue the conversation.

So it's pretty intuitive and fast. Okay. It definitely saves a lot of time if the influencers reach out to you instead of you chasing them. But obviously if you have [00:31:40] some preferred influencers, you can still reach out. Now let's talk about your pricing structure. How do you charge? I. Um, we have a subscription, uh, because as a software, it's not only marketplace, uh, it's starting from, uh, what, $500 a month built quarterly.

Uh, because, uh, again, uh, we had the solution for the scalability. So that's why we feel that, [00:32:00] um, three months, it's enough commitment to test out different hepatitis, uh, on the platform and really get the feeling whether it's a good fit for or not. Um. And, um, yeah, that's basically the subscription that, uh, will allow you to launch unlimited number of, uh, campaigns, unlimited number of, uh, creators that you want to hire.

You want to hire, [00:32:20] uh, thousands creators. Go for it. You, you want to hire like just five. It's up to you. Uh, no commitments for the budget to spend on creators. Again, it's up to you. We also have the marketplace fee, so whenever you are hiring creators, uh, on the platform. Only for the budget that you're gonna be paying to the creators.

A part of the, any affiliate fees. We're not touching this. [00:32:40] So, uh, we are charging 10%, uh, marketplace fee. Uh, it's actually covers the stripe fee to collect the money from you and then PayPal fee to pay to the, uh, creators. So that's why it's all included. But yeah, it's uh, additional 10%, uh, if you are hiring the creators on the platform.

So pretty simple. Okay. That's, yeah, that's very simple and straightforward. [00:33:00] Cool. Before our coffee break comes to end today, is there anything that you wanna share with our listeners that we haven't covered yet? Um. I think the whole situation with TikTok ban and, uh, and in the US and I, I guess your listeners are not only, uh, focusing on the US market, but although like, uh, I think some of, [00:33:20] uh, decent part of, uh, your listeners might be focusing on the US market, it's only showed us, uh, that it's really important to diversify your channels.

So if you are relying on only on meta ads. Uh, it's not cool, especially if you are already at [00:33:40] the stage of 1 million plus business. If you are relying only on TikTok shop and working with influencers there as a, feel it again, like it's not cool. You need to, uh, try to make sure that influencer is gonna be working with your, uh, on Instagram, on YouTube shorts.

You need to be presented on multiple destinations. Uh. [00:34:00] Organic, Pete, everything. It should be diversified. So you, you cannot, uh, give you the life of your brand and, uh, the sellers of your employees to the hands of Amazon. If Amazon is gonna be blocking you, I. You as a business is done, right? So considering to launch like Shopify, Amazon, [00:34:20] TikTok shop, considering to partner up with, uh, TikTok shop, uh, affiliates and then moving them to D two C as a D two C affiliates, right?

To drive, uh, D two C link. So that's kind of like the part of the game. I think the smaller you are, the less, uh, you need to. F focus on because you're also not losing a lot. But once you're becoming a bigger [00:34:40] brand, I would be adding, uh, one more point to the mix. One more point to the mix, because otherwise, uh, I heard like so many PD stories of, uh, Amazon Solders who lost.

The entire business for just a simple mistake that wasn't even like thoughtful. They, they were not trying to hack, but for whatever reason, like, uh, they've been [00:35:00] bond and then like they lost the business like within a second TikTok shop. Same, uh, and, and so and so on. So I think the topic of this year, it's uh, diversify.

That makes two of us. I also have heard a lot of horror stories. Um, either Facebook account banned Amazon account banned, and then overnight luc your business so [00:35:20] diversified to omnichannel, to omni marketing everywhere. That's the way to save the business. Where can people go to find out more about you guys?

Um, our website, incense Pro, uh, we are publishing a lot of blog posts, uh, key studies, uh, so, uh, trying to be really helpful, uh, as well as eBooks, [00:35:40] uh, with, uh, um, partnership with other SaaS companies or like agencies, um, also LinkedIn, uh, or Twitter. Mm-hmm. So same, uh, instance. Uh. Or, uh, me, like I'm, I'm personally posting a lot, uh, about what I've been observed on the market and so on about my founder's, uh, story, uh, on LinkedIn and Twitter.

So you can [00:36:00] find, uh, using my name Daniel Ov. Cool. I will put the links in the show notes as always. Then you just one click away. Daniel, thanks so much for your time today. I think ut c creator influencer is marketing is one of the most important marketing channels going forward, and I hope a lot of people will reach out to you.

Thanks so much for your time. Thanks so much cla.[00:36:20] 

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