Affiliate marketing campaign with social media micro-influencers

This Bachelor’s thesis was conducted in cooperation with men’s fashion E-commerce company Jerone Oy from Tampere, Finland. The purpose of this thesis is to test the potential success of utilizing affiliate marketing through YouTube and Instagram. The objectives of this thesis are to increase the global brand awareness of Jerone, so they can grow in other markets easier and to increase the global sales of Jerone. There are also research questions to be answered in this thesis about how to contact, negotiate, and collaborate with potential influencers, and how to implement an affiliate marketing campaign. \n \nAlthough the selection of previous academic literature about affiliate marketing with social media influencers was limited, there was still some literature such as books, website articles, researches, and interviews that gave insight during the process of implementing our marketing campaign strategy. The theoretical framework was based on previous webbased articles, researches, and books about the internet as a marketplace, affiliate marketing, and negotiations. There is also background information about Instagram and YouTube which were the platforms used for this thesis. \n \nThroughout this research there were a total of 9 YouTubers contacted for collaboration. There were 2 responses of the 9 contacted, and neither of the respondents collaborated with Jerone. On Instagram a total of 6 influencers were contacted and 5 of them responded and collaborated. The duration of the campaign was set for one month, and there was one purchase made due to an affiliate’s advertising efforts during that time. The results of this research show that Instagramers were more reliable when it comes to responding and collaborating through an affiliate marketing campaign with Jerone. Although the Instagramers were more eager to collaborate, their marketing efforts had little impact on their audiences during this campaign. \n \nIn the discussion and conclusion there is a comparison of the platforms YouTube and Instagram, and of the influencers who said yes or no to collaboration. There is also a plan for an affiliate marketing campaign. The next possible research about this topic for Jerone could be to try affiliate marketing again focusing on Instagram in the Finnish and Swedish market. If they want to try entering the US market again, increasing efforts in marketing and brand awareness or utilizing an influencer marketplace may be beneficial.