How to track sales when sending free products to influencers
Sending free merchandise to small creators leaves brand owners without a clear way to track resulting sales or guarantee the creators will actually push the product. Because they lack knowledge of how influencer marketing works, they end up doing it wrong by just giving away items and getting nothing but content in return.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
Found another way around this?
Share your steps and trade-offs so fellow engineers don't have to reinvent the wheel. No account required.
- 1Sending out free samples or products hoping for content without tracking sales or enforcing contractsDid this help you?
- 2Agreeing in writing beforehand on deliverables, timelines, and usage rightsDid this help you?
- 3Tracking standard deals in a CRM without specific tracking for pilot tasks and blockersDid this help you?
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“We're tracking deals in our CRM, but it's hard to get a clear picture of how much time we're spending on pilots and which ones actually turn into customers.”source ↗
“Some leads move through setup quickly, others go quiet halfway through, and sometimes we only realize how much work went into a pilot when we're looking back at the deal.”source ↗
“For those running B2B sales through a CRM, how do you track pilots from the initial request through setup and conversion without creating a ton of admin?”source ↗
“Actually i have zero knowledge about how is this influencer marketing thing has been done i have been doing ut wrong like i have been sending out free jackets to small creators and expecting nothing but just content to them.”source ↗
“- how do i find them? - how do i keep track of their sales? - how are the gonna push my product?”source ↗
“What am i suppose to do than?”source ↗
“r/smallbusiness is a question and answer subreddit.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
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