YouTube influencer marketing for ecommerce brands

Ecommerce brands start with an advantage on YouTube: a physical product that can be unboxed, used and shown on camera. The difficulties sit elsewhere.

• Finding the right channels takes hours. YouTube search favours popular videos, not the mid-sized reviewer whose viewers buy exactly what you sell. Checking channels one by one can swallow a week.
• Knowing what to offer. Free product, a fee, a commission or a mix. Each suits a different creator and stage.
• Seeing whether it sold anything. Viewers watch on a TV, then find your shop on their phone days later. Without codes and tagged links, those sales look like ordinary traffic.
• Starting from scratch every time. A single video is a small sample. A creator who still uses your product months later can mention it again.

This sequence moves from cheap tests to paid work, so you only spend money on creators whose viewers have shown interest.

1. 01

   Write down who buys from you

   Note the countries you ship to, your customers' language, and the hobbies or problems that bring them to your shop. Our guide to writing a sponsorship brief covers what creators need later.

2. 02

   Find channels your customers already watch

   Search YouTube the way a customer would: "[product] review", "best [product] for [use]". Note the channels behind useful videos, not only the most-viewed.

3. 03

   Check the numbers and the comments

   Look at the median views of the last 10 to 20 videos, not the best one, and read the comments. Viewers asking what kit the creator uses are a good sign for a shop.

4. 04

   Seed first, then pay

   Ask the creators you like best whether they'd like to try the product, with no obligation to post. Offer a paid integration to the ones who respond well.

5. 05

   Give every creator a code and a link

   Set up one discount code and one UTM-tagged link per creator before the video goes live, and ask for both in the description.

6. 06

   Go back to the creators who sold

   After a few weeks, compare cost against attributed orders per creator. Offer the best a second video, a longer arrangement or a commission on top of a fee.

A sensible pattern is to seed widely, then pay the creators whose viewers responded. Our guides to product seeding and how much to pay YouTubers go into each.

Set attribution up before the video goes live, and use several signals together, because each one misses some buyers.

• A discount code per creator. It works when the viewer types your address in later. Codes leak to coupon sites, so set an end date and treat the count as a guide.
• A UTM-tagged link per creator. Your analytics can then show visits and orders per video, from the viewers who click.
• A "how did you hear about us" question at checkout. Free text lets customers name the creator, and catches buyers who used neither code nor link.
• A few weeks of data, not days. Videos, reviews especially, keep collecting views after launch.

Then divide the full cost, fee plus product and postage, by the orders you can attribute. Our guide to measuring YouTube sponsorships walks through it.

Nakodo starts from your shop's website address. It reads the site and writes a brief you can edit: what you sell, your markets, the kind of creator that fits and the YouTube keywords to search. It then scores each channel behind matching videos from the last 12 months from 0 to 100, with the reasons written out, as explained on how it works.

It finds the business email each creator publishes and emails the ones you choose on your behalf. Each first email mentions a recent video and states your offer, free product or a fee, exactly as you set it. It never invents payment amounts, discount codes or deadlines. Nakodo follows up when there's no reply, answers what it can and brings you the rest, and introduces each creator who says yes by email so you can agree the details from your own inbox.

• It doesn't send first emails without your approval, unless you choose to let them go out on their own after an hour.
• It doesn't guess email addresses or get around YouTube's captcha. A creator who publishes no email is never contacted.
• It doesn't negotiate, ship product or pay creators.
• It doesn't create discount codes or tracking links; you set those up in your shop.