10 LinkedIn Influencer Marketing Tips From Top Marketers

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Many B2B companies recognize that their ideal audience is on LinkedIn, but it's still a relatively new platform for influencer marketers and therefore lacks well-defined standards.

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Therefore, many B2B marketers ask questions like:

• How much should you pay for a post?
• How do you find the right creators?
• How do you measure ROI?

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To answer these questions, I analyzed some of the largest LinkedIn influencer campaigns and curated a list of tips from the marketers leading these LinkedIn influencer campaigns.

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1.) Avoid Using Audience Size As a Creator Evaluation Metric

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First, avoid using follower count to evaluate creators, as it's only weakly correlated with average engagement rates.

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In fact, even higher engagement rates don’t necessarily correlate with a higher ROI. 

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Alex Llull, the head of influencer marketing at Perspective, shared a story illustrating this concept:  

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Madhav Bhandari, the Head of Marketing at Storylane, also shared that smaller creators often outperformed larger creators in their campaigns:

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In our own data study, we found that the gap between average engagement on sponsored and organic posts was smaller for micro creators than macro creators. 

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In the graph below, you can see that as the average total organic engagement increases (red bars), the average total engagement for sponsored posts (blue bars) increases very minimally.  

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The reason ROI typically flattens out as a creator's audience grows is that the audience becomes broader and therefore decreases in relevancy.  

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To spend your budget efficiently and you only pay to reach relevant prospects, Alex encourages influencer marketers to consider the percentage of a creator's audience that aligns with the ICP.

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If you’re not sure what percentage of a creator’s audience matches your ICP, Obaid Durrani of Clay shared a nifty hack to figure this out:

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Even if the creator's audience is relevant, not all creators have the same authority and credibility. For example, there are plenty of large creators who earn a lot of engagement for posting memes and lifestyle content, but they aren't necessarily trusted experts in their fields.

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Even if another creator can earn more engagement from a relevant audience, you'll likely see better conversions (and strengthen your brand's reputation) by partnering with genuine experts.

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Credibility was another issue that Alex Llull mentioned in the $7,500 creator campaign mistake post: 

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To determine an influencer's credibility, check if they speak at conferences and review the content they post. Is their content primarily case studies and data-driven insights, or is it meme and lifestyle content?

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Additionally, you can use Favikon's Authenticity Score, which is available in each creator's profile: 

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The Authenticity Score takes into account a creator’s content quality, engagement, and general credibility:

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That said, working with macro creators who have broad audiences (even at the expense of audience relevancy and trust) can be effective if either:

1. You’re offering a prosumer product that’s relevant to a broad audience (e.g., a todo app, a content writing tool, a note taking app, etc.).
2. You're working with a huge brand, and the goal is mass brand awareness (e.g., HubSpot, Gamma, etc.).

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Otherwise, start by working with smaller, highly credible influencers in your niche.

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2.) Engage with Influencers Before Reaching Out

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It's surprisingly challenging to get responses from LinkedIn influencers. Even with a sufficient budget and a mature influencer program, it can be challenging to capture their attention because influencers are constantly bombarded with pitches.

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The Authenticity Score takes into 36 pitches from various AI companies in just nine weeks:

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Alex Llull, the influencer marketing manager at Perspective, mentioned that his best tip to increase influencer response rates is to engage with their content several times before reaching out. This one simple tip yields an 80% reply rate:

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Adelė Grigūnaitė from Omnisend also echoed Alex's tip.

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"The more personalized the message, the better. Keep an eye on influencers' posts, engage with them even before reaching out to them."

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If you're trying to reach a large macro influencer, you might need to get more creative. 

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For example, when Omnisend wanted to work with a macro influencer, they donated to the influencer's charity to get their attention.

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"Once, we donated to one of the influencers' charities. We needed to get the invoice as the payment was made on behalf of the company. I noticed his phone number on the invoice and called him on WhatsApp. He declined the call, but replied instantly and was impressed by the dedication and desire to work with him. In the end, we collaborated with him," said Adelė.

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Ash Turner of Synthesia also mentioned that as you work with larger creators, your brand will earn more credibility among creators. 

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"When I speak to some creators, they're like, I've seen this creator work with you guys [Synthesia] already. I'd be open to a chat," says Turner.

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A bonus tip for outreach is to keep your outreach short and simple. Here's the outreach message that Igor Gorbenko of Ahrefs uses:

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3.) Co-Create Content With Creators

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The key difference between influencer marketing and paid advertising is that you're leveraging the trust a creator has built with their audience.

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Therefore, it's important to work with creators who actually find your product useful and give them the freedom to write a post that they believe will best resonate with their audience.

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Here is a recent post from LinkedIn influencer Sara Stella Lattanzio that illustrates the importance of authenticity:

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Therefore, the first step in any influencer collaboration should be exploring product use cases with influencers to ensure they find your product helpful. This step will allow creators to promote your content authentically. 

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In fact, Chris Cunningham of ClickUp mentioned on the Ahrefs podcast that they have a team member get on a one-on-one call with influencers to explore use cases before offering the influencer a brand deal. 

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"We go to like 20 influencers and say, "Hey, look, I'm not going to pay you yet because I don't know if you like my product… I'm not just going to have you go lie if you use ClickUp or not… 

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I'm going to give you one of my best trainers. They're going to meet with you for an hour and they're going to find use cases, and see if ClickUp would add any value to you at all. 

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And if it does, then let's talk and then let's see if we can do a campaign and something around that."

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Once the influencer discovers an excellent use case for your product, it's easy for them to promote it authentically. 

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This is Alex Llull's strategy as well:

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Sarah Adam, the head of influencer marketing at Base44 (Wix) also mentioned that her biggest breakthrough in influencer marketing was learning to give influencers creative freedom:

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Madhav Bhandari also mentioned that creator partnerships must be a collaboration:

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So yes, you need to help creators understand the value of your product, but then get out of their way and let them talk to their audience authentically. 

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4.) Negotiate Pricing Tactfully

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Influencer pricing is still the wild west, and while creators should be paid fairly, there's often room for negotiation. 

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So the first tip is to ask the influencer for their rate first. This step not only gives you more room to negotiate, but it also increases response rates, as many influencers simply won't respond if the price is lower than what they anticipated. 

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Here's how Alex Llull approaches influencer negotiation:

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Adelė from Omnisend also echoed Alex's approach:

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"Try not to say your price first. Let them go first, but always know your number beforehand." 

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However, knowing your number is trickier than it might seem, as pricing still varies wildly. 

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If you're unsure what a "reasonable" price is, Igor Gorbenko of Ahrefs recommends you reach out to other influencer managers in your community and ask if they think the price is reasonable.

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An even easier way to benchmark pricing is to use the Favikon Fair Price calculator. This price calculator is based on real pricing data from 130+ verified LinkedIn influencers:

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You can also negotiate the scope of the contract if the influencer's price is too high.

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This is how Adelė of Omnisend manages negotiations.

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"If the influencer wants more money, ask for more posts instead. If a creator asks for more than our budget, we'll suggest, 'What if we do three posts for that price instead of one?' Most creators are fine with this because it's actually easier money for them once they know our product," says Adelė.

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You can also offer affiliate deals and other incentives to reach an agreement. 

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5.) Invest in Long-Term Partnerships

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Many new influencer marketing managers worry about paying the same creator for multiple posts, fearing that each post will yield progressively lower results because their audience will have already seen the brand. 

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However, the data shows that this assumption is rarely true.

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First, according to a study on Adam Robinson's LinkedIn posts, about 85% of people engaging with his content are brand new:

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That statistic (85%) is likely lower for smaller creators, but the main takeaway is that just because a creator promotes one LinkedIn post doesn’t mean you’ve reached their entire audience.

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Additionally, the B2B buying cycle is long and requires multiple touchpoints. Therefore, increasing touchpoints can speed up the buyer journey.

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Tom Boston, a creator who worked with Storylane, also shared these statistics illustrating that each campaign generated progressively more engagement:

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6.) Strategically Stagger Post Drops

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Another tip from Alex Llull is to strategically time posts to publish in the same weeks, but stagger them across different days. 

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Doing so builds momentum and keeps your brand top of mind.

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Slate used this strategy for a recent LinkedIn influencer campaign where they worked with a variety of influencers. 

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I downloaded the list of sponsored posts published (using Favikon), and you can see that the posts were all published within a three-week period:

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7.) Pitch a Lead Magnet, Not The Product

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Most DTC influencer marketing campaigns pitch the product directly. 

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However, B2B products are often highly considered purchases with long buying cycles, and it's unlikely that a prospect will make a purchase after seeing a creator promote the product once. 

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Instead of just pitching the product directly and tracking product signups, ask influencers to pitch a lead magnet. 

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This tip is a lesson the team at Ahrefs learned the hard way. When they initially pitched their full product, they earned a grand total of 11 free trial signups from $14,000 spent on creators. 

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As they explained in their case study on spending over $1 million on influencer marketing, they saw much better results when creators pitched their free Chrome extension.  

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If you don't have a free Chrome extension, consider offering a lead magnet, such as a free template, calculator, or webinar. 

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For example, Synthesia frequently asks influencers to pitch LinkedIn Live events:

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8.) Create Well-Optimized Landing Pages

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While it's unlikely that B2B audiences will convert the first time they see your post, it's still important to capture leads.

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Instead of sending users to a generic landing page, Alex Llull recommends sending users to a dedicated landing page:

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This is also what the team at Omnisend does. Here’s an example of one of their creator landing pages:

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You’ll see that they use the same optimized template and simply switch out the creator’s information:

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Just like any other landing page, optimize this funnel by running A/B tests.

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9.) Leverage International Creators

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An underrated LinkedIn influencer marketing tip is partnering with creators in other countries (assuming your product is relevant internationally).

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In fact, partnering with creators to expand internationally is often a better choice than leveraging paid ads, because creators are aware of cultural nuances and can ensure your message resonates (and doesn't offend anyone!).

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Then, you can use the messaging that resonated in your influencer campaigns as inspiration for paid ads. 

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This was the strategy Synthesia used to expand internationally. 

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First, they picked just one international market, Germany. Then, they hired a German creator marketing agency to help them identify the best fit creators.

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The campaign was a success, and today, Synthesia runs influencer campaigns across Brazil, Spain, Italy, India, and other countries, allowing them to capture more market share.

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10.) Give Campaigns Time to Generate an ROI

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Finally, LinkedIn influencer marketing takes time to work. 

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Grant Lee, the co-founder of Gamma, recommends committing to influencer marketing for at least six months before quitting.

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Alex Llull mentioned that Perspective's partnerships will 6x revenue this quarter, but it hasn't all been an easy road:

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This is partially because B2B buyer cycles typically last several months.

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Adelė of Omnisend mentioned that this was one of her biggest learning curves. 

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"If you're in B2B, the path is longer, and one influencer promotion won't be enough to move the needle. But if you're in B2C where you trigger the impulse and desire to buy or install an application, then influencer marketing can start working right away."

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In B2B, the time it takes for influencer marketing to start generating an ROI usually correlates with the length of your buyer journey.

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Madhav Bhandari of Storylane says that they usually give creators about three months to perform, which likely coincides with the Storylane buyer journey:

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So yes, influencer marketing does take time, but you should be able to measure some results after a few months. 

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And, if you’re wondering how to measure the value of influencer marketing campaigns, here are a few metrics you can track:

1. Add a “How did you hear about us?” form
2. Lead magnet downloads
3. Brand searches 
4. General engagement on posts

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No, influencer marketing attribution isn’t perfect, but you will eventually see patterns emerge.

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How to Start Running LinkedIn Influencer Marketing Campaigns 

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Identifying the right LinkedIn creators and then managing partnerships is challenging. 

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This is why we built Favikon, an end to end influencer marketing platform that allows you to discover creators across all social platforms (including LinkedIn) and filter by advanced metrics like average engagement per post, region, niche, language, and more.

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You can also reach out to creators directly inside the platform, making it easy to manage the entire collaboration in one place.

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Try Favikon today to save time and make your influencer campaigns more effective.

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