How We Chose the Best Influencer Marketing Software
Influencer marketing software can help businesses at any stage of their marketing journey. Whether you’re just getting started, having difficulty gaining traction with social media campaigns, or already well on your way to managing multiple influencer relationships, influencer marketing software offers several important features and tools for rapidly increasing brand awareness, improving growth and ROI.
There are a number of influencer marketing software companies available boasting several different features and services. We evaluate companies on what’s most important. There are several features to consider when looking for the right software suited to your business’s needs. To help filter your search, we evaluated 10 companies based on the most important features for effective influencer marketing.
Management Features
The best influencer marketing software has features for managing relationships with influencers, such as campaign management, ROI tracking, and payment tracking. Detailed management features will include influencer usage rights, legal contract management, and content review, as well as the ability to track campaign performance and growth.
Discovery Features
In addition to features that help the user manage their current relationships with influencers, the software should have features for discovering new influencer marketing opportunities as well. These features enable users to search and filter influencers by a range of demographics, including age, location, gender, lifestyle, audience quality, categories, and more.
Reports
Detailed reports help the user assess and improve their influencer marketing efforts. Reports cover every stage of the influencer marketing journey and give insight into sales conversions, click-through rates, impressions, audience sentiment, engagement data, and so much more. With robust reporting tools, businesses can get a better sense of influencer stats and audience health scores as well as the ability to analyze ROI metrics.
The 10 Best Influencer Marketing Software of 2021
ACTIVATE
ACTIVATE is an influencer marketing software powered by both automation and human expertise. It helps businesses find and optimize brand advocates with unique search and filter features and customized and curated influencer lists, as well as a powerful influencer relationship management (IRM) tool. ACTIVATE also offers advanced campaign insights via its analytics and reporting tools, which helps businesses see which influencers and pieces of content are worth reinvesting or amplifying.
ACTIVATE’s IRM optimizes influencer relationships by helping businesses organize and log custom data about each influencer to easily identify top performers for reengagement. Custom influencer surveys and analytics are filtered directly into the IRM to better inform future collaboration opportunities. Advanced reporting and ROI tools analyze and give insight into sales conversions, click-through rates, impressions, audience sentiment, and more. Advanced campaign management tools, such as built-in usage rights, payment and negotiation options, and multi-platform content reviews, help businesses launch and manage collaborations at scale.
Influencer discovery and casting features give businesses the ability to set specific #hashtags to source content ideas, conduct competitive research, and find the best content creators. Curated lists keep track of trending influencers based on key locations, categories, and lifestyles. ACTIVATE stands out with its advanced automation capabilities in addition to its offering of in-house experts for influencer discovery and strategy.
| Price | Free Trial/Demo | Features |
|---|---|---|
| Custom Quote | Free Demo Only | >Web-based, cloud, SaaS >Email and ticket support >Integrations >More at ACTIVATE |
Pros & Cons of ACTIVATE Influencer Marketing Software
ACTIVATE is a robust influencer marketing software for influencer discovery and campaign management. It offers comprehensive reporting and ROI features ranging from sales conversion analytics to click-through rates, measuring audience sentiment, and more. The platform also offers the ability to conduct custom influencer surveys with targeted questions to inform better collaboration opportunities for the future. ACTIVATE’s developer API can be integrated with any platform so influencer discovery, campaign management, and analytics are seamless. ACTIVATE offers a free demo but no free trial.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| >Custom influencer surveys >API integration | >No free trial |
What Customers Are Saying
Customers appreciate the support team at ACTIVATE, noting it’s “incredibly supportive and great to work with.” With the help of ACTIVATE, customers claim they were able to “transform” their influencer marketing program from “reactive influencer work, to proactive, strategized influencer work.” Customers also appreciate the extensive influencer network the software offers, claiming ACTIVATE is a “one stop shop for it all.”
AspireIQ
AspireIQ offers three plans: AspireIQ Create, AspireIQ Elevate, and AspireIQ Together. The platform aims to help businesses increase revenue with a suite of influencer discovery and campaign management tools. ROI and payment tracking tools help build a network of brand loyalists to maximize engagement and long-term retention. This social marketing software provider understands that community-produced content is eight times more engaging than brand-produced alternatives. By using powerful AI, social listening, and social discovery tools, AspireIQ helps businesses find and log essential influencer data or import an existing network directly into a single CRM database. Organizational features like group segments and tags help manage and scale relationships without cluttering your database. AspireIQ’s advanced analytics reporting includes performance tracking, audience trend and behavior reports, and social presence tracking to better fuel future strategies.
The AspireIQ social marketing software is powered by both human and automated intelligence and includes a robust database of over six million content creators. Other key features of AspireIQ include:
- Streamlined legal contracts with seamless HelloSign integration
- Dedicated customer success team
- Automated step-by-step workflow management, from first connection and product fulfilment to content approval and tracking
- Real-time campaign result tracking and analytics
- Smart ranking of most valuable influencer relationships
- Automated suite of collaboration tools
- Real-time analytics
- Social media management, strategy development, and paid ad support with AspireIQ Together plan
| Price | Free Trial/Demo | Features |
|---|---|---|
| Custom Quote | Free Demo Only | >Web-based, cloud, SaaS >Email support >Integrations >More at AspireIQ |
Pros & Cons of AspireIQ Influencer Marketing Software
AspireIQ helps businesses find and organize a vast network of influencer content and information within a single CRM database. Workflow management is made easy with the software’s automation, which helps teams oversee an influencer’s relationship from first connection to product fulfillment, content approval, and tracking. Helpful integrations streamline relationships further, such as the HelloSign integration that simplifies the legal contract process. Certain features such as in-house strategy development are only available with the top-tier AspireIQ Together plan.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| >Automated workflow management >Integrations | >In-house strategy development only available with top-tier plan |
What Customers Are Saying
Customers appreciate the scalability of the solution’s vast database, noting that with AspireIQ they now have “a digital asset library with over 2K on-brand user-generated pieces of content and have hit tens of millions of impressions from influencer placements each year ever since.” Customers also note that they’ve been able to create meaningful, lasting relationships with AspireIQ’s network of over six million influencers, saying, “As we’re working with the influencers on AspireIQ, we’re really looking to build long term relationships and they’re really becoming our partners and our brand advocates for life.”
GRIN
GRIN is a robust all-in-one influencer marketing software tailored for e-commerce businesses. It offers advanced reporting and analytics, relationship management, influencer payment tools, and discovery and recruitment features, as well as product seeding and content management.
GRIN streamlines influencer relationship management by bringing all communications between influencers and teams into one database. GRIN’s CRM comes with one-on-one promotion creation and management, deliverable tracking, and product and contract management, plus many more features. It helps manage relationships further with advanced filtering options, audience report, sequence stages, and network reach. Businesses can easily sort relationships by stage, managers, agents, or custom properties.
In addition to content and influencer performance metrics, GRIN offers other advanced reporting capabilities like influencer budget spend, revenue, conversions, and media value to help businesses identify the true ROI of every campaign. Team members can also build custom reports within the GRIN platform.
Easy-to-use payment tracking tools help keep track of influencer payments, as well as analyze payment histories to determine whether a campaign was worth the investment. GRIN’s influencer discovery tools and recruitment plan include key audience metrics, as well as reports with influencer credibility scores. A unique look-alike tool allows teams to input current best influencers to find new content creators with similar audiences and reach. It also offers several email and outreach templates, influencer activation progress tracking, and branded live URL invitations.
| Price | Free Trial/Demo | Features |
|---|---|---|
| Custom Quote | Free Demo Only | >Web-based, cloud, SaaS >Email and phone support >Integrations >More at GRIN |
Pros & Cons of GRIN Influencer Marketing Software
GRIN influencer marketing software also serves as a product fulfillment hub. It provides helpful integrations with Shopify, Magento, Salesforce, WooCommerce, PayPal, and more. Influencers can easily pick what products they’d like to promote, and businesses can fulfill products and track them all the way without ever leaving the GRIN platform. The software also offers content management tools so all influencer and user-generated content (UGC) is in one place with easy search, tracking, and reporting tools. GRIN comes with a free live demo but doesn’t offer a free trial.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| >Product seeding feature and e-commerce integrations >Content management | >No free trial |
What Customers Are Saying
Customers appreciate GRIN’s robust CRM capabilities, noting, “We utilize GRIN as an influencer CRM to manage and track the entire influencer marketing program.” Customers also claim GRIN is “everything you need to run, manage, audit and analyze campaigns.” The unique influencer search capability is also of high interest to customers. One says, “I am able to find new influencers, contact more people — I am not sure where I would be without GRIN. It has been such an instrumental part of our growth.”
HypeAuditor
HypeAuditor is an AI-powered influencer marketing software that boasts the industry’s best fraud protection. The software’s discovery database includes over 11 million influencers, as well as a robust demographic search with audience quality filters. With HypeAuditor, businesses can track campaign performance and account growth as well as build and share reports.
Targeting influencers is made easy with HypeAuditor’s #hashtag keyword search. The analytics tools offer over 34 in-depth metrics for influencer vetting across Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. HypeAuditor users have several influencer filters to choose from, including engagement rate, growth rate, audience quality score, audience size, and brands mentioned. Included in HypeAuditor’s analytics toolbox are competitor market analysis and global market research, as well as trends and ranking analytics.
| Price | Free Trial/Demo | Features |
|---|---|---|
| $299/month | Free Trial | >Web-based, cloud, SaaS >Chat and email support >Integrations >More at HypeAuditor |
Pros & Cons of HypeAuditor Influencer Marketing Software
HypeAuditor has a robust database of fraud-free social media influencers across the Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok platforms. It also offers effortless #hashtag keyword search. While HypeAuditor includes several reporting and analytics tools, it doesn’t offer more specific campaign management or ROI tracking.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| >Free trial >#Hashtag keyword search | >No campaign management or ROI tracking |
What Customers Are Saying
Customers appreciate HypeAuditor for its advanced analytics and fraud-proof approach, saying, “HypeAuditor gives compelling insights on influencers, their audiences and its authenticity.” Customers also like HypeAuditor’s powerful discovery tools, claiming, “With multiple filters to be used, it allows you to find suitable partners for [a] campaign in a few clicks.”
HYPR
HYPR is a comprehensive influencer marketing software that features a very user-friendly interface. The platform comes with a built-in dashboard for several components of the product.
The reporting dashboard helps users efficiently analyze ROI metrics for live Instagram posts and stories, including live demographic engagement data, story measurement, and cost per engagement. HYPR also offers custom reporting and automatic reminder and update features for campaign management.
A Kanban-style Activation dashboard clearly displays campaign workflow, contract management, and storage, as well as influencer stats including followers, engagement rate, cost per post, and more. HYPR’s unique influencer evaluation tool uses algorithms to rank influencers based on how they can contribute to a campaign. This includes an audience overlap feature to strategically optimize a group of influencers for maximum reach or higher visibility, as well as an audience health score feature.
HYPR’s CRM is powered by Salesforce and includes response tracking, payment support for over 100 countries, and many more features. This influencer marketing software’s search and discover tool boasts an extensive and growing filter list for more granular influencer searches. Users can discover influencers by @handles, #hashtags, and over 30,000 topic categories of influencers or their audiences from over 100 countries.
| Price | Free Trial/Demo | Features |
|---|---|---|
| Custom Quote | Free Trial | >Web-based, cloud, SaaS >Email and chat support >Integrations >More at HYPR |
Pros & Cons of HYPR Influencer Marketing Software
HYPR is a very user-friendly influencer marketing software. Its dashboard visually displays influencer marketing and strategy features ranging from campaign workflow, analytics and reports, to influencer stats and audience health score. A unique audience overlap feature helps teams maximize the reach of their influencer campaigns. While HYPR claims to add 8,000 influencers to its database every day, the platform may not offer as extensive a database as some other influencer marketing software solutions.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| >Intuitive dashboard >Audience overlap feature | >Influencer database is still growing |
What Customers Are Saying
Customers appreciate HYPR’s intuitive interface, claiming it’s “one of the most friendly user experiences in the influencer marketing industry, plus [we love] its custom reporting.” Customers also appreciate the insights they’re able to pull from HYPR’s database, noting, “I have found the HYPR platform extremely valuable. HYPR enables us to pull real-time holistic and real-time holistic and relevant data for talent and influencers.”
Mavrck
Mavrck is an influencer marketing platform for enterprise consumer brands. In addition to robust reporting capabilities, payment tracking, CRM, and campaign management, Mavrck offers the ability to integrate with loyalty and rewards programs. Its influencer plug-in helps recruit influencers directly from your website, and the platform also offers an influencer ratings and review feature. To further incentivize influencer engagement, the platform features an efficient influencer incentivize system by offering gift cards and prepaid cards with Tango Cards integration. Payment tracking is made easy with a seamless PayPal integration.
Mavrck’s Discover tool shows influencers across multiple social media content types, including Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Pinterest, Twitter, and blogs. The platform features over 20 filters and displays each influencer’s fraud and brand safety risk, past sponsored material and brand collaborations, brand-specific insights, first-party data points, and audience demographics.
| Price | Free Trial/Demo | Features |
|---|---|---|
| Custom Quote | Free Demo Only | >Web-based, cloud, SaaS >Ticket support >Integrations >More at Mavrck |
Pros & Cons of Mavrck Influencer Marketing Software
Mavrck stands out against competing software by identifying influencer opportunities beyond just content creation. The platform looks at several influencer personas, such as macro- and micro-influencers, advocates, referrers, and loyalists. This focus is geared toward helping businesses expand their influencer marketing efforts. Mavrck also offers activity-based incentives like gift cards and performance-based rewards, such as product samples and discount codes. However, there’s no free trial available for the software.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| >Multiple influencer personas >Influencer incentive program | >No free trial |
What Customers Are Saying
Customers appreciate Mavrck’s unique influencer incentive features, saying, “If an influencer marketing platform could have a baby with a loyalty/rewards program, that baby would be Mavrck. That baby’s clever as hell, too.” Customers also appreciate that Mavrck offers several influencer persona discovery tools, noting, “The influencer landscape is constantly changing and evolving. Mavrck helps us stay on top of trends and reach consumers in an authentic, effective, and efficient way.”
Modash
Modash is a lightweight influencer marketing software that’s built to scale. The Modash discovery tool helps generate a list of influencers for any desired audience, plus it offers look-alike audiences and recommendations. Modash helps companies target audience data with several filters, including by audience age, gender, location, and more. The platform targets major social media platforms such as Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok.
Modash insights help verify influencer audiences, identify fake followers, and collect contact details for followers who reach target audiences. The platform also offers a unique campaign monitoring feature to collect branded content and identify missing #hashtags, @mentions, keywords, or paid post disclosures. This influencer marketing software provider understands that influencer marketing legislation is changing globally, and it provides support to help businesses stay on top of the latest laws and regulations.
| Price | Free Trial/Demo | Features |
|---|---|---|
| $35-$274/month | Free Trial | >Web-based, cloud, SaaS >Email and phone support >Integrations >More at Modash |
Pros & Cons of Modash Influencer Marketing Software
Modash offers a free trial and an affordable Starter plan priced at just $35 per month. The software offers dedicated campaign management for capturing content and locating missing #hashtags, @mentions, keywords, or post paid disclosures. Modash doesn’t offer a CRM or ROI and payment tracking.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| >Affordable Starter plan >Campaign management | >No ROI or payment tracking |
What Customers Are Saying
Customers appreciate Modash for its ability to find applicable influencers on a global scale, with one saying, “We’re working with hundreds of influencers globally. Modash is our go-to for verifying Instagram influencers’ accounts at scale.” Customers also appreciate Modash’s ease of use, with one claiming, “We have run thousands of searches through Modash without fail … Within a few clicks, there are results we’re super happy with.”
Narrators
Narrators is an AI-powered influencer marketing software tailored to the macro- and micro-influencer market within Facebook and Instagram. Campaign management is all done from a single, easy-to-use dashboard, and the platform offers an extensive database of over 500,000 content creators. It also offers filter features including location, gender, age, audience credibility score, topics of influence, average engagement rate, and past collaboration with brands, among others. Narrators’ software eliminates fraud by scoring micro-influencers based on the validity of their content performance, which is tracked in real time.
Payment tracking is made easy by Narrators’ AI-powered proprietary algorithm, which calculates influencer payments using a dynamic, performance media model. With this unique algorithm, influencer budgets deplete in real time according to the social engagement each piece of content generates, based on likes, shares, comments, video, and views.
| Price | Free Trial/Demo | Features |
|---|---|---|
| Custom Quote | Free Demo Only | >Web-based, cloud, SaaS, iPhone/iPad, Android deployment >Ticket and phone support >Integrations >More at Narrators |
Pros & Cons of Narrators Influencer Marketing Software
Narrators is an AI-powered influencer marketing software that functions across web and mobile apps. The platform’s unique AI-powered payment tracking automatically manages influencer budget based on content engagement. Compared to other influencer marketing software, Narrators has limited social media integrations, focusing solely on Facebook and Instagram.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| >Web and mobile >AI-powered payment tracking | >Social media integrations limited to Facebook and Instagram |
What Customers Are Saying
Customers appreciate Narrators’ effort to eliminate influencer fraud with its reward system, noting, “We decided to work with Narrators because of their unique business model wherein influencers are rewarded based on the performance of their content … they gave us a concrete way of measuring the value of the content, even beyond the life cycle of the campaign.” Customers also appreciate Narrators’ intuitive interface and support team, saying, “The entire campaign was seamless from start to finish because of it, and everyone on the Narrators team was very helpful and easy to work with!”
Onalytica
Onalytica is an influencer marketing software that helps businesses reach new audiences. The platform offers an influencer discovery database with over 700,000 global influencers. Onalytica also includes extensive analytics and reporting tools to help measure not only the impact of influencer marketing initiatives but also how it compares to competitors on the market.
Onalytica’s intuitive dashboard shows important touch points between influencers and a business. The platform sends out influencer alerts and offers a daily update on influencers sent directly to your inbox. With comprehensive analytics and reporting, integrations, and influencer discovery, Onalytica helps answer the questions of how to engage and build influencer relationships, measure ROI success, and structure and scale an influencer program.
| Price | Free Trial/Demo | Features |
|---|---|---|
| Custom Quote | Free Trial | >Web-based, cloud, SaaS >Ticket support >Integrations >More at Onalytica |
Pros & Cons of Onalytica Influencer Marketing Software
In addition to Onalytica’s dedicated support team, the platform offers access to the larger Onalytica community with expert-led podcasts, blogs, and other curated content to help build a better understanding of the influencer market. The platform also offers a free trial. However, Onalytica doesn’t include a CRM or payment tracking.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| >Free trial >Responsive support team | >No CRM or payment tracking |
What Customers Are Saying
Customers appreciate Onalytica’s discovery tools, with one saying, “Onalytica enables us to identify important influencer groups and then run targeted influencer relations programs to improve brand perception.” Customers also appreciate the platform’s alert features and the quality of its support staff. One notes, “I like the range of ways we’re able to get to know each individual influencer and how they relate to our brand through keywords. The alerts are particularly useful. The main perk of working with Onalytica is the support of their staff.”
Traackr
Traackr is a robust, data-driven influencer marketing software offering a complete system of influencer tracking. It includes influencer discovery and vetting, campaign management, program management, and market benchmarking. With Traackr, influencers are evaluated in a large database based on content performance, audience quality, and value alignment. Campaign management is streamlined with several workflow tools including customization options, CRM, and a budget calculator, as well as multiple secure payout options, deliverables tracking, and campaign reporting.
Traackr also offers AI-powered influencer budget optimization, which helps track company program spending over time and across markets, brands, campaigns, influencers, and more. The budget optimization tool is multicurrency and includes ROI reporting. Having a centralized system of record and an intuitive CRM helps businesses manage small- or large-scale influencer programs across global teams and brand portfolios.
| Price | Free Trial/Demo | Features |
|---|---|---|
| Custom Quote | Free Demo Only | >Web-based, cloud, SaaS >Ticket and phone support >Integrations >More at Traackr |
Pros & Cons of Traackr Influencer Marketing Software
Traackr stands out for its market benchmarking feature, which includes competitive behavior analysis, organic and paid strategy comparison, multitiered influencer coverage, platform analysis, and brand vitality score (VIT). The platform also offers customizable workflow tools. Tracker doesn’t offer a free trial.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| >Market benchmarking >Customizable workflow | >No free trial |
What Customers Are Saying
Customers appreciate that Traackr offers a complete system of record for influencer marketing. One says, “We were looking for a platform that was essentially a CRM for influencer management that also allowed us to aggregate our campaign analytics and access the insights we need to properly evaluate influencers. We spent more than six months researching and testing every platform out there and found Traackr fits exactly what we needed.”
What Is Influencer Marketing Software?
In the current buyer environment, customers want to be more than just buyers — they want to be able to relate to the brands they invest in. Influencers help businesses reach these customers more effectively. Influencer marketing software helps businesses find, recruit, and communicate with influencers globally and across multiple social media platforms. For small businesses that struggle with gaining traction through social media marketing, influencer marketing software can be hugely beneficial. The software manages everything about influencer relationships, from discovery to content management and payment tracking. The right influencer marketing software can help small businesses scale quickly, develop brand loyalty, and increase ROI.
Benefits of Influencer Marketing Software
For small businesses, building an effective marketing strategy and developing brand loyalty is critical for growth. An influencer marketing software can quickly and effectively help to:
- Improve brand awareness: Influencer marketing software helps find and recruit influencers best suited to your vertical from within a vast, global database, so you can quickly and effectively reach your social media audience. Discovering and recruiting the right influencers ensures valuable content alignment for sharing your brand’s story and the solutions or products you offer. By managing influencer relationships within one platform, you can develop more than one campaign strategy effortlessly to expand reach even further.
- Build trust: As a small business struggling to gain traction with your social media presence, influencer marketing software can be hugely beneficial. Influencers come with a vast network of followers who already trust their brand. By aligning your brand’s content with an influencer’s content, you can more effectively share posts with an actively engaged audience.
- Enrich content strategy: By building lasting relationships with influencers, you can generate even more content for your business’s own social media pages. If you struggle to generate your own social media content, influencer content can fill in those holes. Several influencer marketing software programs include the ability to manage, create, and collaborate on content all from within one platform. You can keep track of each campaign schedule with automated workflows, relationship management, and auto-reminders.
Must-Have Features for Influencer Marketing Software
While every business has unique needs, there are certain features that any influencer marketing software should offer, including:
- Management features: Influencer marketing software should be equipped with features ranging from influencer relationship management to campaign and content management. A built-in CRM allows you to effortlessly manage and develop relationships with multiple influencers at once. Auto-reminders and AI-powered workflow management features simplify the process even further. Influencer marketing software should give you the ability to track campaign performance and growth as well as tools for managing content schedules and reviews. Other features like usage rights and payment and negotiation options can ensure every facet of influencer marketing can be completed within one platform.
- Discovery features: Influencer marketing software should provide methods for discovering and recruiting influencers. The software should offer various filter options, including by age, gender, key locations, lifestyle, and categories, as well as by audience demographics and audience quality. Many platforms also offer an audience overlap feature, which allows you to strategically optimize a group of influencers. Look for software that includes several influencer personas ranging from macro- and micro-influencers to brand advocates, referrers, and brand loyalists. Influencer marketing software should help you identify opportunities offered by each persona to match your vertical.
- Reports: Influencer marketing software should include reporting and analytics tools to give you detailed insight into every aspect of an influencer campaign, from sales conversion to click-through rates, impressions, audience sentiment, and more. Reporting features should provide influencer stats and an audience health score and measure live demographic engagement data in addition to analyzing ROI metrics. Software should also give you the ability to build and share customizable reports.
The Cost of Influencer Marketing Software
Most influencer marketing software vendors provide custom quotes based on the unique needs of each business. Many providers offered tiered pricing plans that are tailored to the different stages of influencer marketing. For businesses just getting started and looking to connect with influencers to develop their social audience reach, there are starter plans available. For businesses that have already developed influencer relationships and are looking for more robust management and reporting tools, mid-tier plans may be better suited. Top-tier influencer marketing software plans usually come with access to specialized, in-house influencer marketing experts as well as loyalty programs and product fulfilment components. Basic, starter-level solutions may be priced as low as $35 per month.
Most influencer marketing software vendors offer a free live demo of their products, and some also offer a free trial so businesses can try out the platform before making a purchasing decision.