How AI Influencers Are Eroding Trust & What Really Works Instead | Luke Yarnton

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Matt Edmundson: Wow. Hello, my name is Matt Edmundson and you are listening to the eCommerce Podcast. Yes, you are. Now. I've been an eCommerce-er since 2002, and these days I partner with eCommerce brands to help them grow, scale and exit their business. And if you'd like to know more about how that works and whether or not we could work together, just head over to the website.

ecommerce-podcast.net. You'll find all kinds of amazing information there about what I do about this podcast. All the past episodes, all the information on guests like today's guest, it's all gonna be on there. The show notes, everything. Go to the website ecommerce-podcast.net. Now, today I am Jo.

Joined, joined, get my words right. I am joined by the legendary Luke Yarnton. And we are gonna get into a conversation. But before I do that, let me give a quick shout out to, uh, feed Spot. They sent me an email. [00:01:00] The other day, uh, Luke, you, you may or may not know this, uh, they sent, well, you won't know 'cause why would you get access to my email?

Uh, they sent me an email with a list of the top 100 eCommerce podcasts. Uh, and this podcast is now number nine. So, uh, just wanted to say a big shout out. Big thank you to everyone that's got us, uh, to that place. Hope you get something out of it. And if you're new to the show, make sure you like, subscribe, and do all of that sort of good stuff.

Because number nine's nice. But honestly, I need to be number one just saying, and I can only get there with your help. So, uh, do, do all that good stuff. But look, listen man, you uh, have a company called Brave. You do everything to do with influencers. And before we hit the record button you were talking about.

Something which is, well, how did you phrase it? It is the most ridiculous idea that is currently out there where influencers are concerned. We all wanna know what it is. Let's jump into that. Welcome to the show. What's this ridiculous idea

Luke Yarnton: Yeah, look, this is something that I'm, I'm quite passionate about, and [00:02:00] you've seen probably if you're paying attention to LinkedIn and, and those who are commenting about, uh, e-commerce on x slash Twitter, um, there seems to be this massive rise of people using AI agents to act as influencers to promote their brand.

Um, so the idea is you've got this non-real person that's gonna be reading a script, uh, promoting the features of your product in the hope that you'll be able to trick some potential customers into believing that this is an authentic review. And this is someone who genuinely. Loves your brand. Look, I think that's the stupidest thing you can do as a brand.

I think that's such a, such a, an insulting thing to do to your potential customers to try and, um, sort of false stage, some influencer activity that I, I just think it's, these are the sort of things that customers will remember. Um, and you build trust one post at a time. And to go about it in this particular manner, I think is.

Is [00:03:00] very shortsighted and a little bit insulting to people who I'm sure there are people out there who do know and love these brands, who would be willing advocates of them and to, to use a non-real human, I think is, uh, pretty silly.

Matt Edmundson: It's an interesting one, isn't it? 'cause I'm listening to you talk and I'm like, I, I don't UI clear, clear off the bat. I do not use an AI agent for my LinkedIn or for my content. Um, uh, but I do use AI to help me create content. Uh, I am very, very involved in the content that we create. Because I feel like I have to be, but I do use AI to help me craft and edit and critique content, you know?

And even to do some of the research. What's interesting to me is I see people doing this and I, I have to question why I. So is it because they want to create content but they don't have time? Is it because they feel like they can shortcut the system and just do it easier? Um, uh, because they just wanna do it [00:04:00] easier?

I don't know. Um, but I, I agree with you. I think the fundamental thing about content is it has to be from you, right? I mean, it's, why would it not be? I mean, we can all go and read AI stuff. Why, why? So, I think it's how you're gonna differentiate yourself perhaps.

Luke Yarnton: Exactly. And look, I think they're sort of trying to tap into this market of social currency where you get people talking about your brand and, and the whole idea of social currency is that it has some currency, it has some perceived value. Um, and by, by taking away the human element of it, you're just sort of like completely devaluing the currency that is social currency.

And like to your earlier point, um, there are a bunch of really, really good tools out there that are new tools that will. Help you with the efficiency and help you with the execution of, uh, the content you wanna get out there, whether that's video content, um, there's some tools that help you chop up video content into some postal that is based on real human, uh, UGC that you might have in the mix.

Or there's tools that help you write [00:05:00] scripts and tools that help you schedule. Um. But to take away the actual sort of endorsement element of that, that comes from someone who has held your product in their hands or taken the supplement, um, I think destroys the entire idea of, of, of what's going on here, which sort of can sort of maybe lead us into this potentially, um, concerning future where, and we've seen this already, right?

Where. The level of trust that a customer's gonna have in an advertisement or the level of trust they even have in these bigger sort of macro influences is continually decreasing year after year after year. And you're left with a little bit of trust remaining at these lower level, authentic, genuine influences that have a huge amount of respect for their audience and will only post and endorse things that they truly believe in.

Um, so I think this is just gonna further exacerbate that destruction of trust. If you do use these, uh, funny AI based [00:06:00] influences that you'll feed an AI script into, um, for some sort of pretend endorsement. I don't even know the way to like

Matt Edmundson: Yeah. No, it's, it's, it's a, it is a fair point and I, I, I totally agree. We, we've, we've been quite clear, I think as a company on what we will and won't use AI and automation, AI and AI agents for some of it's, you know, some of the stuff coming out is really clever, like you say. And I, I mean, you mentioned tools, and I'll come back to that because I'm curious to know what you would recommend.

Um, but it's interesting you circle around to this idea of trust.

Luke Yarnton: Mm-hmm.

Matt Edmundson: And how trust is the one thing that we need, but it's the one thing which feels like it's getting harder and harder to get. Um, and so I watch, you know, brands use, um, big influencers to promote a product or a brand. You just, you, you know, full well, there is no way in God's green earth they're using that product.

Right? They're [00:07:00] just, they're just not, it just, it doesn't make any kind of sense to me. There's no authenticity. You just got a famous person to, and yes, that might work in traditional advertisement and good on you. Um, but you are right about this element of trust, which is why I'm guessing, Luke, I mean, we've, we, we've talked about this a bit on the show over the, over the years, but, which is why I'm guessing the, the nano influencers, the micro influencers.

People are saying these are better for your brand because actually these, these have a better trust relationship with the, the people that they're connected to. And as long as they genuinely like what you do,

Luke Yarnton: Mm-hmm.

Matt Edmundson: um, and they are connected to the brand, like I'm seeing more and more people actually work with influencers who actually buy their product.

Um, rather than just giving free product out to a bunch of influencers and then hoping that they do a good, you know, better UGC, um. It seems that's that's a good way to sort of build and maintain trust.

Luke Yarnton: Yeah, exactly. Look, I [00:08:00] think people, people are smartening up to the way the influencer world works. Um, in that the days, or at least just the, the, the original strategy was as a brand, I'm gonna find the biggest possible influencer. Who I can pay an appropriate amount of money to, to post about me on their Instagram, just one photo of them drinking my drink or taking my supplement or working out in my workout gear.

That'll be enough. Um, and it'll be a pay for post and you'll pay $5,000 and there'll be no performance aspect to that at all. And it'll be a one and done. Um, and purely based on existing. In their halo. Um, I too will be a great brand that, that seems to be on the out now where people are looking for a more of an always on consistent, maybe slightly more performance led approach where they are tapping into more of these sort of lower level influences and, and creators, um, that have a stronger connection with their [00:09:00] audience.

Um, that will. Provides sort of more of a genuine connection and you are hitting that, that right audience group. I think an important point to add here is that like before we were doing what we're doing now as a company, um, we built out a fully, um, fleshed out affiliate platform where we would help brands get links, referral links in the hands of these 1 million to 2 million follow account, um, influencers, as well as these micro influencers, nano influencers that have sort of closer to that 5,000 to 15,000, uh, follow account.

Um, like even the best influencer that had more than, uh, 1 million, 2 million followers would never outperform the median nano influencer.

Matt Edmundson: That's

Luke Yarnton: Um, so they consistently flopped. They, they don't have that ability to, uh, to generate genuine transaction and purchases off the back of their suggestion the majority of the time.

I'm sure there are some exceptions to that. [00:10:00] Um, but the level of trust that these nano influencers hold is significantly stronger. So that's sort of what's pulled us into what we're doing now is because of that previous experience with the affiliate platform. We know that if a brand can get an influencer with 5,000 followers posting about them organically, um, that's a pretty cool outcome for a brand.

So how do we get to an influencer that organically loves this brand, posting about them more quickly, uh, in an organic sort of serendipitous way. That's a pretty cool unlock. Um, so that's kind of how we've got to the, the route that we're on now and we're unlocking a bunch of value for the brands that we are working with here.

Matt Edmundson: That's really fascinating. Um, I, and so you're, you've got the data to prove what everybody else knows is true. Is that actually the, yes. The, the large influencers have access to, so you've got one person who has access to a big audience, but if you've got a bunch of smaller influencers and collectively have that, they have the same size audience, the smaller influencers are gonna [00:11:00] outperform the larger ones just. Significantly.

Luke Yarnton: By massive numbers. It's like I, I was consistently time and time again surprised by just how inefficient and how disconnected audiences are to these bigger macro, 1 million follower count plus influencers. Um.

Matt Edmundson: No, that's fair enough. I guess that's why they're all starting their own brands, aren't they?

Luke Yarnton: Exactly. Yeah. And look, what they are still good for is some top of funnel awareness, and for some potentially you'll get some branding benefits from

Matt Edmundson: Mm.

Luke Yarnton: to them. Um, but if in, in this day and age, the brands tend to be, most, most brands tend to be slightly more performance focused. Um, so if you want genuine transactions, um, and genuine transactions relatively quickly, um.

That's not the route you want to be going down. You want this sort of ambassador army of these medium sized to lower, um, sized influences, uh, that, that just advocate for you, um, all the time.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah. [00:12:00] No, that's, that's, that's brilliant. That's brilliant. Hey, listen, if you are listening to this, uh, and you are in fact an e-commerce yourself, you run your own e-commerce business, uh, let me tell you a little bit about Cohort Now. Cohort is a free monthly group that you can join. Uh, and we have them in different parts of the world.

Um, so, you know, hopefully won't fit your time zone. Uh, but you can come and join us on Cohort. Basically, it's just a bunch of us involved in e-commerce. We got on calls. How's it going? Share stories. Share what's working, share. You know, I. Throw some thoughts into the ring and we connect with like-minded people.

Uh, we do it on Zoom. It's all free, and it's all very, very fantastic. So if you would like to know more about that, just check it out. ecommerce-podcast.net. You know the website by now, ecommerce-podcast.net. Uh, but yeah, go check it out there, especially if you're involved in eCommerce. We'd love to meet you in those groups.

Now, let's get into this then, Luke, because one of the things, um. You've mentioned then is, well, [00:13:00] it's better to go get the smaller, you know, accounts. How do I do that? How do I do what you call build an unstoppable ambassador army?

Luke Yarnton: Excellent. So this is something I'm, I'm very passionate about and very excited to be talking about here, Matt. Um, and it's something that you'll see a lot of brands, uh, are shifting towards now, is that they want this always on army of advocates and ambassadors around them who love their brand, um, who will be posting about it consistently, but it can be managed in a way where you don't have to hire a headcount purely to be this community manager or something like that.

Um. So I think what a lot of brands overlook is the power, um, and the reach of their existing customers. There are people who buy from you every day, who have the ability to share with their friends, family, and followers, um, in a meaningful way. Like we, we do this analysis a couple of times a week on brands that typically have between sort of 500,000 to 1.5 million.

Uh. [00:14:00] Email lists, uh, folks in there. Um, and, and typically what we'll see is that the average brand will have somewhere between, uh, 200 and 250 influencers. And I, I, when I say influencer, I mean someone with more than 2,500 followers on a common platform, um, per 10,000, uh, emails. So that's 250 per 10,000 emails.

Um, and that's completely being overlooked. Um, so. Brands tend, and I guess it was originally done in the, in the world of e-commerce. 'cause you had no way of finding out who actually exists within your, your customer list. But now we live in a world where there's a bunch of these really complex influencer platforms that have rich information about every, uh, creator that's in the world.

Like our, our platform has access to over 15 million creator and influencer profiles. Um, so we can see in real time who's shopping and what their, what their follow account is. So. No longer are you, are you viewing your existing customers as sort of this passive group of [00:15:00] people, um, that are just enjoying my product?

Whereas now you're saying, look, these are actually our best marketing asset. These are the folks, um, that we can sort of co-create with and we can collaborate with to get some really interesting outcomes that are a affordable, um, and be super authentic and brand accretive. Um. So our approach is let's find out everyone within your audience that has a meaningful social media following.

Um, and once we've done that, let's do some pretty basic, um, outreach. We don't wanna be like too much of a pest. These are people who bought your product organically. They love you, they've spent their own hard earned cash. Um. Let, let's make a soft offer to them to see if they're interested in becoming an ambassador or an advocate for you and speaking for the brand.

Um, so that, that, that changes in a, in a bunch of different ways. Um, it looks different for different brands depending on the average age of the audience or, [00:16:00] or the type of product that you're selling. Like one of our strongest, um, one of our strongest. Uh, brands we are working with is a, is a ticketing site in the US They massive ticketing site.

They sort of do north of $500 million worth of ticket sales a year. Um, our ability to reach out to their customer base and say, um, do you wanna be an always on advocate for us, is, is limited because it's based around a specific purchase of an event and they need to be hit right at that perfect time where they can say, Hey, here's something I'm going to, y'all should come along to.

Um. Whereas if it's a, a supplement brand, that's so much easier just to say, Hey, look, I know this per this, this person who is an influencer who is purchasing from me every single month, um, has a reach. There's some really fun ways that I can do some surprise and delight in that regular outreach, whether that's the merch or whether that's the upsize or, or even just something as simple as a handwritten note, uh, [00:17:00] acknowledging their purchase goes so far with these sort of.

Nano influencers and micro creators who, who might not be used to being acknowledged and used to being sort of singled out, um, that belly scratch, uh, makes them feel special. And, and is, is sometimes enough to, to get them from being a passive person who's enjoying it, to someone who's posting. Um.

Matt Edmundson: That's really good. I, I, and again, I mean, that's just a general human thing, isn't it? So many people go unnoticed that actually if you just notice somebody and say thank you in a unique way, people just genuinely fall in love with you. And, and it's, you know,

Luke Yarnton: Yeah,

Matt Edmundson: people love that. Um, so we're looking in our existing customers for people who have got over two and a half thousand followers.

Luke Yarnton: exactly.

Matt Edmundson: um, how do I do that? Is it because we've been having this conversation? Ironically, actually, it's perfect timing for us in many ways. We were having this conversation the other day in the office, like, do we just email every single customer and say, listen, we're thinking of setting up a, an influencer program.

I. It's not quite [00:18:00] how I'd phrase it, but in essence is we're setting up an influencer program. Um, would you like to get involved or is there a, is there a better way to do, I, I, I kind of know how you can answer this because I know this is where your company does some help, so, um, quick plug for what you guys do and tell us how you would help someone like me not to do that.

Or maybe that, maybe that is the best practice. I dunno, I'm making an assumption here.

Luke Yarnton: Hey, look, look, I'll, I'll, I'll take you through the whole process here. I'll tell you how we would do it as a company that specializes in this. Um, but it's not to say that if you don't work with us, you can't do it. I can, I'll, I'll speak quickly to if I didn't have any budget at all, do this, and I still wanted to see this outcome.

How would I do it without budget? Um, so, so for us, what we do is, is we integrate into the email platform that these brands work with. The most common one is, is Klaviyo. So Klaviyo is what's gonna send out the post-purchase order emails. Um, and how that works with us is the moment a, a transaction takes place, um, a customer profiles created in [00:19:00] Klaviyo, um, which has a a bunch of details, name, email, address, some order details.

We use that to create a profile that we match against. 15 million, uh, influencer profiles that exist in the world. Um, and once we do find that we have a successful match, then we trigger a flow that goes out to, uh, all of these creators, uh, that says, Hey, just notice you made a purchase from us. Looks like you might be a good fit for our creator team.

Uh, if you are, click this button and we'll automatically add you to our creator community. Something as simple as that. Um. If, but we'll do some conditional flows where it's, if it's between 3,500 and 100,000, they get email A. If it's between 100,000 and 300,000 for example, it'll be email B, which will be a little bit softer saying, Hey, love what?

You just, uh, love that you purchased from us. Love your content. Um, would you like us to send you some more free stuff? Something like that, or [00:20:00] our, our founder would love to chat to you about a potential collaboration. Here's a meeting link. Let me know if you're interested in chatting. Um, and then the third flow is if they've got more than 300,000, uh, we just send a notification into their Slack channel saying, Hey, by the way, this person just made a purchase.

If you wanna reach out to them, reach out to them. If you don't wanna reach out to 'em, don't worry about it. Uh, we're mindful there still is some value in having those. Brand partnerships with the massive creators and automating communication with them probably isn't the right way to go about, um,

Matt Edmundson: For the same reasons. We don't do AI agents in our, in our contact. Yeah. Yeah. Same reason.

Luke Yarnton: and then we parallel that with a, we've just got our hands on a really cool new one. One of these AI agents startups, which is, um. Allowing us to automate dms out to the creators via Instagram, which is a very similar message, which is, Hey, not sure if you saw our email, saw your purchase from us.

Love your content. Reply if you're interested in a collaboration.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah. Okay.

Luke Yarnton: Um, so those are being fired out one day after that initial email goes out. [00:21:00] Um, the idea being that now you've at least made the ask, um, simply asking if they're interested. You've identified them, they have a potential, uh, to be a, a really good collaborator for your business.

You've hinted it, there's some upside for them. And then you've built this community and the idea is you'll end up building 500 odd people who are inside, uh, this created team. Um, some, some brands manage it in like a Slack channel or a Discord or a Instagram broadcast channel where they have the founder constantly posting sort of once a week saying, what color do you guys reckon we should have for next season's drop or.

Are you also facing this problem? Depending on the brand, you sort of activate them and work with them and, and make them feel involved and loved by the brand. Um, give them some early access. There needs to be some benefit to them beyond just a simple referral link. Um, and then you're just, every single month, your brand is top of mind for them because you're talking to them, you're maintaining that [00:22:00] relationship and they love your brand because they paid with their own hard earned cash to make a purchase.

Um. By opting in. That's their way of saying, Hey, look, let's let, let's make something of this together in a way that's mutually beneficial. Um,

Matt Edmundson: that's really cool.

Luke Yarnton: and if I didn't have any budget, the way you do that is an email that goes out post-purchase. Perhaps the same time you're sending out that review email saying, Hey, by the way, we are building an ambassador army.

Um, there are a bunch here. Here's a list of the, the benefits that everyone can get. Um, you don't, what you have to be careful is you don't want to be seen to be excluding. Everyday customers from being an ambassador because they don't have enough followers, because that's sort of like a, a, a pretty disappointing outcome for them.

Everyone gets in, but, but as part of that, you'll ask them to sort of submit their Instagram handle or some sort of handle as they, they go through the, the process and you can sort of manually sort who's. The, the big fish, uh, [00:23:00] and who's not, and you can sort of manage that organically, um, throughout that process and just do the exact same thing.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, that's super smart. Is it? Um, I, I guess there's a, as I'm listening to you talk, Luke, there's a, a cutoff in terms of budget. So if I don't have money, I'm gonna go down the route of setting up a, a post email sequence. Okay. I get that. I can do that. That's not a problem. I. If I've got budget, I'm gonna come to someone like you and say, listen, um, this is great.

You've got software. It's gonna make my life a lot easier. I guess another way to look at this is to say, uh, what number? Um, so if I've just started out, for example, and I've only got like a thousand people on my email list,

Luke Yarnton: Yeah.

Matt Edmundson: it probably, I, I'm, I'm, does it make sense to use you? Probably not. I don't know.

Um. What, at what number does a a, um, a service like yours actually really start to impact a business like mine?

Luke Yarnton: Yeah, so look, we like to work with brands that have more than 10,000 emails in their customer list before [00:24:00] that. Um, the, the volume of sort of influences we discover is, is gonna be difficult to, to make meaningful changes. That's not to say that we haven't had great outcomes for smaller businesses. Um, I'm sure as you've seen, as I've seen all it takes is one good creator, um, to make a meaningful change for a business like the, the, i I keep wheeling out.

The same example with, with a lot of people that I speak to is with one of the brands we work with. They're, they're a, um, a suitcase brand. Um, they sell inflight suitcases, carry on bags and the like. Um, we found one YouTuber, 5,000 subscribers, maybe 5,500 now. Um. He's generated more than $330,000 worth of transactions, uh, for this brand.

They set him up with a referral link, uh, and asked him for his opinion every now and then on like what sort of that he, 'cause he, he does suitcase reviews as his, his, uh, channel on YouTube. It's very niche, but he felt like he was included. He felt like he was part of the [00:25:00] brand. Now, he posted a bunch of videos, sort of, he rerecorded a new video every two months for this particular brand.

With his affiliate link, I think he was getting like 20 bucks per suitcase sale. Um, and he's generated $330,000 worth of sales. This is a very meaningful percent of, of that brand's total revenue for the last 12 months.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, I, no, I, I, I mean, influences, when you look at the numbers, it's incredible really when you, when you can track it out. How do we, um, so I, whether I've emailed them out post-purchase sequence, then, or I've, I've, I'm using, you know, Ray or. A service to kind of help me, how do I as a brand, make sure, what do I need to think about as a brand to, you use the phrase always on, right?

So, um, how do I make sure they don't just sign up and then forget about us? How do I deliver this value? How do I keep them engaged? How do I get them sharing posts regularly?

Luke Yarnton: Exactly, look, so [00:26:00] we break it down into three separate stages. So stage one is getting the right people into the top of the bucket, um, top of the funnel. So you've got an opportunity for people to share. The next stage is you don't start with the idea of this needs to be a, um, a an always on solution. What your first goal should always be is how do I get them to talk about me or post about me or perform some sort of ambassadorial task just once.

I just want one single task out of them. Um, so getting them to perform that first task should be the number one objective, and there needs to be, obviously the right timing, uh, the right task for them to complete. If you ask every single person who's just made a purchase from you to create a one minute long Instagram reel and post it, that's a pretty high level of ask to to get from them, and you'll get pretty low conversion rate and it's gonna fizzle them out.

Um. And they're not gonna be interested in being part of your little army of ambassadors anymore. So you need to have a really easy goal for them to [00:27:00] object, uh, to, um, to, to get across the line, set off with, with a pretty meaningful carrot at the end of it. So it might be something as simple as, look, if you post about us on your Instagram story, um, Instagram story, easy to come by.

Um. Just purely, you don't even have to tag us. You don't have to use a referral link. Just show that you've made a purchase from us, uh, and it's part of your day-to-day life. That's enough. Uh, we'll send you a free hoodie, we'll send you a cap or we'll send you something. Um, and that tends to work well. And once they've performed that, once you've, you've formed a behavior, and then now that they're in the group, you can say, look, now we're in the month of, uh, may, month of April, or month of May, whatever it is.

Um. Here's a list of all of the potential, uh, ambassador rewards that are going for this month. And you can just recycle 'em every single month. So it'll be, if you want to, uh, post a a reel, here's kind of what the reels we are looking for this month to support the ads that are going out. Um, this is the reward, [00:28:00] um, for, uh, an Instagram story.

Here are some stories that we are looking for this month. These are the rewards for these types of stories. And by the way, everyone in the Ambassador Army gets an affiliate link or a referral link. Here's how you can generate that and then use an example of like, here's an example of an influencer just like you who's made $5,000, uh, in the month of January by clever talking about our brand and using the affiliate link like an absolute champion.

Matt Edmundson: So the, so you're, you're talking about two things there then, aren't you? You, are, you I'm giving the influencer two things. I'm giving them a reward for an action. Um, but then I'm also giving them a referral link so that they make a commission on the sale.

Luke Yarnton: Exactly. Well, so that's an option. They have the option to have that referral link in affiliate link. That tends to be the one that most brands go down because they like to see attributable sales and they like to know where the transactions are coming from and that this is a high ROI channel. Um, other brands, and I'm, I'm sure you've seen it in your work as well, is that [00:29:00] they're just super thirsty for any content.

The content drives all paid performance marketing at the moment and all sort of website optimization. So maybe they don't actually care about, uh, getting the affiliate links out there or the referral links out there. And look, certain brands are not well positioned for referral and affiliate links. If you're a luxury brand, referral links and affiliate links don't work as well.

If you're a brand that has your average age over over 50, by asking that customer to sort of understand how referral and affiliate links works, um, just purely that coaching process can sort of throw a spanner in the work. So it's purely just talking about the brand and getting the right content that you can then have flowing through into, uh, the, the, the general marketing engine is what's key.

I'm not an expert in telling a brand exactly what they want from these creators and influences that exist in their mix. That's for them to decide, but. I can say, look, here are some proven cases of the way that brands we work with have utilized this army that exists within their customer base to [00:30:00] achieve their business goals.

Matt Edmundson: So this, um, so what have you seen actually work well then? I mean, you've obviously got these case studies. I'm curious because I, um, I would genuinely love to know what is working well at the moment in terms of motivating. I. Um, what, what have you seen brands do that you kind of think that's genius that I can see why you are winning at at life now?

Luke Yarnton: Um, good question. Um, so the, the brand, one of the brands that is working really well has a high amount of brand loyalty. They work in the, uh, sort of fitness and uh, fitness clothing space with posture correcting, uh, fitness. Stuff. So what they're doing is they know that they have a really high level of, uh, brand advocacy and brand love.

Um, so they're, they're finding, uh, the creators that, that already love them and, and they're purely getting content for them. Content is king and they want, uh, top of funnel content. [00:31:00] So for them it's, look, you don't even need to post anything. Just give us a 15 minute, um. 15 minute, uh, script and a selfie style video, um, talking about why you've bought this garment and not another garment.

Um, and then they're just using that video to chop it up and repurpose it all over the

Matt Edmundson: Yeah.

Luke Yarnton: Um, the, the brand that I was talking to about the, uh, earlier with the, the suitcases and bags, they're very performance driven. Um, they only want attributable sales really. Um, they've got a, a little bit of the softer stuff around making people feel included in part of the.

Community. Um, but they have a, if you're gonna take that approach, the size of the price needs to be there. You can't cheap out on like 1% commission on referral transactions or 2%, which we see brands trying to go down and I understand that like you eroding away margins every now and then, but they have a pretty meaningful, um, reward of, I think it's like [00:32:00] 20 or $30 per transaction.

Um. That tends to be enough to get most people posting about it. Um, I think for them it helps as well is that they have particularly beautiful bags. Um, so it's an, because it's beautiful and travel has so much social currency, it's easy to inject that into lifestyle content.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, yeah. I imagine that is, I imagine. But I, I like how you, you, you're, what you're showing us here is different use cases. So you can use this system just to get creative, which you can use in your ad content. So maybe you just want videos, you, which you are gonna chop up from people. They don't have to post anything.

Maybe you do want them to post stuff. Um, uh, maybe you also want attributable sales. The thing is actually quite dynamic, isn't it? It's quite. Flexible to how you wanna run as a business. I guess for most people their default is gonna be, I think, and most people are gonna think, [00:33:00] well, I just, of course I want attributable sales.

Why would, why would I not want attributable sales? But is that, is that always the, I mean, you've, you've mentioned one company that doesn't do that, the gym company, but is that, is that always the best policy or how would I determine what the, the right route to go down is?

Luke Yarnton: I mean, look, it really depends on what stage we're in as a business. Um, if I was a new business that was just getting started, um, probably the, the better outcome and the easier outcome might just be. To get people posting about you, top of funnel awareness, um, driven by getting authentic influencers who are purely just a post to the Instagram story.

If you can get 'em posting once a month or once every two weeks about you, um, that's huge validation to their audience that this is, this brand is a real deal. Um, as soon as you start attaching affiliate links and referral links, it can cheapen or sort of take some authenticity away from that post. Um. So if I want just to get a bunch of creators [00:34:00] posting about it, so I feel like I'm a brand that's being talked about in the world, um, that can be a really positive outcome.

And then eventually, after three or four months of doing that with the rewards, going to the people who are posting and, and seeing how that engagement works and the way they like to talk about your brand, you can take those learnings and feed them into your advertising engine for some sort of creative content ideas.

And then you can start injecting some, uh. Some, some referral links or affiliate links into that type as well. But I, I wouldn't, I wouldn't try and rip those affiliate links right off the bat. I would just get, let's, let's get our position in the market. Let's get people talking about us. Let's make us look like a real tangible brand if we are new and still early on the journey.

And then hopefully that'll lead to some transaction. But if you try and jump to that point too early, um, you can sort of sacrifice some authenticity in that process.

Matt Edmundson: Yeah, yeah. No, I like that. And you bet it's very top of funnel then, isn't it? It's all very brand awareness, um, type thing. [00:35:00] How do you. How do you track it, right? So if, if I'm gonna do that whole brand awareness thing and it's like, okay guys, these are the rewards. If you do whatever, five stories, three reels and a ridge in a pair of tree, then um, you get this reward.

Um, how do you track that? Is that something that they need to tell you that they've done? Is that something you can track automatically with hashtags? How, how do I make that process easier?

Luke Yarnton: Yeah, so look, d different brands do it in a different way. For a lot of the brands we work with, we'll take 100% ownership of that tracking. Um, and part of the process will be that, um, we'll either we've got some clever tools that can make assumptions around the reach of a post or, um, in some cases we'll just ask the, the creator on the 23rd hour of the, the story being up, um, shoot us over a screenshot of the reach and we'll just.

Store that against our profile. So we know that this person consistently gets this reach and it's been posted and this is what it looks like. Um, [00:36:00] but like a, a, a good brand that's on their toes. We'll be consistently resharing that content as well in real time. Um, just to continue the amplification process.

So, uh, we, we, as part of the process, we tend to build out, build out these pretty comprehensive CRM type tools of these are all the folks on the roster, this is who's posted, this is the reach. Um, and, and this is their reward that's been, uh, put back to them. So. If you want to, like, obviously we know the space that we operate in, um, and as much as it's nice to have the warm fuzzies for having someone post about you, we need to be, be able to be compared to other places that money's going.

So you can see what the CPM is, you can see what, uh, if, if we're doing that referral or affiliate based approach, you can, you can sort of throw together a CPC or a even a cost per acquisition on the back of it. Um, and that'll at least keep us. Uh, in a position where we can be compared apples with apples, [00:37:00] whereas in the past, and we sort of spoke to that original, uh, influencer marketing approach at the top of the call, uh, which was like, just throw money at a big influencer.

And maybe it works, maybe it doesn't, there's no real way of telling. Um, whereas now it should be like, alright, this is how it compares with our Facebook spend, with our, uh, Google spend. Uh, and we can see exactly how that compares.

Matt Edmundson: Fantastic. Fantastic. Luke, listen, before we get to the saving, the best tool, last section, uh. The now's the time. Uh, well before we, we we're gonna get to that. And if you don't know about the same last, uh, saving the best or last section, it's a new segment to the show. Stay tuned 'cause we're gonna save the best to the best.

Now, uh, let me ask you, Luke, this is the time of the show where I go, what's your question for me? This is where I take your question. I will go away and I will answer it on social media, predominantly LinkedIn, ladies and gentlemen. Uh, but um, yeah, [00:38:00] I'm gonna take your question. I'm gonna answer on LinkedIn.

So if you don't follow me by the way already on LinkedIn, come follow me at Matt Edmundson. You'll see the answer there to this question. Go look.

Luke Yarnton: So, Matt, you've been in, in e-commerce for a long time, a very long time, longer than most. Um, and I'm sure you've lived, uh, through many of these hype cycles of, there's a specific part of e-commerce marketing that comes through that's particularly frothy and then dies away. Um, looking at this moment in time right now, I'd love to know.

Uh, is there any hype that's happening now that you think brands and brand owners are over investing time and energy into? And then on the other side of that is where are people not investing enough time and energy into what's like the low hanging fruit out there that, that you consistently look at brands and you're saying like, these people are absolute idiots for not investing a little bit more time and energy into this one simple thing that can have like really good outcomes.

Matt Edmundson: That is such a phenomenal [00:39:00] question. And now I look, I know before we started recording, you said, oh, we've got the, we've got the question for the question from that thing. That's good. That's great. You, whoever put that together, genius loving that. Uh, if you wanna know how I'm gonna answer loose, great question.

Then like I say, follow me on LinkedIn at Edmundson, you'll find the answer there at some point in. The future. No doubt. Look, listen. Uh, how do people reach you? How do they connect with you if they want to do that, what's the best way to find out about maybe connecting with the rave? Maybe get their help on board.

I don't know. What's, what's, what's the low down bro?

Luke Yarnton: Yeah, look, I like to be nice and approachable. Just email me [email protected]. You can find me on LinkedIn, Luke ya uh, there's not, not too many Luke Yarnton out there. Um, otherwise yeah, the rave.co is the website. There's a bunch of ways that you can, you can book some time with me and we can sit down and have a chat and talk through, uh, potential strategies for your brand.

Matt Edmundson: Fantastic. We will of course, link to Luke and all of his stuff, the, the email, the LinkedIn, all of that sort of stuff will be in the show notes, which if you're just on the podcast app, just [00:40:00] listening, scroll down. It'll be there in the YouTube description. Scroll down, it'll be there. Of course, you can go to the websites.

Uh, ecommerce-podcast.net and it'll be there. And of course, if you are subscribed to the newsletter, uh, it will also be in your inbox. And if you're not subscribed to the newsletter, why not? What's wrong with you? It's the best newsletter going out there. It's unbelievable. This thing. Uh, it's actually, we're in a really, uh, we, I've, I've mentioned this a couple of times on the show.

We've just changed over how we do the newsletters and the new system, um, that we've, we've got coming up. It's almost. Almost launched. It's a little bit behind. I'm about two weeks behind, but we're, we're just about to launch it and the value of the newsletters is just shot through the roof. So, um, do find out more information about that, of course, at ecommerce-podcast.net where we'll put in all the strategies and stuff from Luke about influencer marketing, if that's something you want to get into.

Right, Luke? In the last few minutes, let's do the saving the best till last. Uh, this is where I like to just reward everybody that stayed with us throughout the entire journey on this [00:41:00] podcast. Um, that we, I'm using the word reward and there's no link, there's no referral link, ladies and gentlemen. Uh, but if you've stayed with us this long, I'd just like to ask the, I guess, for their best tip to save the best tool.

Less so. Luke, what is that from you, my friend?

Luke Yarnton: So this is a little secret that we've just recently learned. Um, and for us it's been a massive unlock that I think can be applied to anyone who's trying to do similar things to what we are trying to do, uh, which is sort of getting an outcome from a customer that loves your brand, um, that is do them doing something for you.

Right? Um, so, so that learning is that obviously for us, what we are trying to do is get people posting about a brand after they've made a purchase in real time. Ideally, what we've found is that offering. A slight refund or a fraction of a refund outperforms any other incentive. Ridiculously. Um, so by that I mean, for some reason, let, let's say you made a purchase that's $100.

Um, if I were to say to that person, Hey, look, we'll give you $20 if you post an [00:42:00] Instagram story about our brand or an unboxing video on your Instagram story. Um, $20. Response rate for that tends to be sort of like three to 5% pretty low. If you change that and say, Hey, look, we're gonna give you a 20% refund on your recent order, uh, for making a post about us that skyrockets for some reason.

There's some, and look, you've been in e-commerce and in marketing for much longer than I have, Matt. There's, there's something there around consumer psychology where, uh, a refund for a, a recent purchase. Is perceived to be either much more valuable or much less icky, um, than the corresponding pay for post.

I think may, maybe there's something to do with like loss aversion, but I. We've found that that offering, that, that small refund, it doesn't have to be a full, like if you can offer a full refund on a purchase for something that's gonna send people absolutely nuts. Um, but just a small refund for, for some sort of outcome goes so well, I.

[00:43:00] And look, that often can go out to any customer. It doesn't have to be an influencer that's, uh, in your, in your audience. If you wanted to ask every single person who made a purchase from you to post about their product, your, your product, um, after they've made a purchase and offer them like a 25% refund on their order or something with a maximum of, you can set a max limit on that as well.

You'll get significantly more people posting about you.

Matt Edmundson: That's incredible. That's, and I'm, this is, I'm smiling because actually we do a lot of research. After we do the podcast, um, based on our conversation, we go away and we do some research, right. And we look at some of the latest stats and stuff. And so when we write the blog posts and when we do the newsletters that I've mentioned, we want to add extra value, right?

We just, we we're starting to put a lot more stuff in these, in these, uh, blog posts and case studies, uh, blog posts and newsletters. That one stat alone is gonna send the research nuts. 'cause we, I now need to understand why that is the case. I've got some theories I think. I wonder what it comes back [00:44:00] with.

My gut feel would be actually getting a refund is really easy 'cause you're gonna refund, you've already got my credit card details. If you're gonna pay me 20 bucks, I've gotta set up an account, I've gotta give you my email. Does that mean I have to declare it on a tax return? There's all kinds of problems associated with that, which you know, are synonymous with it now.

Whereas a refund is an easy, easy win, isn't it? It's just like, oh, great, just put the 20 bucks back in my account

Luke Yarnton: Yeah. Look, I, I think to your original point, it, perception of work I'm doing changes If it's I'm getting something back versus I'm getting something new, um, and it changes at that point of transaction, it changes the value proposition around like what I've just purchased and actually I'm getting something for cheaper than I thought it was for doing something that I might have might have done anyway.

Um, so.

Matt Edmundson: That's brilliant. I have to say, Luke, I, I've not been tracking actually, uh, since we've been doing it, the saving the best or less. But, uh, if I was, I dare say if. That's probably the best answer we've [00:45:00] had on the saving the best or last. So, uh, I, I have to, I have to do this. I have to applaud you. Yes.

Very good. Well done. Uh, yeah. Nailed that. Fantastic. Luke, listen man, really appreciate you, appreciate you coming on the podcast. It's been great to meet you and talk to you all the way, uh, on the other side of the Atlantic. Um, love what you guys are doing and of course, if you are in the market for some help with influencer marketing, then do connect with Luke.

But Luke. Appreciate it, man. You're a legend. Thanks for coming on the show.

Luke Yarnton: Cheers. Thanks for your time, Matt.

Matt Edmundson: No problem. Now that's it from me. That's it from Luke. Thank you so much for joining us. Have a fantastic week wherever you are in the world, and of course, I will see you next time. That's it from me. Bye for now.