What is a Brand Ambassador & How It Differs From Affiliates and Influencers?

Phonexa

24 minute read

It’s not uncommon to mistake brand ambassadors for influencers or affiliates and use these terms interchangeably. While they have some common traits, the differences are, in fact, more apparent than any similarities. 

Like affiliates, brand ambassadors and social media influencers can be part of affiliate marketing efforts and programs. Another trait these marketing professionals have in common is the extensive use of content marketing, aiding them in accomplishing their goals, and rightfully so, since it generates 3+ times as many leads as outbound marketing and costs 62% less.

But when it comes to brand ambassador talent acquisition, a person doesn’t have to build a large follower base to become an ambassador. A recent Adweek survey showed that 76% of consumers believe that content shared by ordinary people is far more honest than any brand advertisement (including traditional blogger promos).

Meanwhile, 71% of consumers are highly likely to buy products from a blogger they trust. Thus, it is vital to find a person who acts like your brand advocate for the simple reason of loving your brand.

Ambassador or referral campaigns are often associated with big budgets, but it’s not representative of all referral and affiliate campaigns. So what is?

Without further ado, let’s explore the meaning of the brand ambassador term, how to find a marketing ambassador, the benefits of such a collaboration, the main differences between brand ambassadors, influencers, and affiliates, and how to monitor bloggers’ work to find a person that promotes your brand most efficiently.

What Does a Brand Ambassador Term Mean?

Generally speaking, a brand ambassador can fit into the “advertise the lifestyle, not the brand directly” type of promotion. It is a person who represents and advertises a chosen company. They act as the embodiment of the company’s corporate identity through words and actions.

So if you are interested in how to become a brand ambassador, you should look for companies with similar lifestyles.

While traditional affiliates promote only chosen offers, ambassadors are hired to promote and advocate for a product or company. Affiliates exclusively use digital space to promote the brand: once their followers use the link and buy a product, they get their commission. 

The brand ambassador’s duty is to promote brands offline and online, receiving pre-agreed compensation from free products to hundreds or thousands of dollars for their promotional activities.

To ease your understanding of the brand ambassador role, think about Ryan Reynolds. Apart from buying stakes in Mint Mobile, he also became their ambassador. His main personality trait is not taking himself too seriously while being a true professional, which makes him one of the best celebrity brand ambassadors. 

A more down-to-earth brand ambassador campaign example is Lululemon. They have thousands of ambassadors in their social networks to promote their goods to people interested in sports. Lululemon uses its brand ambassador platform to hire prospective bloggers.

Source: Kinoyoga

If you are a business that wants to find brand ambassadors, pick bloggers who already share your corporate values. If your target audience is business-oriented, your ambassador should have the same vibe. If your audience is young people looking for fun, this person should radiate this energy.

Thousands of bloggers are already looking for brands that need ambassadors. They even share life hacks on how to get hired. Here is an example of how bloggers look for a brand to promote:

You can simply launch an ambassador-seeking campaign and post on TikTok about it. People interested in such a possibility will fill out the application on your website. To make a brand ambassador program more accessible, make sure to post the link in the profile.

Brand ambassadors are valuable assets for any marketer, especially in affiliate marketing, since the three most common media for affiliate marketing are bloggers, reviews, and coupon sites. Moreover, as of 2023, bloggers are the most common lead generation channel in affiliate marketing, bringing in around 27,8% leads or approximately 1 in 4 clients. 

The other most common channel is review sites such as Yelp, Wirecutter, etc. But even they provide only 18,7% of leads, far less than social media bloggers. As of today, blogger brand ambassadors are the biggest lead generation channel businesses and brands should focus on.

Source: Statista

Brand ambassadors build a trustworthy atmosphere, increasing brand awareness while resonating and engaging with your potential audience. Their follower base gets emotionally invested in your company, so it’s no surprise that one of the leading brand ambassador jobs is to establish themselves as a source of lead generation for the business.

What Does a Brand Ambassador Do?

In a nutshell, it’s a person who represents a brand to their audience. While they don’t act like salespeople, the brand ambassador’s job is to promote a lifestyle that keeps a product on top of the prospect’s mind.

Social media ambassadors inspire and engage followers through referral campaigns, organic social promotion, and loyalty programs. As for the affiliate marketing professionals, they usually launch promo campaigns through multiple channels, including the following:

• Social media: Publishers can share product reviews, photos, and videos on their social media profiles. They can also run ad campaigns.
• Email campaigns: Affiliates often utilize email marketing to include promotional links in targeted email campaigns.

• Websites and blogs: Affiliate marketers boost their income by showcasing affiliate links in informative and engaging content such as reviews and tutorials. This way, they can enlighten the target audience about the benefits of the products they’re promoting.

• Paid media: Investing in such opportunities helps affiliates skyrocket ad views and drive more users to specific offers. This channel provides potential growth and a chance to gain a competitive edge in attracting quality traffic.

Unlike brand ambassadors, affiliates focus on earning a commission from working with affiliate networks or directly with brands. Here are the four most common payment models in affiliate marketing:

Source: Influencer Marketing Hub

It’s also worth mentioning that brands that need ambassadors should consider that it’s a paid position. We’ve gathered the most common payment options in the table below:

Benefits of Brand Ambassadors for Business

There’s no denying that ambassadors can be helpful for any business. There are two principal ways how they can benefit a brand:

• Increased brand awareness: By sharing admiration for the company under the ambassador referral program, they show that you are worthy of trust.
• Each mention is potential lead generation: Bloggers encourage their followers to visit the brand website by posting ambassador referral reviews.

Once companies choose the perfect content strategy, social media mentions from brand ambassadors become a solid instrument to boost sales.

Tips for Proper Brand Ambassador Management

If you plan on using influencer marketing or brand ambassador services in tandem with your affiliate marketing efforts, you need to keep a few things in mind. 

First, spend an extra few days on research rather than risk your reputation by choosing random people without specific knowledge or experience.

Then, set precise tasks and goals. Identify clear expectations about the campaign, whether a complex brand ambassador clothing campaign or several social media posts.

Another important step is to provide referral marketing ambassadors with as much information as they need. Confirm that they have all resources, including samples, materials, and access to your social media accounts.

Finally, utilize the right tracking tools and affiliate marketing software to tie revenue back to specific channels, publishers, campaigns, influencers, or ambassadors and take the guesswork out of your marketing attribution.

What Is a Social Media Ambassador?

It’s a person who represents a brand on social media and promotes the company’s products or services on their pages. They can influence their followers’ buying decisions, almost unnoticeably to the audience.

Usually, brand ambassadors on social media promote the company with brand-related videos, rankings, reviews, or another form of content where they organically put the link.

Source: Naturally.nish

Many businesses already use brand ambassador influence marketing, and Sephora is one of the most famous examples in retail. They have a brand ambassador program called the Sephora Squad. It started in 2019, uniting influencers passionate about beauty.

According to Fohr founder and CEO James Nord, the application process garnered over 70,000 Instagram Stories and more than 10,000 in-feed posts about the program. This year, they gathered 16,000 applications and chose three new ambassadors.

But thousands of other companies use the power of influencers and brand ambassadors. They are looking for ambassadors and influencers by monitoring brand mentions and picking suitable bloggers.

Social Media Brand Ambassadors vs. Influencers

Many people confuse brand ambassadors with influencers. Both terms imply bloggers promoting brands and specific products, but there are several crucial differences between them.

The brand ambassador definition shows that this person is motivated by a genuine passion for a product. In social media, everything stays the same. With ambassadors, monetary compensation is not mandatory.

On the other hand, influencers are more motivated by possible profit rather than brand reputation. They often have less targeted reach since their audience is more general.

Here are the five major differences between influencers and ambassadors on socials in this accessible table.

To find the best fit, businesses must understand their needs and goals. Those looking for a more targeted approach should pick a brand ambassador on social media. But if your company needs to reach a wider audience, influencers should be their first choice.

However, brands should be aware of their budget. Naturally, if resources are not limited, you can pick any and every option available. If they’re somewhat limited, consider finding brand ambassadors who meet your requirements.

In both cases, businesses should use tools for tracking social media mentions and measuring and attributing their marketing efforts. That’s the only way to find out how their promotional activities affect their brand-building campaigns.

Social Media Ambassador vs. Affiliate

In this section, we’ll show you the distinctions between brand ambassadors and affiliates.

They both post links to their socials to build brand awareness and generate sales. They both can be compensated for their work in numerous ways: from flat fees to bargains for every purchase. However, this is where all their similarities end.

Brand ambassadors are motivated by building trustful relationships with their followers and sharing their genuine affection for a brand. In contrast, most affiliates are mainly motivated by the financial side of the question. If your rival offers higher commissions and unique offers, they will likely switch to another network. But ambassadors stay with you as long as you share the same values.

Affiliates typically get a commission based on the quality and quantity of generated leads, sales, downloads, subscriptions, etc. On top of that, affiliate marketers usually have more freedom regarding how they choose to drive traffic to specific offers. For instance, if we take SMM, affiliates don’t need to coordinate every post with the brand management, while most ambassadors need to negotiate all the details.

It’s also important to note that affiliates can switch brands since they don’t tie a long-term contract like many ambassadors. In contrast, brand ambassadors can promote only one company in the niche.

Let’s look at the key takeaways that will help you understand the differences between affiliates and brand ambassadors.

Why You Should Leverage Social Media Brand Ambassadors

It’s no secret that savvy consumers are immune to advertisements. They skip traditional ads and ignore promos from their favorite bloggers. The reason behind this behavior is simple: consumers perceive it as an invasion of privacy.

But when bloggers share their experiences and knowledge with their audience, consumers often perceive it as a more friendly and genuine approach. In other words, they see brand ambassador posts as advice from a far-away friend.

Brand Ambassadors Help Expand Your Reach to New, Relevant Audiences

In many cases, partnering with brand ambassadors is a more cost-effective solution than paid ads. After all, this approach can help businesses reach new audiences for a significantly smaller price.

The main advantage of partnering with ambassadors is that most already have your warm and hot audience as their followers. This way, they can encourage their followers to use your product or service. When it comes to tracking, businesses often resort to tracking all the related user activity with the help of brand-mention services or other ambassador software.

Their Word-of-Mouth Promotion Is Highly Effective

Brand ambassadors typically offer relevant information to the audience, which helps them appear more genuine and trustworthy. Creating a buzz around your brand and delivering unforgettable experiences can ignite a chain reaction of popular customers spreading the word.

Initially, word of mouth may only generate a few sales, but as your brand gains momentum, expect to see friends tagging friends on your social media posts, forwarding emails to their networks, and much more. 

With brand tracking software in place, brands can evaluate the ambassador’s impact and assess the performance of multiple campaigns.

Their Followers Trust What They Say

The role of a brand ambassador is to be a trustworthy guide to a company’s products or services. Make sure you’re providing all the information and the latest products to the ambassador, so they can run effective promotions and shape communication with the followers.

In exchange, they will build a trustworthy atmosphere for your brand. That’s how brand ambassadors work and establish a bond with your target audience.

If your product has minor flaws and the ambassador wants to share it with their audience, that can be beneficial for your company. Chances are this approach will help you build even more trust since their posts will essentially be genuine reviews.

Their Advocacy Is Reliable & Long-Lasting

Bloggers emotionally invest in an ambassadorship, maybe even more than typical advertising partnerships do. When a brand asks a blogger to become an ambassador, it’s a big deal to them. Therefore, when looking for a brand ambassador, keep this in mind to build a fair partnership.

There is a high chance they’ll talk about your company even when the collaboration ends. Ultimately, finding a brand ambassador passionate about this collaboration is essential.

Tracking ROI Is Easy if You Give Ambassadors Links

The easiest way to find profitable collaborations is by asking the blogger to put unique links in the posts to track ROI with brand monitoring tools:

• Provide unique links for each ambassador. Don’t use the same link for everyone.
• Use UTM parameters while creating unique brand monitoring links. The UTM is a set of parameters added to the URL to traffic source identification.
• Use the link shortener to make it more appealing. You can add additional UTM to it and use online brand monitoring tools.
• Use CRM tools. Many CRMs have a built-in ROI tracker allowing you to calculate the return on investments for every brand ambassador.

Tracking clicks, sales, and ROI is vital for the brand ambassador program. Segmented campaigns draw 760% more revenue. A/B testing improves conversion by up to 49%, so experimenting is more profitable than sticking to old solutions.

Let’s say that you ask two potential ambassadors to post about your new product on multiple socials. Let’s call them Jack and Kelly.

By tracking UTM parameters with online brand monitoring tools, you see that Jack’s tweet has almost the same CTR as Kelly’s YouTube video. In the end, her video generates more customers, leading to higher ROI. What’s the next step? You either stop working with Jack or provide him with the crucial data and work on fine-tuning his approach to ensure future collaboration is more profitable.

How Does an Employee Brand Ambassador Strategy Work?

It’s an HR strategy to get the team excited about the brand where they work to the point that they act as brand advocates for your business. One of the advantages of this approach is that you save time researching brand ambassador platforms since there are already some potential influencers among your staff.

This program could include training employees on promoting the brand and tracking their progress. People with the best results can get free benefits like an additional week of PTO, 13th salary, etc. Some companies can even pay a separate brand ambassador salary.

You can also try a more informal approach by encouraging employees to talk about the brand on social media and share their experiences. In this case, brand mention monitoring could be even simpler than with bloggers.

But make sure your employees are ready to participate. If they’re forced to do this or do not wish to engage in such activity, they won’t show affection; therefore, there’s no point in looking for a brand ambassador inside your team.

How the Brand Ambassador Program Works

It is a campaign where brands collaborate with individuals to promote specific goods to their audiences. These people, known as brand ambassadors, can be anyone from influencers to employees or customers.

In affiliate marketing, brand ambassadors earn a commission for each generated sale. This commission can be a bargain rate, a fee, or a combination.

There are many ways for companies to set up their brand ambassador programs. Some businesses will provide a link to a product page and let ambassadors promote it however they see fit. Other brands will provide detailed instructions. 

Build your potential brand ambassador list and send them the requirements: new-made bloggers often need detailed instructions, while experienced influencers have all the basic brand information.

How To Find a Brand Ambassador

Once you decide to start your marketing ambassador program, keep the following points in mind:

• Define campaign goals
• Identify the audience
• Find the platform
• Post that your brand is currently looking for an ambassador
• Provide a clear ambassador job description
• Spend your time finding the person for talent acquisition
• Set clear goals
• Provide needed resources, including your products
• Negotiate collaboration terms and look for ambassadors with strong communication skills
• Use tools for mentioning monitoring on socials
• Track your results to learn about the best practices
• Optimize the program or specific campaigns over time

By following these tips, you can find a brand ambassador and build a successful marketing campaign.

What Are the Key Features of Brand Awareness Tools?

To find the profitability of the brand ambassador program, use brand tracking services. That’s the only way to find the most effective solutions. Affiliate tracking software is somewhat similar to other marketing tracking tools since they aim to monitor the customer journey and track how prospects interact with pages or posts.

Phonexa has multiple tools to help you track any marketing campaign. Phonexa’s Lynx is the ultimate click tracking tool that helps you track digital sales, measure impressions, manage conversions, campaign ROI, and more.

Another great tool that can help you optimize and scale affiliate campaigns is Phonexa’s HitMetrix service. It’s a great brand monitoring, behavior analytics, and conversion rate optimization tool for businesses of any size. HitMetrix can help networks and publishers understand user behavior and improve conversions with just a few clicks. On top of that, it can identify the weak points with its comprehensive friction insights tool.

Since email marketing remains essential to the success of any affiliate marketing efforts, it’s crucial to implement email marketing tools like Phonexa’s E-Delivery. This platform enables optimizing and improving email campaigns and their deliverability by providing behavioral segmentation, A/B automated tests, ESP integration, SMTP support, and more.

Here is a list of vital features for any effective brand ambassador campaign. By combining these features on your ambassador referral marketing monitoring, you’ll get the best possible results:

1. Measurement and recording: Look for a tool to track results, including social media posts and site metrics.
2. Сomparison tools: To figure out the dynamic, constantly monitor brand mentions and compare them with rivals and your previous history.
3. Collaboration tools: Brand awareness tools have features that ease a brand ambassador search.
4. Audience targeting: These tools help you identify your audience’s habits to target more precisely.
5. Content creation tools: Some brand tracking software even has content creation features that ease the posting.

Ensure that brand ambassador software is easy to use, even for those with limited marketing experience. Ultimately, it can help you save time on brand ambassador tracking.

Benefits of Brand Mention Tools

It’s vital to use specific software to track the campaign’s effectiveness. Brand ambassador platforms can help you find new bloggers to promote your company and any new collaborations. What you have to do is set up brand monitoring tools in your niche to find promising bloggers there.

Source: Unlocking Revenue: What Are High-Ticket Affiliate Marketing Niches?

Those services can also help you track all social media mentions, including the publication’s overall mood. You’ll always know what current and potential audiences think about the company and its products. It will help you modify and adjust brand ambassador programs in time.

Besides, combining brand monitoring software and a single operating solution for partner and performance marketing can help you tap into new business opportunities that open your company to new revenue streams.

Using Metrics To Track Success With Brand Mention Tools

Lead generation is crucial for any business. It’s a process of tracking and nurturing potential customers throughout sales. However, you should collect and analyze all data from your affiliates, influencers, and ambassadors to build a successful lead generation campaign.

That’s the only way to see which campaigns, approaches, and ideas worked and which did not. If you don’t collect data, all your campaigns will be just shots in the dark. Some may be successful, but you can’t predict which one and why. Without proper data analysis, you won’t spot trends at the time, which may lead to lower engagement rates.

Correct data management will improve your campaigns, enhance customer relationships, bring in high-intent leads, increase sales, and reduce marketing costs. 

However, you will see plenty of metrics once you launch a brand tracking tool. It may be confusing for beginner marketers or bloggers. Thus we have gathered five points to track on every campaign: Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. These points are crucial in any social media.

That’s why you should use tools that bring you user-friendly insights showing you emerging trends, the campaign’s strengths and weaknesses, opportunities, and possible threats. Constant analysis is the key to perfection in any marketing campaign, including brand ambassador programs.

For instance, LMS Sync, Phonexa’s lead management software, brings you all the essential analytical tools and comprehensive real-time reporting with predictive modeling that helps you see probable outcomes of specific campaigns and spot trends.

As promised, here are five vital metrics with a detailed description of why they are so important to the brand ambassador campaigns: 

• Brand Mentions

It’s one of the vital metrics for companies employing brand tracking tools. It shows the number of times your company is mentioned online. It also measures brand awareness and identifies trends. It’s a vital tool for every blog brand ambassador and business.

Keep track of the number of mentions and unique recognitions to find out who talks about you the most. Besides, you can also track the sentiment of the mentions and understand how people feel about your brand.

• Shares

This metric shows the number of times people share content via social media. It’s a crucial social media presence parameter. Correct measurement helps businesses understand whether their content is resonating with the audience.

The more shares you get, the more people see this post organically, raising brand awareness. It can drive traffic to your site or blog, increasing the number of potential customers.

• Social Media Reach

It shows the number of people that saw your content on socials. It gives you a better understanding of how many people are exposed to your brand. You can measure brand awareness and use best practices to boost engagement and web mentions.

• Social Engagement

This metric shows how people interact with your media, including likes, comments, and shares. It can measure the effectiveness of the ambassador referral program to provide you with a deeper understanding of the best practices to bring even more leads.

• Site Traffic

This metric shows how well bloggers drive traffic from their social media platforms to your website. It’s a valuable indicator of the success of the ambassador program.

Implementing the Power of Social Connections Into Your Business

If you want to discover a new revenue stream to bring your business to a new level, try the brand ambassador program. Our article shows that it’s crucial to modern media marketing strategy.

The other essential aspect is tracking the results of their social media posts. That’s the only way you can ensure the campaign works as intended. Phonexa has all the tools you may need to make the most of your affiliate marketing efforts: from call tracking and distribution to user behavior measurement services and automated accounting.

Ready to take your affiliate marketing and brand ambassador program to the next level? Equip your business with Phonexa’s single operating solution for partner and performance marketing by booking a demo to learn more about how our tools can propel your business.

Frequently Asked Questions

How to become an ambassador for a brand

One of the ways to achieve this goal is to become an influencer or opinion leader in a specific niche. The second option fits you if you don’t want to get a million followers but still want to earn money on socials. Reach out to the brands in your niche, asking to become their brand ambassador on social media, and wait until one of them replies.

What are brand ambassador responsibilities?

Their primary goal is to promote the brand and its products or services. They may do this through social media, word-of-mouth, or in-person events.

How to build an ambassador program for a business

Define your goals and desired results. Announce that you are hiring brand ambassadors, define terms, and pick people that suit your brand. Then, sign a contract with them, track their results, and optimize campaigns for the best results.

How can I find brand ambassadors?

Pick one of the owned and most successful marketing channels. It can be socials, websites, online communities, or even events. Then, pinpoint the most loyal customers, recruit them, and ask for referrals.

Should I use brand monitoring services or count on their statistics while working with bloggers?

Yes, it’s the best way to ensure you have a clear view of every interaction, especially when your company is directly referenced. You can also use marketing automation solutions and Google Analytics to capture and analyze crucial data.

How many brand ambassadors should a company have?

It depends on your marketing targets, audience size, and budget. The safest tactic is to start with a smaller number and modify the campaign over time.It’s not uncommon to mistake brand ambassadors for influencers or affiliates and use these terms interchangeably. While they have some common traits, the differences are, in fact, more apparent than any similarities.