Influencer marketing is becoming an increasingly crowded space — making it challenging to come up with unique, exciting, and engaging campaigns.

You want to stand out from the crowd but don’t want to try the same things everyone else is doing. Or maybe you’ve tried all the typical options and are ready for something different.

Whatever the case may be — you are at the right place. In this article, we are discussing 16 influencer marketing campaign examples that have done incredibly well so you can see what they did well and how you can apply it in your own business. Let’s go! 

1. Dunkin 

Campaign type: Celebrity collaboration, brand ambassadorship, product collaboration

Platform: TikTok

With 3.1 million followers and 22.4 million likes, Dunkin' Donuts has a huge presence on TikTok. The account regularly posts behind-the-scenes content about the Dunkin menu and shares how the world-famous donuts are made.

And one of the key factors of its TikTok popularity is strategic influencer marketing.

Dunkin did a long-term sponsorship with Charli D' Amelio — one of the biggest stars of TikTok with 144.5 million followers. The agreement was not only limited to Charli posing with Dunkin products but also creating her own TikTok content for the campaign.

The brand launched a campaign under the hashtag #CharliXDunkinContest, and Dunkin released a new beverage named "The Charli."

Campaign statistics

With D' Amerlio promoting the beverage, The Charli led to a 57% increase in app downloads on launch day. The Charli also led to a 20% increase in Dunkin's Cold Brew units on day one of the campaign and a whopping 45% on day two.

Since the collaboration, Dunkin has continued to up the momentum of this partnership by launching #CharliDunkinRemix in February 2021. They also promoted a week-long offer for Charli's birthday. #CharliDunkinRemix has 240.6M views, and the collaboration has been extremely successful for Dunkin — making them the #1 food brand on TikTok.

While the collaboration with Charli has been highly successful for Dunkin, the brand also encourages its employees to share content on their TikTok channels through its TikTok crew ambassadors program.

Look at this video by Molly Gruber — it has 120K+ likes and 2032 shares.

Key takeaway

✅ For small businesses, collaborating with a celebrity or a mega-influencer is difficult. What's the solution? Encourage your employees to become brand ambassadors and share content for you — increasing brand awareness and making the brand more relatable. 

Learn more: Here's everything you need to know to get started on TikTok influencer marketing.

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2. NordVPN

Campaign Type: Sponsored posts  

Platform: YouTube

NordVPN, a virtual private network, relies heavily on influencer marketing on YouTube — 85.3% of Nord VPN's social traffic comes from there.

With the YouTube campaign, NordVPN focused on the macro-influencer program and secured some of the biggest names as their ambassadors. As a side note & disclaimer, NordVPN uses Modash to find creators to partner with. We spoke to Influencer Marketing Manager Laura Garsdal and she notes that their most important criteria when sourcing influencers are audience demographics.

By finding the right creators and using sponsored posts, they were able to scale their influencer marketing program from 1 to 14 global markets and is scattered across 23 different verticals — entertainment, tech, and gaming.

Mayuko Inoue, who focuses on creating technology with empathy and compassion, shared a day in her life and seamlessly integrated NordVPN in the video.

NordVPN exclusively ran "limited time offer" campaigns with a direct link to the purchase page that customers could access from the influencer's video description. Influencers created story-like dilemmas and built a narrative arc around the brand in their integration, increasing engagement.

Check out PewDiePie’s video, sponsored by NordVPN — it has 4M+ views and 11,000+ comments.

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We should note that NordVPN uses Modash to find

Campaign statistics

Nord VPN sponsored 598 videos and received 5.7M likes, 91.5M views, and a reach of 2.2B.

Key takeaway

✅Let your influencers speak about the brand naturally and spontaneously. If you provide an influencer campaign brief, ensure you allow for maximum creative freedom. That way, influencers don't feel like a branded microphone reading from a script. Using simple and natural language makes the brand messaging sound authentic and understandable.

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3. Gymshark

Campaign type: Challenge / contest

Platforms: TikTok and Instagram

Gymshark is one of the most active gym wear brands using influencer marketing throughout the past years. Their campaign — 66 Days: Change Your Life challenge — was a massive hit on TikTok and Instagram.

The idea behind #Gymshark66 was more than a trend. It was built on engaging the community in the most meaningful way.

The campaign asked the audience to challenge themselves for 66 days through positive habits and an active lifestyle. What would they get in return? A year's supply of Gymshark.

For this campaign, Gymshark partnered with six sports and athlete influencers with a strong presence on TikTok and Instagram to raise awareness around the challenge. Influencers Twin Melody shared the following video promoting Gymshark activewear with #Gymshark66 — the video has 751k+ likes and 4950 shares. 

Apart from TikTok, Gymshark used Instagram's IGTV for the "Stories of the 66" video series highlighting individuals and their experience of adopting healthier habits in 66 days.

Campaign statistics

With a focus on video content, #Gymshark66 has 252.6 million views on TikTok and 785,000+ posts on Instagram.

Key takeaway

✅ Throughout the challenge, Gymshark continued to share helpful resources and tips to encourage participants. With a challenge campaign, you must focus on increasing audience participation, providing them with helpful resources along the way. It will help them remain motivated to complete the challenge.

4. Häagen-Dazs

Campaign types: Hosting events, content collaboration 

Platforms: Instagram

Häagen-Dazs partnered with New York City's local influencers to enforce the idea that ice cream is an essential part of summer. The campaign centered around Häagen-Dazs BOGO (buy one get one) promotions and highlighted the sampling events at Duane Reade and Walgreens New York stores.

The campaign was created around the theme "Häagen-Dazs Open Container," and #HDOpenContainer was used in social posts. The theme was a play around the political events in New York at that time and was inspired by the city's celebrated stance on open container laws.

The campaign reminded consumers that no matter the event — taking kids to the part, having rooftop parties, or enjoying a break from work — Häagen-Dazs makes their summer activities sweeter, better, and more fun.

Influencer​​ Kendall Kremer hosted a rooftop summer ice cream sundae party highlighting Häagen-Dazs’ buy one get one free offer.

With a highly New York-centric feel, the campaign covered rooftop parties, live social updates from sampling events, and hyper-local targeting people on their phones in close proximity to the stores. Other local influencers shared visuals and videos featuring an NYC vibe on social channels and neighborhood sites like Nextdoor.

Influencer Katelyn Calautti shared a sponsored blog on how to host a summer party with Häagen-Dazs ice cream.

The influencers also hosted the #HDOpenContainer Instagram challenge. The challenge encouraged audiences to stop by the sampling events and show off their free single serves of ice cream on Instagram.

Häagen-Dazs doubled down on audience segmentation to reach their target audience. They segmented the audience into digital zips and targeted people who were on their phones around Walgreens' location. They then showed them the content created by the influencers, which drove high click-through rates and huge traffic at the sampling events.

The campaign wasn't only limited to Instagram but also covered Pinterest, Facebook, and Twitter, ensuring it reached an even wider audience.

Campaign statistics

The Häagen-Dazs Open Container campaign generated 14.3 million impressions and 27,400 social engagements (a staggering 400% above the average engagement rate). The campaign resulted in a 148% lift in share of voice for Walgreens and Häagen-Dazs.

Key takeaway

✅To make your campaign a success, target the audience most likely to participate in it. In this case, finding local influencers with New York audiences was particularly important. Check prospective partners' audiences (demographics, interests, locations) using an influencer analysis tool like Modash.

5. PlayStation

Campaign type: Sponsored posts

Platforms: Instagram and YouTube

PlayStation partnered with five gaming influencers to promote its new virtual reality headsets to the Canadian market.

Instead of collaborating with celebrities, PlayStation focused on macro, micro, and nano influencers to drive high engagement rates. The campaign also worked towards bridging the gap between technology, audiences, and gamers.

PlayStation collaborated with five influencers, with followers ranging from 10,000 to 72,000. These influencers posted images and videos with the VR headset, tagged @PlayStationCA, and used the hashtags #PlayStationVR, #ITriedPSVR, and #PSVR.

Check out the following Instagram post by Justin Tse, an influencer with 127k followers, for the PlayStation campaign.

PlayStation wanted to make the campaign more relatable and fun, showing the positive experience of gamers with Sony's products. Influencers added photos and videos of experiencing the VR set and playing around with it.

Karl Conrad shared his custom PlayStation and VR setup, mentioning the PlayStation sponsorship and linking to the official VR site page.

Campaign statistics

The campaign targeted 941,882 YouTube subscribers and 200,894 Instagram followers. The average engagement rate on Instagram was 3.64%, with 12,728 likes, and the average engagement rate on YouTube was 3.19%, with 28,322 views.

Key takeaway

✅ Instead of just posting pictures with the products, develop ways for your influencers to show actually enjoy your product & show the brand in a fun light.

6. ABSOLUT

Campaign types: Hosting events

Platforms: Instagram and Twitter

ABSOLUT, a Vodka brand, created this campaign to plan a series of people-and planet-centered influencer activations. The campaign was hugely successful and was the Gold Winner for the Best Food and Drink Campaign at the 2020 Influencer Marketing Awards.

The campaign lasted for more than eight months and collaborated with influencers who were eco-conscious sustainability champions, LGBTQIA advocates, and allies. ABSOLUT focused on influencers with bold tastes — having a passion for protecting the planet and its people.

The campaign's primary objective was to drive buzz, awareness, and social engagement for ABSOLUT, sparking conversation online.

Jess Bowen shared the following post celebrating Pride and ABSOLUT.

Planet Earth's Favorite Vodka campaign came to life with experiential events — prompting an emotional connection between ABSOLUT and the participants. The events showcased ABSOLUT's commitment to Earth, sustainability, and the people.

Events included a four-day immersion in ABSOLUT's devotion to sustainability at its Swedish production facility. The event also had a photoshoot recreating the historic march at Stonewall with renowned artist and advocate David Lachapelle.

John-David Brown shared this post from Climate Week NYC — highlighting the climate-conscious ABSOLUT.

Campaign statistics

Over the course of 8+ months, 95 influencers created 612 posts. The campaign generated 68.4M total impressions, 7.714M passive engagements, and 739.5K active engagements (comments, likes, shares). With a 15.16% engagement rate, the campaign's total impressions were 8.6M.

Key takeaway

✅ Make your next campaign a huge hit by not only collaborating with influencers who are the right fit for your target audience but also planning events, immersive experiences, and challenges that are interesting to them (and are right up their alley). 

7. Touchland

Campaign Type: Influencer gifting  

Platform: Instagram

Instead of spending their marketing budget on paid collaboration with celebrities and mega-influencers, Touchland did something different. The brand gifted its products to celebrities, including Kris Jenner, Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, and Naomi Campbell.

And they didn't have to spend a dime on paid collaborations.

Touchland's strategy worked wonders because they didn't send their products to any random celebrity. With Naomi Campbell's airplane sanitizing routine going viral a couple of years ago, Touchland's luxury hand sanitizers were exactly her type of product.

In addition to these mega-celebrities, the brand targeted nano and micro-influencers who do hair and makeup and work directly with celebrities — reaching a wider and more diverse audience.

During the last two years, Touchland donated over 5000+ hand sanitizers to hospitals, healthcare workers, and public schools. The brand has grown through word-of-mouth and had 34,000 people on its waitlist at one point.

The campaign focused highly on delivering a personalized experience with a great unboxing experience. Touchland's strategy has always been to reach out to influencers, educate them about the brand, and hope they like the product enough to share it with others.

Campaign statistics

The gifting strategy resulted in 2000+ collaboration requests in a single year. After analyzing social media conversions to determine network effects, the word-of-mouth coefficient resulted in one of their best channel conversion rates, at over 5%.

Key takeaways

✅ To make sure people are showcasing your gifts, deliver an extraordinary unboxing experience. Since it's not a paid strategy, use custom branded boxes to inform the recipients of your brand and include a personalized card with one to two lines about who your company is, what you create, and the values you stand for. 

✅ To make the most impact, find the right social media influencers. One way to ensure you are on the right path is by asking yourself, "Are the influencer's audiences interested in seeing products like mine?" 

You can use an influencer discovery tool  — like Modash — to find influencers with the right target audience. Filter the database of 200M+ influencers and content creators and see whose audience is relevant to your business. With additional filters like engagement rate, follower count, etc., you can refine your search and find the best influencers for your campaign. 

8. Animalhouse Fitness

Campaign type: Influencer gifting

Platforms: TikTok and Instagram

Animalhouse Fitness is a health and fitness-based company that develops innovative products to help athletes and health enthusiasts achieve their goals.

When launching its product MonkeyFeet, the brand invested in building meaningful relationships with influencers. The campaign goals were to create hype and awareness around the new product launch and to get the product in front of the target audience.

Noah J. Richter shared the flexibility of using MonkeyFeet with his 66.4K followers.

For the campaign, AnimalHouse Fitness sent MonkeyFeet as a gift to 100+ fitness influencers. The brand incorporated user-generated content into its ads and increased brand awareness and sales through it.

One of the influencers, Ben Patrick, shared the product which eventually caught the eye of Joe Rogen. MonkeyFeet was mentioned four times on the Joe Rogan Experience — a podcast with an audience of around 11 million people worldwide.

Campaign statistics 

Overall, 1471 influencers posted about MonkeyFeet, and about 3710 posts (images and videos) were shared. Through this campaign, AnimalHouse Fitness raised revenue of $7 million and became the top 1% of Shopify's fastest-growing companies.

Key takeaway

✅Focus on building influencer relationships by giving, not asking. With free products to relevant influencers, you can get user-generated content that you can use in your marketing ads, social media posts, and other collateral. So, it’s a win-win for both you and the influencer.

💡 Resource: learn how to do influencer product seeding like Animal House Fitness!

9. Bobbie

Campaign type: Celebrity collaboration 

Platform: Instagram, Outdoor ads (billboards)

Bobbie, an American organic baby formula company, collaborated with model Ashley Graham for the "Your Best is Best" campaign. The campaign focused on expanding and normalizing the conversation about how parents choose to feed their babies.

With 64% of parents feeling judged for using formula milk for their babies, the campaign wanted to reassure parents that their best is best. The campaign shared Ashely's personal story with her twin boys through warm and passion-filled content pieces. 

One of the most powerful campaign images was placed on billboards in New York and Los Angeles and showed her feeding one twin a bottle and the other her breast at the same time. 

Campaign statistics

The campaign helped parents feel seen through the billboards and promotional content on Ashely's and Bobbie's socials. The campaign video on Ashley Graham's Instagram received over 5.8M views, and the campaign received press write-ups in Vogue, AdWeek, and other media outlets. 

Key takeaway

The campaign "Your Best is Best" was a huge success because it felt relatable to millions worldwide. The topic of formula milk is stigmatizing, and mothers feel ashamed admitting they have to rely on formula to feed their babies. 

This campaign started the conversation around doing your best and reassured parents that how they choose to feed their babies is the best way.

10. Honey

Campaign Type: Sponsored posts, brand ambassadors

Platform: YouTube

Honey, a coupon browser extension, has built a solid social media presence through influencer marketing, especially on YouTube.

In 2020, Honey worked with 56 influencers and sponsored 63 videos. Influencers had their own "Join Honey" link for the viewers to click and join for free. Honey also stood out by strategically integrating their ~60 seconds ads in the influencers' videos — rather than at the beginning or end.

Look at this video by Mr. Beast, which has 2M+ views — it’s engaging and encourages the audience to give Honey a try. 

Honey collaborated with top YouTube influencers such as The Ace Family (18.8M subscribers) and MrBeast (100M subscribers). Their best performing sponsored video was with PewDiePie in September 2019, which attracted 59 million views.

Campaign statistics 

Overall, the brand appeared on 100+ podcasts and over 400 YouTube channels and drew 60M+ total views on YouTube.

Key takeaway

✅Instead of in-your-face ads, come up with creative ways to show off your brand so it doesn't feel intrusive and annoying to your audience.

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11. HelloFresh

Campaign Type: Sponsored posts, celebrity collaboration

Platform: Instagram

HelloFresh, a home-delivery meal kit subscription service, has heavily relied on collaborating with celebrities and macro-influencers to get their brand in front of their target audience.

The Refresh with HelloFresh campaign won the 2020 Influencer Marketing Awards for Best Food and Drink Campaign. It was launched in 2019, and the face of the campaign was Davina McCall. 

HelloFresh worked with 15 micro-influencers to participate in a 21-day challenge to cook healthy meals from scratch and try out various HelloFresh recipes.

The influencers posted a series of cooking videos and photos throughout the three-week campaign with the tag #RefreshWithHelloFresh. The campaign goal was to target the UK market, and with their audience being 80% women, primarily between the ages of 30 and 50, HelloFresh strategically collaborated with influencers to target busy moms and young professionals.

Jenna, a lifestyle blogger and mom of three, shared her experience with HelloFresh and encouraged her followers to try it out using her exclusive discount code.

Campaign statistics

With 461 influencer posts, the campaign generated 5.5 million impressions, and 20% of the influencers' followers mentioned HelloFresh on Instagram. The branded hashtag #HelloFreshPics has generated over 260,000 Instagram posts.

Key takeaway

✅Understanding your audience and what drives them ensures your campaign's success. Make a note of the pain points of your target audience (making healthy food in a short time) and revolve the campaign around solving that pain point.

12. Daniel Wellington

Campaign Type: Influencer gifting, user-generated content 

Platform: Instagram

Daniel Wellington, a global watch brand, started with a meager $20,000 in cash. The brand generated $228 million in just three years with strategic influencer marketing and showcasing user-generated content.

Daniel Wellington employed influencer marketing before it was a thing. In 2010, with the launch of Instagram, the brand started reaching out to influencers and gifting them watches. The company reached out to everyone with an engaged audience — from models to artists and painters.

Paula, a Warsaw-based content creator, shared her love for Daniel Wellington with her 30.7K followers.

DW also doubled down on UGC campaigns which became so popular that influencers started buying watches and posting with #DWPickOfTheDay to get featured on the brand's official profile. The brand featured user-generated content on its website to show authentic images from customers.

Campaign statistics

#DWPickOfTheDay has 61,000+ posts on Instagram, while #DanielWellington has more than 2 million posts. DW's influencer marketing resulted in a 4700% growth and helped them reach a milestone of one million timepieces in annual sales.  

Pro tip

When sending out influencer gifts, there's often no guarantee (unless you signed a contract) of who will post, and who won't. Even if some creators reply to tell you, it's still a pain to track. The easiest thing to do is set up a campaign using an influencer monitoring tool in Modash with your target influencers & hashtags. Then, if/when any creators post about you, the tool will automatically save the post, collect the content, and report on reach/engagement. Magic!

13. Calvin Klein

Campaign type: Celebrity collaboration, user-generated content

Platform: Commercial and Instagram

Calvin Klein has been one of the pioneers of influencer marketing. For the #MyCalvins campaign in 2014, the brand collaborated with Justin Bieber. The pop star, ranked by Twitter as the most tweeted about musical artist of 2014 with 150+ million followers on Instagram, was a huge catch for the brand.

The campaign #MyCalvins was launched through a YouTube video; since then, it has garnered over 10 million views. The video description encouraged the audience to share their journey of self-expression by displaying their own fit with the hashtag #MyCalvins. Since its launch, the #MyCalvins campaign has had a host of celebrities, including Kendall Jenner, Shawn Mendes, and A$AP Rocky.

Jerrod La Rue shared this sponsored post — a beautiful exploration of incorporating art in a brand’s product.

After the campaign, the brand also released a micro website where the best user-generated content is recognized and showcased.

Campaign statistics

In the year after the campaign, #MyCalvins increased the company's Facebook followers by 2.2 million followers, Instagram by 1.8 million, and Twitter by 1 million. With 920,000+ posts on Instagram with #MyCalvins, the brand continues to generate word-of-mouth through these authentic posts.

Key takeaway

✅Don't just rely on celebrity and influencer collaborations to make your campaign successful. Come up with creative ways to engage your audience so they can also participate in the campaign.  

14. Brawl Stars

Campaign Type: Influencer collaboration

Platform: YouTube

Supercell, a mobile games developer, doubled down on influencer marketing for the launch of their game Brawl Stars.

For the campaign, they collaborated with 10 YouTube mobile influencers and gamers. The goal of the campaign was to increase registrations before the game launch.

Brawl Stars posted one image on social media to increase curiosity without any explanation or caption. Suddenly, everyone started talking about it — prompting social posts, memes, conspiracy theory videos, online petitions, and a trending hashtag #DontKillBrawlStars.

 With a YouTube video with 4M+ views, it was announced that Brawl Stars is going global. The campaign involved hosting a series of pre-launch gameplay live streaming videos on YouTube. Instead of collaborating with popular gaming influencers with millions of subscribers, they focused on micro-influencers who were already playing Supercell's other games.

100+ content creators were invited to the official launch of the game. They amplified the event, earning thousands of shares and engagement for Brawl Stars.

Campaign statistics

The campaign helped drive 5 million pre-registration sign-ups in eight hours, growing the game's social channels exponentially — from 188% on Instagram to 194% on YouTube. Ultimately Brawl Stars became the number one iPhone app in thirty-two countries earning over $10m in its first week.

Key takeaway

✅ Instead of collaborating with only one or two influencers, partner with a variety of relevant influencers at the same time. It will help land your product in front of more people and get your audience to notice the hype around it. Before collaborating with an influencer, analyze their profile, followers' demographics, and engagement rate through Modash's influencer analytics platform.

15. Balvenie

Campaign type: Celebrity collaboration, product placement

Platform: YouTube

The Balvenie, a whiskey brand, collaborated with Questlove for the "Quest for Craft" YouTube series. The campaign's priority was to drive awareness for the Single Malt Scotch Whiskey as the most handcrafted whiskey. 

The campaign targets aspiring makers and creators who want to focus on personal and cultural development. With Questlove's creativity, the "Quest for Craft" digital series explores the human attributes of those on the never-ending journey of taking something from great to exceptional.  

The series is in its second season now and continues collaborating with people like Fran Lebowitz, Kenan Thomspon, and Patti Smith, among others. 

Campaign statistics 

Despite supply challenges, 2022 sales were +5% compared to last year. The series reached over 43M unique consumers, has amassed 27M+ views on YouTube, and added over 2.1K new subscribers to the channel, the latter speaking highly of the campaign's success in bringing new consumers into the brand.

Key takeaways

The Balvenie vision is to be the leading discerning luxury single malt. With this campaign, the company wanted to present itself as the ultimate craftsman in everything they do.

The digital series Quest for Craft highlights humans' need for new perspectives and really hits it home for the audience looking to explore the blend of creativity, passion, and perfection.

16. National Geographic and Microsoft

Campaign type: Expert collaboration and virtual events 

Platform: Facebook, Microsoft Teams, Instagram

National Geographic partnered with Microsoft to launch the "Make What's Next" campaign focusing on girls' interest and involvement in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM).

The campaign combined Microsoft's technology leadership with National Geographic's world-renowned female explorers and photographers through a mix of Facebook LIVE, in-person events, and other inspirational content. 

The campaign collaborated with a volcanologist, astrophysicist, marine biologist/photographer, non-profit co-founder, space architect, and ecologist who served as central personalities in the inspirational content. 

The #MakeWhatsNext partnership kicked off on International Women's Day with 30 photos on five of National Geographic's Instagram channels and ten posts across four of National Geographic's Facebook channels. The images featured these prominent female explorers in action with inspirational messages and an invitation to join them at the upcoming free workshops in Microsoft Stores across the U.S.

Campaign statistics

Overall, the campaign garnered over 150M social and digital impressions on National Geographic distribution channels, 4M social engagements, and 6.4M video views. 

On launch day, the International Women's Day social takeover yielded 67M social impressions, over 3.5M likes, and over 1,000 pieces of content generated on Instagram using #MakeWhatsNext.

Nearly 300 girls attended six #MakeWhatsNext workshops in Microsoft locations across the U.S. The live-stream explorer feed reached a potential audience of 90M followers and had 100K organic live-stream views and 2.7M total views in the following days.

Key takeaway

The campaign #MakeWhatsNext was a massive success as it connected girls to real-life stories and experts. It also helped elevate the importance of learning, pursuing, and staying in STEM careers. Collaborating with expert women and highlighting their stories helped Microsoft's brand sentiment.

Nail your next influencer marketing campaign today!

We have covered 14 influencer marketing campaigns — each different in its execution, collaboration, and results. Now, it’s time for you to take inspiration and nail your next campaign.

But before you go, remember to focus on building long-term relationships with influencers and content creators. Carefully gauge the influencers and their audience before you develop a relationship with them.

And keep measuring the progress of your influencer marketing campaigns. See what’s working for your brand and what’s not, and strategize accordingly.

And guess what? You can do all this (and more) with Modash.

Modash helps discover the most relevant influencers for your brand, analyze their profiles and audience, and monitor performance.

Ready to give it a spin? Sign up for a 14-day free trial today!