PPR special edition: The best influencer marketing campaigns of 2026 (so far)

Welcome back to Post Performance Report—a series where we compile and analyze social media posts and campaigns inspiring us, and break down what makes them so genius. We don’t just examine the flawless creative execution of every post or campaign, but the brand impact, too.

This time, we’re deep-diving into the top influencer marketing campaigns of the year. According to a Q1 2025 Sprout Pulse Survey, most marketers say influencer content out-performs brand content in terms of reach, engagement and conversion, and another 65% are very confident in their team’s ability to demonstrate the ROI of influencer efforts.

When we scroll our feeds, it’s clear how many brands are betting on influencer marketing. It’s become the de facto advertising tactic on social—and even traditional marketing channels. But many of our favorite campaigns are led by micro-creators and the latest internet darlings, not the biggest influencers. Consumers crave relatability and normcore (with a healthy dose of aspiration), and are losing their appetite for over-hyped products, massive hauls and polished content.

Let’s dissect the campaign creative, performance metrics and points-of-view from the practitioners behind the brand handle, starting with Staples and the “Staples Baddie.”

Staples x The Staples Baddie: Let employees create

“The Staples Baddie”—aka creator Oblivion (@blivxx), who goes by Kaeden day-to-day—is a real employee of an East Coast Staples. She started posting about the brand’s capabilities on TikTok, videos that have amassed more than 10 million views.

Oblivion demonstrates how customers can create everything from custom stamps to printed mugs—while saving a lot of time and money. Commenters on her videos frequently say she has opened their eyes to a wide array of Staples products they never knew existed. According to Influencer Marketing by Sprout Social, Oblivion has an engagement rate of 23.4%—an impressive 23% higher than similar creators.

To be clear, the content she produces is employee-generated. But when Staples saw her going viral, they were quick to encourage her to keep posting, commenting on her posts, sending her a custom care package and speaking publicly about how much they love her content. The brand just announced their partnership, after her fans begged the brand to make it official.

As Bob Sherwin, Staples’ CMO, told the New York Times, “[It’s] been incredible to watch Kaeden’s content resonate so widely…[The company has seen] measurable increases in store traffic and meaningful lifts in categories featured in viral posts, including custom mugs and specialty print products.”

The play: The Staples Baddie is a potent reminder that employees can be influencers, too. Employees creators have influence in the communities they’re a part of online, and can be a vital part of your employee advocacy program.

While brands shouldn’t take a completely hands-off approach to employee creator content, they should give their employees space to express themselves naturally, like Staples did for Oblivion. When employees are given creative freedom and permission to build their personal brand, they bring diverse experiences, personalities and expertise to your brand content.

Midi Health x @JustBeingMelani: Promote your best influencer content

Midi Health is a telehealth organization that provides specialized care to women in midlife—a chapter the medical field hasn’t always treated with care or nuance. As a disruptor in the healthcare space, the brand has taken a social-first, digital approach to increasing awareness, which includes partnering with creators. Their most successful partnership to date is with Melani Sanders, known online as @JustBeingMelani.

The author and influencer describes herself as the “founder of the Do Not Care Club™,” which encourages women in perimenopause, menopause and postmenopause to give themselves more grace. She even wrote a book of the same name.

In her top post for Midi Health, Melani follows her standard post format, listing off all of the things women in the Do Not Care Club™ do not care about. The sponsored version of the post amassed over 150,000 engagements to date, and is how we came across the post earlier this year. The video outperformed the brand’s top Instagram content by tens of thousands. Per Sprout Influencer Marketing, the post engagement rate was 3.2% (higher than Melani’s average engagement rate of 2.1%) and the earned media value was nearly $362,000.

This success comes at a time when over a quarter of social users actively seek out wellness and self improvement advice on social, per the Q3 2025 Sprout Pulse Survey.

The play: As our algorithms become more niche, it’s important to build long-term influencer partnerships with those who already have credibility in your audience’s corner of the internet. Source influencers by researching topics they talk about—not just traits like audience size or location. And when an influencer post performs well, put additional paid spend behind it (with the influencer’s permission, of course). Magic happens when paid ads feel organic.

DoorDash x Rob Rausch: Tap into internet culture and fandoms

Rob Rausch is a snake wrangler, reality star and a budding influencer. After rising to fame on shows Love Island and Traitors, Rausch received offers for a variety of brand deals. DoorDash was among the first to snag a partnership, taking an unconventional approach. Users have commented in disbelief that the official DoorDash account is posting this content. Needless to say, the brand prioritized earning goodwill over pushing their service.

The strategy is led by Zaria Parvez, Head of Social. She told the Wall Street Journal the social-first genius behind it: “[The] traditional advertising world will prioritize a hero video, and then everything is extra if it happens. But the way that our team operates is these people are known to be on social and what the fans are excited about is if you give them something that they understand through the Easter egg lens, but it’s also a new piece of content. For Rob Rausch, it’s what is he going to say now? Or a new shirtless pic. We always build in six to seven ancillary pieces of content. That, to me, is actually more important than rights to a linear asset, for example.”

The non-linear approach has worked especially well for this partnership. According to Sprout Influencer Marketing, the top video from the campaign drove an 18% engagement rate on TikTok—a 50x engagement lift.

The play: Social has changed the way we consume TV, and because of that, the reality-star-to-influencer pipeline is well-established. For brands focused on building cultural relevancy, it’s critical to be part of fandom conversations happening on social. When partnering with these influencers, create internet moments, not glorified commercials.

KFC x @TurnUpTwinsTV: Co-create your brand identity

The TurnUp Twins, Minnie and Mattie, are the original brand jingle creators—going viral for creating an unprompted Crumbl Cookie jingle back in 2024, a video with 80+ million views to date on TikTok.

The sisters lent their infectious joy, harmony and sweet lyrics to a recent KFC collaboration to reintroduce the chicken fast food brand’s Twister Wrap. The video received over 15,000 engagements on TikTok and Instagram. According to Sprout Influencer Marketing, the video also received a 4% engagement rate when posted to the brand account—a significantly higher rate than the average engagement rate of similar brands (0.25%).

The TurnUp Twins’ video style has the same flavor of jingles in the early days of marketing. The nostalgia plays well for KFC, as the Twister Wrap was a 90s favorite.

The song has already become associated with KFC. In the comments section on TikTok, users wrote “Twist it! Twist it!” and pleaded for the tune to be turned into a commercial.

The play: Fast food companies, like many, are all competing for attention when it comes to releases. Instead of creating flash-in-the-pan moments, use influencer marketing to celebrate major milestones and build on your existing brand story.

Strava x local LA creators: Host IRL events

During the 2026 LA Marathon, activity tracking app Strava hosted an exclusive invite-only panel. The intimate event started with a two-mile shakeout run followed by breakfast, and was attended by athletes, creators and run club founders.

The panel itself was led by local creators, including Danielle Burnett, founder of size-inclusive run club Big Girls Who Run; Maya Leppard, creator of Bad at Running, a virtual club for new runners; Mariah Dyson, a Nike athlete and founder of female-focused GirlGangCrazy run club; and Marvin Garcia, founder of one of L.A.’s largest run clubs, Good Vibes Track Club.

The event was the latest in a series of pop-ups and meet-ups the brand calls “Kudos Collective,” a nod to the kudos feature in the app that allows you to cheer on other athletes. The brand knows that community is a top reason people use their platform, which is why they prioritize community-centered events over flashy sponsorships and campaigns.

As Melanie Jarrett, Director of Partnerships at Strava, told Glossy, “We specifically choose not to directly sponsor races [so we can continue to be] brand and platform agnostic. Part of what makes [our meetups] such a hot ticket is [many influential runners and run club founders] are actually never all in the same room together, because some [partner with] Hoka, and this one’s with Nike, and this one does Lululemon stuff—so there’s a certain magic where you see [influential runners] recognize each other, meet for the first time and share best practices around how they’re each growing their running communities in their local cities.”

The play: According to The State of Influencer Marketing Report, 80% of consumers are more willing to buy from brands that partner with influencers beyond social media content. Take a cue from Strava and build your community event (or event series) centered around meaningful connections, not just likes and engagements.

Cultivate creator-led community

That concludes this installment of PPR. Stay tuned for our next edition, and in the meantime, remember these key takeaways:

Post Performance Report Takeaways

• Genuine creators often outperform polished campaigns. Instead of over-directing, marketers should support influencers without stripping away the personality that makes them successful.
• Credibility within niche communities matters more than reach. Marketers should prioritize topic alignment and audience credibility over follower count, and amplify top-performing creator content with paid support to extend its reach.
• Cultural relevance comes from participating in the conversation. Rather than treating creator partnerships like traditional ads, marketers should focus on producing content that feels native to social platforms and expands the story across multiple posts, formats and inside jokes.
• Influencer marketing works best when it extends beyond the feed. Brands that involve influencers in real-world experiences, events or community initiatives can deepen audience relationships and drive stronger loyalty.

Read next: Delve into our guide that breaks down the top trends defining the future of influencer marketing.

And if you see a social post or campaign that deserves to be highlighted, tag @sproutsocial and use #PostPerformanceReport to have your idea included in a future article.

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How Gen Z uses social media and what that means for brands

Before the 1960s, young people were seen as an undesirable marketing audience and mostly ignored. Everything changed with Baby Boomers. They were the largest and most influential generation in the history of modern consumerism, yet their social movements and corporate distrust confounded advertisers who had to completely rethink their playbooks. Sound familiar?

Since then, marketers have been trying to reach a revolving door of youth generations—from Boomers to Gen X to Millennials, and now Zoomers and Gen Alpha. Reaching young people and penetrating trend culture has become a consistent hurdle.

Casey Lewis, social media consultant, author behind the After School newsletter and expert of social trends among younger audiences, sums it up like this: “Any brand not actively trying to reach Gen Z and Gen Alpha is doing themselves a disservice. Even if you don’t care to be in the zeitgeist. They are our future consumers, so you need to have them in mind—even if you’re not trying to reach them today.”

After decades of consistently marketing to young people, marketers are again mystified by a new generation. Like Boomers before them, Gen Z represents a new kind of consumer: digital natives who are increasingly cynical, driven by ethical causes and are chronically online (or are they?) They are more discerning than their predecessors, which frustrates marketers trying to obsessively crack the code on how to effectively reach them without seeming indubitably cringe.

In this guide, we explain how Gen Z wants brands to show up on social media and what it takes to market to them the right way.

Gen Z social media usage

Gen Z has never known a world without social media or the internet. It’s enmeshed in their daily lives and serves as their go-to channel for information. According to the Q2 2025 Sprout Pulse Survey, social is now the #1 place Gen Z searches—even beating out popular search engines.

When we asked Lewis how she would describe the way Gen Z uses social, she responded, “A better question is how don’t they use social? They use it for everything and they expect brands to use it for everything, too—from customer service to commerce, discovery to community.”

Let’s break down which platforms occupy most of their time online and the types of content they engage with there.

Which platforms does Gen Z use and why?

According to The 2026 Social Media Content Strategy Report, 80% of Gen Z social media users are on Facebook and Instagram, 74% are on YouTube and another 72% are on TikTok, making these networks the most popular for Zoomers. Gen Z mostly wants brands on these platforms to provide entertainment, but are also looking for customer service on Facebook.

Digging deeper into how they use certain platforms, Gen Z consumers report TikTok is their favorite channel to turn to for product discovery, closely followed by Facebook, according to the same report. The Q1 2026 Sprout Pulse Survey found that they are also most likely to use TikTok, Instagram and Reddit for staying up to date on the news.

What brand content does Gen Z engage with?

On their top two most-used channels, Instagram and Facebook, Gen Z is most likely to engage with brand posts that includes short-form video (less than 60 seconds), per The Content Strategy Report. This holds true for TikTok. Interestingly, they’re the only generation to prefer long-term video (over 60 seconds) on YouTube.

Lewis suggests all these channels and formats could be interconnected. “We all have short attention spans to go along with our preference for short-form video. But it’s interesting to see Gen Z podcasters uploading one to two hour-long episodes. Then they slice and dice, and upload videos across short-form platforms.”

Though Gen Z ultimately consumes all content on most platforms, the key is understanding the nuance and culture of each platform. That doesn’t mean completely recreating posts from scratch—and overtaxing your team’s bandwidth. It means, as Lewis illustrates, charting multiple points of distribution and connection, and prioritizing the platforms that matter most to this generation.

Regardless of format, Gen Z wants brands to prioritize educational content, memes and skits, and highly-produced episodic series, per the Q1 2026 Pulse Survey.

Gen Z is also most likely to say that brands should make interacting with their audiences their top priority on social media, according to the Q2 2025 Pulse Survey. What you publish matters, but for younger generations, how you interact is just as important.

Gen Z social media trends

Upfront warning: This is not a trends listicle that will inspire specific content ideas (for that read our top social media trends article).

As Gen Z has matured (the oldest members of the generation turn 30 this year) and they’ve spent more time under marketers’ microscope, throughlines have emerged that give us insight into how they think about social and its future. Brands are beginning to understand that keeping up with a lightning pace trend culture is not the key to their lasting loyalty, and Gen Z consumers want a break from being chronically online too (kind of).

These trends map out the future of Gen Z’s social media habits, and give clues that reveal what it takes to build lasting brand resonance.

Support brands that share their values

The surge of brands putting out “activist” content in the last six years largely backfired—especially with discerning Zoomers. Many brands were accused of getting it wrong, overwhelming their audiences or performing to bolster the bottom line.

Sprout’s 2019 #BrandsGetReal Report found that 70% of consumers then believed it was important for brands to have a public stance on social and political issues. The 2023 Sprout Social Index™ told a different story: Only a quarter of consumers said the most memorable brands speak about causes and news that align with their values.

But Gen Z doesn’t want brands to become completely agnostic. They want brands to be transparent about what they value, and they’re more likely to support activism backed up by action. Per the Q1 2026 Pulse Survey, 28% want brands of all kinds to take a clear public stand on all major issues and another 30% only want brands to take a stand if the issue relates to their product or industry.

Of all the generations, they’re most likely to say they frequently buy products to support a brand’s values, and one-third will stop buying a product if the company’s values clash with their own. The same survey found that Gen Z is just as likely to say influencers should take a clear stand on all major issues, which puts more pressure on brands to find influencers that are values-aligned.

Clearly understanding your Gen Z audience’s values is imperative for meeting their expectations and protecting your reputation.

Desire for more original content

To establish trust with Gen Z consumers, brands need to stand out in a saturated sea of sameness. Hustling to keep up with trends or just posting libraries of user-generated content won’t cut it. The best way to keep your audience coming back for more is by making ownable, helpful and entertaining content.

As mentioned, Gen Z is most interested in brand content that provides education about products and services. Their appetite for educational content is closely followed by a taste for originality and entertainment.

Lewis explains, “Where brands go wrong is losing sight of their own POV. An amalgamation of random user-generated content is simply not going to resonate; the brand’s voice still needs to come through. Similarly, there’s a misconception that engaging with online trends and memes is a silver bullet for brands when it comes to winning over Gen Z. It’s not! Chasing culture rarely works. It’s better for brands to focus on creating culture.”

Brands that eschew posting frequency in favor of recurring franchises and universe-building are most likely to capture (and keep) their attention.

Leading the social commerce charge

Every stage of the customer journey exists on social—and that rings even truer for Gen Z. This comes as little surprise, knowing that they’re most likely to turn to social for product discovery. Ninety percent of Gen Z say social media ads, influencer posts and organic brand content have inspired some percent of their purchases of the past six months, according to the Q2 2025 Pulse Survey. Three-quarters say they’re more likely to buy from a brand just because they partner with an influencer they like.

But there’s another distinction that sets Gen Z apart: Even the current economic climate doesn’t impact their social shopping. While 38% of all users across generations are now less likely to buy something they discovered on social, 43% of Gen Z are more likely to buy, according to the same survey.

These trends, however, don’t mean brands need to start going for the hard sell in their social content. First and foremost, marketers need to prioritize content that educates, entertains and makes audiences feel seen—with your products and services integrated into the story as relevant.

Lukewarm feelings toward AI-generated social content

Across the board, consumers of all ages are closely split on whether or not AI-generated content makes them more or less likely to be interested in a brand. According to the Q1 2026 Pulse Survey, about 40% of Gen Z are unlikely to interact with AI-generated content. Yet, 34% say they’re likely to like, comment and share it.

But engagement doesn’t equate to trust. Gen Z agrees that the top thing they wish brands would stop doing is posting AI content without clearly labeling it, per the same survey. Another 56% say they’re more likely to trust brands that are committed to publishing content created by humans, as we found in the Q3 2025 Sprout Pulse Survey.

Interestingly, Gen Z consumers are also split on AI influencers. The same survey found that while almost half say they aren’t comfortable with brands using AI influencers at all, 32% see no problem with it and 20% think it depends on the campaign.

While it might make sense for some brands to dabble in AI content creation, there will most likely be minimal returns from your Gen Z audience. The best AI use cases for brands are still increasing efficiency in areas like social listening, data analysis and customer care.

An overwhelming need to touch grass

A stereotypical image of Gen Z persists: an entire generation glued to their phones and tablets, suffering from loneliness at epidemic rates. No matter how many headlines or think pieces are written about this subject, the stats point to steady or increased social media use.

The Social Media Content Strategy Report found that 48% of Gen Z consumers plan to consume more content from companies in 2026—the highest of any generation. Yet, many in this generation are burnt out and suffering from the unhealthy impacts of social. Networks like Instagram are doing more to protect the most vulnerable members of the Gen Z audience, but many feel forced to set their own limits with social media detoxes. And a significant majority support social media bans for users under 16.

The Q1 2026 Pulse Survey found that 62% of Gen Z support a ban for under-16s, and another 18% are on the fence. The generation is also the most likely to want more tools for screentime management to support their mental health and wellbeing, per the Q4 2025 Sprout Pulse Survey.

While it’s highly unlikely that Gen Z will start leaving social media in droves, we do expect to see more take breaks from principal networks in favor of more time on community networks like Substack and Reddit. According to the Q1 2026 Pulse Survey, Gen Z social users say they prefer to create more content than they consume—a shift that could influence their relationship with networks overall. We also expect event marketing and IRL meetups will continue to appeal to Gen Z consumers craving a third space.

Brands Gen Z flocks to on social

As mentioned, Gen Z is a cynical generation. Overly promotional tactics, forced authenticity and glomming onto trends doesn’t win their favor.

Here are four brands who have mastered the art of Gen Z marketing, and found a way to breakthrough in a way that feels true to their image.

Marc Jacobs

Luxury brand Marc Jacobs is an unexpected Gen Z darling. The fashion brand is well-known for including Gen Z, TikTok-famous comedians and influencers in its content. But somehow these personalities all capture the essence of the brand.

As Lewis articulates, “Marc Jacobs takes trends and formats, and makes them their own. Sometimes you see someone’s presence and it feels stitched together and reactionary. Instead, their presence feels cohesive and has a unique Marc Jacobs stamp of approval.”

Give your brand a Gen Z glow up: Follow Marc Jacobs’ lead by keeping your content original and unexpected, yet completely on-brand.

Topicals

Skincare brand Topicals has mastered the art of brand trips and influencer marketing. Like their recent campaign #TopicalsInRio proves, the brand is in lockstep with their Gen Z audience and deeply understands their nuances.

“I’m interested in how brands are looking to their communities for insights and content. Brands like Topicals and other skincare brands are able to take action based on consumer feedback,” says Lewis.

Topicals has also built a positive reputation for listening to their audience’s product feedback and compensating creators and influencers. Lewis adds, “Topicals uses the TYB platform to engage with their community in a thoughtful way. The social, marketing and product teams are all co-collaborating on community management. They compensate people for UGC (giving them a tag is not enough), which makes sure it feels authentic and on-brand.”

Give your brand a Gen Z glow up: Take it from Topicals: When you reward your audience for their content and feedback, they’ll reward you with loyalty.

Puresport

Puresport, a UK-based wellness and fitness brand specializing in natural supplements, was founded in 2019 but has quickly earned a Gen Z fandom. The hype is due in large part to the brand’s social presence.

The brand partners with elite runners from around the world, producing cinematic looks into their journeys preparing for events like the British Championships. They extend their documentary approach on YouTube with the long-form Project Puresport series, with episodes showcasing the Puresport community at marathon events from Boston to Berlin and beyond.

On that note, Puresport believes in community with a capital “C”—hosting in-person run clubs and inviting audiences to connect with each other in their WhatsApp groups and on fitness app Strava.

Give your brand a Gen Z glow up: Gen Z’s social media behaviors aren’t limited to one particular platform. Identify where your youngest audience members spend the most time, and take advantage of each channel’s unique content formats to reinforce your brand’s distinct identity. And wherever possible, look for intuitive ways to bridge the gap between how consumers experience your brand online and offline.

ServiceNow

Software company ServiceNow isn’t your typical Gen Z marketing inspo. But the brand exemplifies a well-known Gen Z trait: subverting expectations in content. Like in the video where interpreted cringy corporate jargon.

Give your brand a Gen Z glow up: Gen Z content is often layered. It relies on both the creator and viewer having context for inside jokes and cultural touchstones. Even B2B brands like ServiceNow can use that to their advantage. Gen Z makes up a large portion of companies’ current and future employee base, so B2B brands have a vested interest in appealing to them.

Reaching Gen Z is crucial for long-term brand health

Each new generation brings its own set of challenges. Reaching Gen Z requires brands to rethink how they engage.

Brands who successfully reach Gen Z understand the generation’s unique values, preferences and nuanced behavior in the social media ecosystem. From platform choice to content style, Zoomers are looking for brands who facilitate genuine, community-driven interaction.

For social marketers, that doesn’t mean recreating every trend, but instead forging a distinct identity across platforms. That is the key to building trust and loyalty.

Looking for more insight into how each generation wants to engage with brands on social? Download The 2026 Social Media Content Strategy Report.

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Why the Best AI Use Cases in Marketing Start with Intelligence, Not Creation

Generative AI is everywhere on social feeds right now, from LinkedIn influencers claiming it’s going to be the end of marketing as we know it, to genuinely interesting use cases for copy creation, data visualization and beyond. But there’s a tension in that ubiquity. While marketers are keen to make the most of generative AI to save time and increase efficiency, it does not align with what consumers actually want to see on social media.

Our 2026 Social Media Content Strategy Report highlights that while marketers are focused on producing AI-generated content, consumers report that they’re looking for more human-generated content in their feeds. This is hardly a surprise, given the broad AI adoption and explosion in the content generated by it. Much of that content has been AI slop, leading to consumer fatigue where they simply crave something more human.

While we shouldn’t completely rule out AI-generated content, teams need to strike the right balance between using AI to refine and scale content production, while retaining a human touch. And there are a number of other ways to use AI in marketing that more consistently build trust and increase efficiency. Plugging AI into manual workflows (like data analysis) can give your teams time back to use toward crafting stronger human-generated content.

3 AI use cases in marketing that help brands build trust

Marketers can use AI to better understand their audiences, create content that resonates and optimize their content for different distribution channels, all while keeping a human in the loop for the actual creation process.

During our Q1 2026 Breaking Ground event, we shared how brands can incorporate AI in a way that actually builds trust with audiences, rather than alienating them. Think of it as a “Proof of Reality” flywheel for content optimization built off of social intelligence.

Using tools such as Sprout Listening, NewsWhip by Sprout Social and Sprout Social Influencer Marketing, your social team can use AI to determine exactly what your audience wants, create content that meets that need and then make sure it gets back to that audience.

Let’s take a closer look at what this flow looks like.

Better understand your audience with AI-powered social intelligence

The first step in improving the impact of your marketing strategies is to build an understanding of what your audience wants to see, interact with and share, and AI can help with that. Our Content Strategy Report found that real-time insights into what their audience wants to consume was the number one thing marketers said would be the most helpful for increasing the impact of their social media strategy.

AI removes the existing latency, with the ability to analyze large tranches of structured and unstructured data, and come back with answers in minutes rather than hours or days. This enables marketers to stop thinking reactively—working from past data—toward a predictive model of what their audience wants right now, or might want in the weeks to come.

Examples of where AI could be implemented here include social data analysis and sentiment analysis, among others.

Social media data is a treasure trove of brand and customer insights that AI tools effortlessly dig into to surface critical information. The State of Social Media Report found 95% of leaders look at social data to inform business decisions such as lead generation, product development and competitor analysis. Thus, social media data analysis is empowering not only marketing teams but also cross-functional ones.

AI tools can also extract competitor insights by using semantic search and other AI algorithms from social data. Sprout analyzes social data using named entity recognition (NER) to identify and analyze competing brands and their content, providing you with actionable insights that improve your brand performance.

Sprout digs into competitor content engagements, post frequency, hashtag usage and other key performance areas by using keywords and @mentions you determine, cutting through the noise of thousands of social conversations in seconds to give you actionable data.

Marketers have also long used sentiment analysis to assess the tone and sentiment expressed in comments, posts and conversations around their brand to determine whether they are positive, negative or neutral. This is a critical AI capability considering 44% of marketers, per The State of Social Media Report, use sentiment mining to understand customer feedback and improve how they respond to issues.

Analyzing sentiment in social chatter also helps brands spot early indications of negative sentiment and take proactive measures before a situation escalates.

Approaching audience analysis in this way, you can use the power of AI to understand what will resonate before you write it, and feed that into your content and social strategy.

Build human-validated content

Once you have an idea of what your audience wants, it’s time to create that content. But it’s important to not just hand this off to AI. Audiences are overloaded with AI-generated content, so creating something made by a human can have a positive impact on performance.

A lot of content at the moment feels too polished, and audiences want something that feels real, whether it’s a behind-the-scenes look, or a casual Q&A with a creator. They also might be searching for different things on different networks, so make sure you’re thinking about what’s resonant for traditional SEO, social SEO (SOSEO) and AI search (GEO/AEO).

AI search is encroaching on traditional search because of a fundamental behavior change. Instead of targeted keywords, users are now typing or speaking verbose, conversational questions, and search engines are pulling answers from real conversations on platforms like Reddit.

When someone asks, “Which skincare products are cruelty-free?”, the AI summary isn’t just pulled from a brand’s ‘About Us’ page. It cites real-time social conversations to form the recommendation.

Traditional search engine results are dominated by subreddits and YouTube videos. Whether it’s an AI overview or a list of links, the engine is increasingly prioritizing the ‘human signal’ over static web content to answer the prompt.

Showing up in those spaces with authentic content is far more likely to get you cited in search answers than AI content.

Tap into influence networks

AI can also help you amplify your campaigns, including doubling-down on influencer partnerships.

Authenticity matters more than follower count because influencers and brands no longer need millions of followers to reach audiences; relevancy is rewarded. As more social proof and videos pop up in search results, it has never been more important to find brand-safe partners who are naturally a good fit for your brand. But there are more creators than ever. AI-powered matchmaking helps you narrow that down.

You need to be able to identify creators based on the content they’re posting (and their performance), and not just the demographics of their followers.

This shift in matching with the right creators is crucial to your Proof of Reality strategy, because it’s only those creators who can show up authentically, add value and build trust. When creators weave your product into their content organically, it converts.

You can also use that social intelligence and data analysis strategy to better understand networks such as Reddit. It’s hugely influential in AEO answers and AI search, but Reddit has its own rules and norms of behavior on the platform. Reddit is all about utility, so if you can find a way for your brand to naturally add value without it feeling forced or spammy, then the strategy will naturally grow.

By implementing a social intelligence framework, you can understand how users show up in different communities, and figure out which ones make sense for your brand to join organically. This fits into the social-intelligence-driven flywheel strategy, as you can identify communities that are a good fit for your brand, and then also find influential voices to amplify within those communities.

How to start using AI more effectively

AI is a priority for leadership, but it doesn’t have to be intimidating. This three-step process can refresh how your company uses AI. First, audit your current usage, then optimize agentic workflows and finally retrain your team on how to get the most out of these new ways of working.

1. Audit AI usage

Churning out content at scale may seem efficient, but that’s only true if what you’re producing is resonating with your audience. There is little to no value in increasing output if it’s not having a tangible business impact, and it may even be masking a lack of audience insight as a result.

Marketers can use AI to make content better and smarter, not necessarily just faster. To do this, the first step is alignment. Often, teams have evolved their AI usage organically with no centralized guidance, so it’s important to understand where the gaps or potential points of failure are across the team.

Audit your processes and see where AI is currently being used and where improvements can be made. That might mean a change in process, in which human effort moves more towards refining content and ensuring resonance with your audience, while leaving AI to expedite analysis and research. Understand where it fits within your teams’ workflows, and make adjustments as necessary.

Once this audit is complete, you’ll know what processes to strip out and rebuild with AI and agentic workflows.

2. Invest in agentic AI workflows

AI agents function independently, working in the background on research, data analysis or alerting you when something has changed in a dashboard.

This is useful for marketing teams as it means they have an always-on teammate, alerting them to anything meaningful they might not otherwise have seen, including sudden spikes in readership, engagement or customer conversations.

It can also help with research tasks that would otherwise require continuous back and forth prompting or manual effort. With agentic AI, you can set the agent a task for research, whether on the open web or using proprietary data, and have it notify you when the task is complete.

This means less time spent on analyses and more time defining campaigns that will actually perform.

3. Training pivot

These new workflows will require training for your teams to use them effectively. Whereas the initial flurry of AI activity was about the best prompts for generating output, this new wave of AI leads us to more strategic thinking and cultivating a better sense of what good looks like. In a world of infinite creation, it’s better to spend more time refining an idea into new and better iterations, and to do that, it’s important to slow down and have time to think.

The teams that succeed in 2026 and beyond will have training in editing and prompt architecture, with a focus on incremental improvements and finding key insights that will have broader impact. Support your teams to achieve that goal by training them on how to best use agentic AI and the AI workflows being put in place.

Expand your horizons for AI use cases in marketing

The disconnect between leaders’ enthusiasm for AI efficiency and consumer fatigue with AI-generated content is a clear signal that we’ve been too short-sighted about AI use cases in marketing. By pivoting your AI approach from mass generation to strategic intelligence, you can build a “Proof of Reality” engine that fosters genuine trust.

Ultimately, the goal is to let AI handle the data-heavy backend of marketing that often gets deprioritized as we rush between tasks. This way your team can reclaim the time needed to craft the authentic, high-quality content your audience is actually searching for.

Ready to refine your team’s approach and build smarter workflows? Download our Social Media AI Prompts template to help your team move beyond basic generation and start using prompts that drive real business insights and impact.
 

The post Why the Best AI Use Cases in Marketing Start with Intelligence, Not Creation appeared first on Sprout Social.

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Why Gmail Is Clipping Your Emails — And What to Do About It

Your email looked great in the editor. You hit send. But somewhere between your drafts folder and your subscriber's inbox, part of your message just... disappeared.

That's Gmail clipping. If your open rates have ever come in lower than expected, Gmail clipping could be a factor — with no indication it was happening.

What is Gmail clipping?

Gmail automatically hides any part of an email that exceeds 102 KB in size. When that happens, subscribers see a "Message clipped [View entire message]" link where the rest of your email content should be. Most readers don't click it. They assume the email just ended.

That's the Gmail clipping limit: 102 KB. 

It's not a lot of room if you're sending long-form newsletters, promotional emails with multiple images, or heavily formatted messages with lots of buttons and styled sections.

Gmail Clipping Is Quietly Hurting Your Open Rates

The content Gmail clips often includes your email tracking pixel.

Most tracking pixels are located at the bottom of an email. If Gmail cuts your message before reaching that point, the open never gets recorded. So an email that a subscriber actually read shows up in your stats as if it never happened.

So when you're trying to figure out why your open rates seem inconsistent, or why a campaign you felt good about didn't perform the way you expected, Gmail clipping emails could be the reason. Not your subject line. Not your timing. Not your copy. Just a file size problem you had no visibility into.

Why is Gmail clipping my messages?

The short answer: your email is too large.

A few things that push message size up faster than most people expect:

• Multiple images — especially high-resolution ones not optimized for email
• Heavy formatting — lots of fonts, colors, custom styles, and spacing rules
• Many links and buttons — each adds code to the message
• Inline CSS — email clients require styles to be written directly into the HTML, which adds bulk
• Long content — newsletters with multiple sections, product roundups, and detailed updates

You don't have to be sending a novel. A standard-looking email with a hero image, a few product sections, and some formatted text can creep toward 102 KB faster than you'd think.

How to avoid Gmail clipping

There are a few practical things you can do to keep your emails under Gmail's threshold:

1. Optimize your images 

Compress images before uploading them. A 2 MB photo scaled down for email doesn't need to carry all that original data with it.

AWeber will automatically optimize images when you upload them, so you're not manually compressing files before every send.

2. Simplify your formatting

The more custom styling you apply, the heavier your email gets. Consistent fonts, limited color variations, and clean layouts keep file size down without sacrificing design.

3. Send traffic to a blog for longer content

If you're writing a 3,000-word newsletter, consider linking to the full version on your blog. 

4. Check your size before you send

AWeber shows a live size indicator in the message editor footer as you write. If your email approaches Gmail's 102 KB threshold, you'll see a warning so you can trim before you send.

Don’t let Gmail clip your next email

AWeber's Gmail clipping indicator is built into every account. Now you can keep an eye on the size indicator in the message editor next time you're writing a longer email.

Don't have an AWeber account? Sign up for a free 14-day trial and never have Gmail clip your emails again.

The post Why Gmail Is Clipping Your Emails — And What to Do About It appeared first on AWeber.

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YouTube social listening: How to find actionable insights in a video-first world

YouTube’s countless creators, constant uploads, fierce competition and shifting trends make it easy to get lost in the noise. But if you listen closely, the chaos fades—and what emerges is detailed, meaningful feedback from your community. That’s where the power of social media listening on YouTube begins.

But YouTube social listening works a little differently. Instead of chasing brand mentions, you’re diving deep into the questions, reactions and pain points sitting right in your comments.

Here’s how to use these qualitative insights to ignite action and understand what your audience cares about and what they want next.

What is YouTube social listening and why is it different?

YouTube social listening is the practice of analyzing your competitors, the creators in your space and the conversations, reactions and patterns happening around your videos. But unlike traditional social listening on text-based social networks, YouTube plays by different rules. These limitations impact the way you gather insights.

First, YouTube is a video-first ecosystem. Most meaningful conversations happen in comments, replies, captions and creator-to-creator exchanges.

Then, there are technical limits. Due to API restrictions and quota rules, no social listening tool can pull comment data, sentiment or mentions from the 1.7 billion users at scale the same way you might on text-heavy social networks.

But this limitation is also a strategic advantage. It forces marketers to stop chasing volume and vanity metrics, and instead focus on what’s truly actionable: direct community feedback, comment sentiment, recurring questions and creator-driven trends. By learning how to use social listening tools specifically for video, you can focus on direct community feedback and creator-driven trends.

Why you need a YouTube listening strategy

A focused YouTube listening strategy fuels growth by providing direct, actionable insight from real viewers. This approach enables you to move beyond basic metrics to find the “why” behind the data.

Analyzing your own comments shows you what your audience cares about right now. Looking at competitor and creator content reveals broader patterns and expectations in your niche. Put together, these signals shape smarter campaigns and more effective video content.

Below are three core business benefits of putting a YouTube listening strategy into action. And if you are looking for a framework to get started, our social listening guide provides a structured way to organize these efforts.

Uncover voice of customer data

Your comments section is one of the richest sources of voice of customer insight anywhere online. Unlike short replies on text-based social networks, YouTube comments often include detailed opinions, thoughtful questions and honest feedback about your product or service.

A strong YouTube listening strategy helps you spot the following community insights:

• Product and content praise: Signals of what’s resonating with your target audience
• Customer service issues: Indicators of emerging problems to escalate
• Recurring questions: Patterns that reveal gaps in onboarding, support or messaging
• Capability requests: Insights that guide product updates and content planning

When you read comments through a listening lens, you’re gathering evidence to shape everything from product updates to social media marketing workflows.

For example, look at how Fenty Beauty’s audience responded to this “How to Choose the Right Foundation For You” video. They commented specifically about skin concerns, inclusive shades and natural makeup looks, directly stating this is what Fenty’s audience cares about and what they’d like to see more of.

Find new video content ideas

If you’re ever unsure what to create next, your audience will tell you. Requests like “Can you make a video about X?” or “I’d love a tutorial on Y” are high-intent prompts that can enable you to fill your content calendar with content you know will perform.

Here’s what you get when you listen to these asks:

• A steady stream of validated video themes
• Clarity on which formats (Shorts, long-form, tutorials, explainers) viewers prefer
• Insight into emerging trends within your niche

Instead of guessing what might perform, you’re building content based on demand.

Monitor brand health and community sentiment

Even without full YouTube listening capabilities, you can monitor brand health on your own videos. Tracking how viewers respond—positively, negatively or emotionally—helps you stay ahead of reputation risks and identify sentiment shifts early.

Understanding the emotional tone behind your community interactions enables you to identify sentiment shifts early, serving as a pulse check on how your audience receives your brand.

Benchmark your video performance

Competitor analysis is a powerful form of YouTube listening. By monitoring your competitors’ titles, formats, engagement metrics and upload cadence, you see which topics gain traction in your industry and which fall flat.

Here’s how benchmarking can help you understand your position in the market and where you can improve:

• Spot content patterns in your industry
• Understand where you’re outperforming (or underperforming)
• Identify whitespace opportunities competitors aren’t addressing
• Optimize your YouTube marketing strategy with real-world data
• Compare your share of voice against direct competitors

How to build an actionable YouTube analysis strategy

A strong YouTube listening strategy doesn’t require full platform-wide data. It requires clarity, structure and a realistic process. Because you can’t track everything on YouTube due to API limits, you need to focus on the signals you can collect and turn them into actionable insights.

Here’s how to build a strategy to analyze YouTube to spot areas for strategic improvement:

Step 1: Define and prioritize your goals

YouTube is too noisy to track without intention. The first step is to choose your priority, whether it’s content performance or brand health.

By setting specific goals, it’s easier to understand the metrics you need to track to analyze your performance. And exploring unique ways to use social listening can help you uncover goals that align with your specific business needs.

Here are a few examples of goals that line up with relevant YouTube metrics:

• Understand your audience more deeply: Track recurring questions, emotional tone in comments, audience demographics and common pain points
• Improve your content performance: Monitor engagement rates, watch time, audience retention and comments about clarity or value
• Benchmark against competitors: Measure competitor engagement patterns, titles, formats, upload cadence and video themes
• Identify gaps in your content strategy: Track unanswered questions, repeated content requests, trending topics in your niche and creator formats you’re not currently using

When you start small and set intentional goals, your analysis is clearer and more repeatable.

Step 2: Identify what to track (and where to look)

A great YouTube social listening strategy blends data from multiple sources. But it’s easy for the enormity of the network to overwhelm you if you don’t have structure. A focused list keeps your review consistent and helps you spot meaningful patterns.

Here are a few of the most important YouTube touchpoints to focus on:

• Comments on your own videos
• Comments on competitor videos in your niche
• Comments on relevant YouTube creators’ content (influencers, educators, reviewers)
• YouTube Search and Autocomplete trends
• Trending video formats (Shorts, long-form, live sessions)
• Titles, thumbnails and keyword patterns across top-performing videos

Step 3: Extract and categorize your comment data

Once you know where to look, the next challenge is making sense of it all.

Comments often arrive in high volume with mixed emotions. To find the insights within these interactions, you need to manually export comment data from the YouTube Data API or a third-party exporter tool.

Next, categorize the comments into themes to reveal patterns and audience interest. High-level, AI-powered tools can enable keyword extraction. This reveals patterns you wouldn’t spot by scanning comments individually.

Here are several categories to use to organize your comments:

• Product feedback (positive and negative)
• Content requests and new video ideas
• Frequently asked questions (FAQs)
• Criticisms or customer pain points
• Competitor comparisons

Step 4: Take action on your insights

Categorization is only valuable if it leads to decisions. This means turning categorized insights into tactical changes.

• Address pain points: If viewers repeat the same questions or frustrations, update your help resources or create new video tutorials.
• Capitalize on intent comments: Identify purchase-intent comments like “I’m buying this now” to use in future campaigns and refine your conversion signals.
• Differentiate your brand: If competitor comparisons appear, adjust positioning or produce content that highlights your unique value.

For example, the comment below on Audi’s YouTube channel indicates that someone intends to buy, or at least experience, the car featured in the video.

Step 5: Report on insights that matter and translate them into strategy

When sharing findings with leadership, focus on both qualitative and quantitative insight:

• Comment volume and engagement patterns
• Direct viewer quotes supporting major themes
• Examples of sentiment or emotional cues
• Strategic recommendations tied to business goals

Reports like Sprout Social’s YouTube Videos Report enables you to quantify data such as engagement, audience growth and post-level trends to tell a compelling story of social impact that resonates.

How to leverage creators for proactive YouTube listening

There’s a lot to learn from your YouTube comments. But there’s significant value in understanding what happens before a single viewer leaves a comment. The videos by influencers, niche experts and fast-growing YouTubers in your industry show you the trends, formats and cultural shifts in your niche.

This is proactive listening. By watching what YouTube influencers and creators publish, you can see what audiences care about, which YouTube channels are gaining traction, which hashtags are emerging and which ideas are shaping marketing campaigns.

Identify popular topics and industry trends

To “listen” proactively, look at what top creators in your niche are doing week after week. Creators often adopt emerging trends long before brands do. By monitoring these influential accounts, you’ll start to see patterns such as:

• New audience interests you can incorporate into your content strategy
• Keywords and hashtags bubbling up within your category
• Formats, like Shorts, gaining algorithmic traction
• Topics your competitors may not be covering yet

This is one of the simplest, most powerful forms of YouTube listening, because it gives you a read on the cultural direction of your category.

Recognize and vet relevant influencers

A proactive listening strategy relies on understanding the people of influence in your niche. The creators you track should be trusted voices with engaged, aligned audiences. Look for the voices shaping conversation in your niche.

Understanding YouTube influencer marketing allows you to move beyond simple mentions to find creators with engaged audiences that align with your business goals.

When evaluating creators, ask yourself questions about their content style and following:

• Audience alignment: Do the influencers and creators talk about topics that are of interest to your target audience?
• Engagement quality: Are comments thoughtful and authentic, or are they bot-like and impersonal?
• Content consistency: How regularly do they create content within your industry?
• Creative style: Is their format compatible with how your brand communicates?

To help with the vetting process, Sprout Social Influencer Marketing provides AI-powered capabilities such as Brand Fit Score and Brand Safety reports. These tools enable you to conduct effective influencer outreach by filtering out risky creators and focusing on those who truly match your brand values and who naturally influence the conversations your customers are part of.

Understand your audience and their preferences

Top creators often function like focus groups at scale. Their comments, engagement patterns and content choices can reveal what audiences love, dislike or expect from brands.

Studying creator content helps you understand all different aspects of your audiences’ preferences:

• The tone, pacing and depth audiences prefer
• Which pain points, myths or misunderstandings still need clarification
• What emotional triggers drive engagement
• What formats spark conversation vs. passive views

Using capabilities like Smart Categories within Sprout’s Social Listening tool can further identify the top people, places and things discussed within these conversations to help you lead confidently. These insights help you create more audience-aligned content and inform your broader social media management strategy.

Uncover competitor strategies and market gaps

Creators also reveal what your competitors’ priorities are. By monitoring creator videos, you can see whether your competitors sponsor specific YouTubers or experiment with new storytelling styles in their creator partnerships.

This proactive layer of listening helps you understand market and industry trends, so your brand stays in the conversation and can set the pace for competition. You can even leverage Trellis, Sprout’s conversational AI Agent, to get a quick snapshot of competitor moves and identify white-space opportunities.

Turn your YouTube insights into action

A smart YouTube strategy isn’t about tracking every mention—it’s about engaging your community and creating better content. By listening to how your audience behaves around your content and studying your competitors and industry-related creators, you can find tangible ways to improve your content, products and marketing strategy.

If you’re ready to manage your YouTube channel more efficiently and learn from the wealth of insights available on YouTube, explore how Sprout Social can support your workflow. Book a demo now.

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Now You’ll Know If Gmail Clipped Your Email

Gmail automatically hides any part of an email that exceeds 102 KB. When that happens, subscribers see a "Message clipped" link and most don't click it. They assume the email ended.

What's often hidden in that clipped section: your tracking pixel and links. That means your open and click counts can come back lower than reality, with no indication why.

AWeber shows you the size of your message as you write, and flags any sent broadcasts that were large enough to be clipped.

A size indicator while you're writing

The message editor shows a live size indicator in the footer as you create your email. If your message approaches Gmail's 102 KB threshold, you'll see it in time to trim.

Most emails won't come close, this mainly affects very long or heavily styled messages. But when it does matter, you'll know before your subscribers do.

A clipping indicator in Quickstats after you send

For sent emails, Quickstats shows a clipping indicator next to your open and click stats for any broadcast large enough to be clipped by Gmail.

If your stats on past emails look low, check Quickstats. It works retroactively, so historical sends are flagged too, not just new ones. And for A/B tests, each variant is evaluated independently — one might be fine while the other isn't.

Other ways AWeber helps you send with confidence

Automatic link checks

Typos and outdated URLs are easy to miss and they kill clicks. When you add a link in the editor, AWeber checks that URL for you. If something looks off, you’ll see an error before you send.

Preview and test sends

Before you schedule a broadcast, you can preview your email and send a test email to your own inbox. That way you can see how it looks on desktop and mobile, click every link, and fix anything that doesn’t feel right.

Subject line and preview text helpers

Getting opened starts with a clear subject line and preview text. AWeber gives you a focused editor with best‑practice tips and optional AI suggestions, so you can keep things short and scannable.

Optimizes images for faster loading

AWeber optimizes your images automatically when you upload them. That makes your emails faster to load.

Send with confidence

We're helping you know when Gmail might get in the way, before it's too late to do anything about it.

Write your next email in AWeber knowing you'll have a heads-up if Gmail intends to clip the bottom of your message.

Log in and check Quickstats on your last broadcast →

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Top 7 Traackr alternatives to scale your influencer marketing program in 2026

At some point, every marketer eventually hits a ceiling with their current tool. While a legacy tool like Traackr may assist with early influencer marketing efforts, scaling requires more than just discovery and manual tracking. As your strategy matures, you need a centralized command center that proves business value through automation and high-velocity data.

Finding the right Traackr alternatives is a strategic move to scale your program and achieve measurable ROI. If you’re ready to move from manual tracking to a high-impact, all-in-one workflow, these influencer marketing platforms offer the scalability and depth modern marketing leaders require to lead their industries.

1. Sprout Social Influencer Marketing (formerly Tagger)

Sprout Social Influencer Marketing is the premier, all-in-one influencer marketing platform for brands focused on strategic growth and data-driven discovery. While Traackr focuses heavily on relationship management, Sprout Social Influencer Marketing is an AI-powered, end-to-end engine designed for scalability. This platform empowers teams to manage the entire lifecycle of a partnership without jumping between disconnected tools or messy spreadsheets.

Sprout Social Influencer Marketing is part of Sprout’s broader suite of social solutions, providing a dedicated, purpose-built environment for managing complex creator relationships. While it operates as a specialized platform distinct from Sprout’s daily social media management tools, it fits seamlessly into your broader ecosystem—giving your team the focused infrastructure they need to scale influencer efforts without getting lost in a generalist tool.

Discover and vet authentic partners

Stop guessing and learn how to find the right influencers who are a genuine fit for your audience. Influencer Marketing by Sprout Social features an AI-driven discovery engine that quickly finds high-performing creators relevant to your brand. This ensures your budget is spent reaching real potential customers rather than irrelevant audiences or bot accounts.

The platform connects directly to major social networks, including Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and YouTube via YouTube BrandConnect, giving you native access to creator data across channels.

The platform uses unique Brand Fit and Brand Safety scores to assess risk and alignment automatically. This enables you to identify niche creators who share your brand values while protecting your reputation from potential controversy. It also automates your influencer vetting process by flagging potential issues before you ever send an influencer outreach email, giving you peace of mind.

Streamline your entire campaign workflow

Operational chaos, like juggling spreadsheets, email chains and DMs, stifles growth and can lead to costly mistakes. Sprout Social Influencer Marketing centralizes your influencer campaign management logistics within an intuitive interface that seamlessly manages creator relationships from communication to contract management and content approval.

By automating the administrative side of influencer relationship management (IRM), you free your team to focus on high-level creative strategy. You manage the entire lifecycle, from initial outreach to and performance reporting, within a single, organized workflow that enables you to scale your strategy across networks.

Prove your influencer marketing ROI

Marketing leaders must justify every dollar spent. Sprout Social Influencer Marketing moves your program from a cost center to a revenue driver by focusing on measurable outcomes: sales, conversions and earned media value (EMV). The platform provides the granular data needed to connect social activity directly to the bottom line, making it easier to advocate for increased resources.

Sprout helps you move beyond tracking engagement with advanced influencer analytics tools to calculate the tangible business impact of your influencer campaigns. This level of transparency gives you the data-driven evidence needed to secure larger budgets and prove the long-term value of your creator partnerships. You can easily identify which creators are driving the most impact, enabling you to double down on the partnerships that produce the best results.

Ready to see the difference? You can request a demo of Sprout Social Influencer Marketing to see how it delivers support at every stage of your influencer program.

Request a demo

2. Modash

Modash is an influencer discovery and monitoring tool that provides access to an influencer database across Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. It can help brands find creators in specific niches without requiring them to “opt-in” to a network.

(Source: Modash)

This approach provides a pool of potential partners beyond a closed creator marketplace. Unlike Traackr, Modash alternatives prioritize rapid discovery and performance tracking across diverse social channels.

3. Aspire

Aspire is an influencer marketing platform that emphasizes community building and managing long-term relationships. It’s commonly used by consumer-packaged goods (CPG) and e-commerce brands looking to scale their brand ambassador programs into full-scale creator communities.

 

(Source: Aspire)

The tool features workflows for product seeding, affiliate marketing and content management. While Traackr is known for enterprise-level influencer relationship management, Aspire focuses heavily on the creator experience. It comes with a dedicated portal where influencers can manage their own tasks, sign contracts and receive payments. This focus on the creator side helps brands maintain higher response rates and positive long-term partnerships.

4. CreatorIQ

CreatorIQ is an enterprise-grade influencer marketing tool that leverages data science to help brands manage high-volume creator programs. It’s built to support large organizations that require technical integrations and advanced reporting to manage thousands of relationships simultaneously across different regions.

(Source: CreatorIQ)

Because of its technical depth and focus on large-scale operations, some teams look for CreatorIQ alternatives that offer a more user-friendly interface and faster onboarding for specialized marketing teams.

5. MightyScout

MightyScout is designed to automate the tracking of influencer content, particularly ephemeral content like Instagram Stories. It is a lower-lift solution for agencies or brands that need to capture and aggregate content without the complexity of a full-scale influencer CRM like Traackr.

(Source: MightyScout)

This tool is efficient for event-based marketing and short-term activations where real-time reporting is essential. It focuses on the tracking portion of your influencer marketing plan, helping teams save time on manual screenshots and reporting.

6. GRIN

GRIN is a creator management platform built specifically for e-commerce brands, offering integrations with platforms like Shopify, Magento and WooCommerce. It focuses on the end-to-end management of direct-to-consumer (DTC) workflows, including product gifting, affiliate code generation and sales tracking.

(Source: GRIN)

By treating influencer marketing like a performance channel, it helps brands measure the direct ROI of their creator partnerships. However, many teams also explore GRIN alternatives when they need a tool that handles more than just e-commerce-specific workflows, such as broader brand awareness or LinkedIn influencer strategies.

7. Upfluence

Upfluence is an all-in-one influencer platform that combines discovery, campaign management and affiliate tracking. It features a “Live Capture” tool, which analyzes a brand’s own customer database to identify influential people who are already loyal to their brand.

(Source: Upfluence)

The platform is designed to scale with a brand’s growth, offering modular tools for outreach, payment processing and content approval. For those who need a balance of discovery and automation, exploring Upfluence alternatives can help identify the right fit for your specific technical stack.

How to choose the right Traackr alternative for your brand

Selecting a Traackr alternative is about finding a tool that adapts to your specific business goals, team structure and operational maturity. It should empower your team to move from manual execution to strategic leadership.

Evaluate your program’s influencer discovery needs

Think about the top of your funnel and how you source new talent. Do you need an unfiltered database of millions of creators, or do you require a curated list with deep, AI-driven vetting capabilities?

Consider how important it is for your team to quickly find creators automatically filtered by performance, interests, and brand fit and safety. If you’re in a highly regulated industry like finance or healthcare, automated vetting and risk assessment become non-negotiable requirements to protect your brand.

Assess campaign management and workflow efficiency

Manual processes are the primary barrier to scaling any marketing program. Evaluate where your team spends the most time. Do you need in-app contracting and automated payments to speed up the onboarding process, or are you also looking for a way to track content?

A tool that centralizes relationship management will save your team dozens of hours each week, enabling them to focus on high-level strategy rather than the minutiae of administrative tasks.

Analyze your reporting and ROI measurement requirements

Focus on business impact and how you communicate success to your stakeholders. Are you satisfied with tracking engagement metrics like likes and comments? Or do you need to prove tangible business value to your executive team?

Look for a platform that enables you to measure the full impact of your influencer marketing strategy. The right tool will provide the data-driven insights needed to move your influencer program from a speculative experiment to a core revenue driver.

Find your partner for influencer marketing growth

The right influencer marketing platform will scale with your ambitions and handle the heavy lifting of data management. Whether you need to find more authentic partners or finally prove your influencer marketing ROI, your choice of tool will define your success. Transitioning to a comprehensive solution like Sprout Social Influencer Marketing enables you to stop managing spreadsheets and start managing growth. Schedule a demo to learn more.

The post Top 7 Traackr alternatives to scale your influencer marketing program in 2026 appeared first on Sprout Social.

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