February 2025: What's new in the world of digital
Posted on 12th March 2025 at 15:03
Read Time: Approx. 9 Minutes 03 Seconds
Author: Joe Weatherill
Welcome to the February edition, where we share the updates in the world of digital.
Influencer Marketing Projected to Hit $31.2 Billion by 2027
What is it?: Influencer marketing is poised to evolve into a $31.2 billion industry by 2027, illustrating its significant influence on global brand strategies.
At its core, influencer marketing is a digital marketing approach where brands partner with influencers who have cultivated a loyal following on social media or various online platforms. Influencers can range from well-known celebrities and industry specialists to micro-influencers with dedicated niche audiences.
The essence of this strategy lies in utilising their credibility, reach, and engagement to authentically showcase products or services. Unlike traditional advertising methods, influencer marketing often appears more organic and relatable, resonating deeply with today’s consumers.
Why is it important?: The swift ascent of influencer marketing is indicative of a broader transformation in consumer behaviour. Here are several reasons highlighting its importance:
Trust and Authenticity Propel Purchases - Consumers have shown a greater propensity to trust influencers over conventional advertisements. Research has indicated that 92% of individuals rely on personal recommendations more than brand promotions. Influencers cultivate solid relationships with their audience, which enhances the persuasiveness of their endorsements.
Superior Engagement Rates - Influencers frequently achieve higher engagement rates compared to brand-managed social media accounts. This provides businesses with improved visibility and interaction opportunities with their target demographic.
Access to Specific Audiences - Collaborating with the right influencers enables brands to engage with precisely targeted demographics. Whether focusing on fashion, technology, fitness, or beauty, influencers have established audiences that align with niche markets.
Cost-Effective Marketing Approach - Influencer marketing can often prove to be more economical than traditional advertising. Micro-influencers produce an impressive return on investment (ROI) due to their strong engagement with followers, at a fraction of the cost associated with celebrity partnerships.
Enhances Brand Awareness and SEO - Content created by influencers can significantly boost brand visibility and improve search engine optimisation (SEO). Social media mentions, backlinks, and shares can direct increased organic traffic to your website.
What action should you take?: With influencer marketing poised to grow into a $31.2 billion industry, it’s crucial for businesses to adopt strategic approaches to stay competitive:
Identify the Right Influencers - Seek out influencers who resonate with your brand’s values and target audience. Analyse their engagement rates, authenticity, and previous collaborations.
Build Genuine Relationships - Prioritise nurturing long-term partnerships with influencers rather than engaging in one-off transactions. Authenticity plays a vital role, as audiences can easily discern when a collaboration feels forced or purely transactional.
Diversify Your Influencer Strategy - Explore collaborations with a range of influencers—micro, macro, and nano—to determine what works best for your brand. Micro-influencers often boast more engaged communities, while macro-influencers provide broader reach.
Set Clear Goals and Metrics - Establish success metrics such as engagement rates, click-through rates, conversions, and ROI. Employ tracking tools like Google Analytics, UTM links, and influencer marketing platforms to evaluate performance effectively.
Stay Compliant with Regulations - It’s essential for influencers to transparently disclose partnerships to adhere to FTC and other advertising regulations. Transparency fosters trust among audiences and helps avoid legal complications.
Invest in Video and Short-Form Content - Given the popularity of platforms like TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts, brands should prioritise video content. Influencers who produce captivating short-form videos are likely to enhance reach and engagement.
How we support brands in the Influencer Marketing Space:
We actively encourage influencer marketing across our brands, approving suitable influencers across our affiliate that are relevant to our brands, with the aim that their content ultimately drives sales.
Direct relationships with influencers, results in a more hands-on approach to ensure the message/plan of action we get across is best aligned with both the brand and the influencers vision. Having a direct relationship between the brand and the influencer will increase the chances of a longer/more effective relationship, as well as the influencer having more trust with the brand and therefore will prioritise them over other brands.
We also advocate using the platform LTK for influencer marketing is very useful, especially on the data tracking side. Providing influencers with analytics on clicks, conversions and earnings, helping them to understand what products work well with their audience, giving them more of an incentive to promote certain products/services.
Find out about 2025 influencer and affiliate marketing trends.
Klarna Browser Extension Accused of Hijacking Creators’ Affiliate Commissions
What is it? Klarna, a notable player in the buy now, pay later (BNPL) industry, is under fire over allegations that its browser extension is unlawfully taking affiliate commissions from content creators and influencers. These accusations have raised serious questions about fair compensation practices in the digital marketing landscape.
Affiliate marketing has become a crucial revenue stream for creators, allowing them to profit from promoting various products. Normally, when a follower clicks on an affiliate link provided by a creator and makes a purchase, the creator earns a commission. However, the controversy lies in Klarna’s browser extension, which is said to automatically replace these creators’ affiliate links with its own, thereby diverting commissions that rightfully belong to them.
This situation leaves influencers, bloggers, and content creators potentially underpaid for the sales they drive, while Klarna reaps the rewards of these commissions.
Why is it important? The recent allegations against Klarna’s extension have sparked important conversations about ethics and business practices. Questionable Monetisation Strategies - If Klarna is indeed substituting affiliate links, it jeopardises the compensation of creators who have dedicated substantial time and resources to driving sales. This action challenges the integrity of the affiliate marketing framework. Trust Breakdown Between Brands and Creators, many brands increasingly rely on the influence of content creators for marketing. If creators feel uncertain about the commitment to honour their affiliate earnings, they may hesitate to collaborate, which could undermine the entire influencer marketing ecosystem. Legal and Ethical Implications, depending on the region, Klarna’s purported conduct might breach fair business practices and existing affiliate agreements. If substantiated, this could result in legal repercussions, tighter regulations, or fines against Klarna. Consequences for Smaller Creators, while larger influencers might have multiple revenue sources, smaller creators are often more reliant on affiliate commissions.
What action should you take? If you are a content creator, influencer, or brand utilising affiliate marketing, consider these proactive measures to safeguard your interests. Keep an eye on your affiliate links, stay vigilant by regularly reviewing your affiliate reports for any unexpected drops in earnings. Employ tracking tools such as Affluent, Skimlinks or Google Analytics to identify unauthorised changes. Inform your audience, educate your followers about potential complications associated with the Klarna browser extension. Encourage them to disable auto-apply coupon and cashback features when accessing your affiliate links. Forge Direct Partnerships, whenever feasible, establish direct collaborations with brands instead of depending solely on third-party affiliate platforms. This can help guarantee that commissions are appropriately allocated to you. Advocate for Awareness, amplifying this issue can increase the likelihood of attention from companies and regulators. Utilise social media or influencer networks to share your experiences and insights. Demand Transparency from Affiliate Networks, it’s essential for affiliate marketing platforms to clarify whether third-party tools like Klarna’s affect your commissions. Reach out to your affiliate network for answers and advocate for improved tracking safeguards.
Our view and approach to Browser extensions
We educate our partners on the importance of Browser extensions and how they can utilise them to grow their business. We do not onboard every browser extension publisher, it is important to be considerate when selecting certain browser extensions. To meet CFD’s standards they must also be traffic enablers, with some form of site/platform that will drive incremental traffic. With every partner we work with, we measure the role of browser extension publishers as we would with any other form of publisher. Onboarding any kind of poor-quality publishers will damage our brand, in terms of lowering the quality of traffic, due to an irrelevant audience and also causing unnecessary confusion. This can cause clicks to rise rapidly but the sales do not match the trend, affecting overall ROI and negatively impacting performance data.
LinkedIn launches two tools to enhance marketing attribution
What is it?: LinkedIn Conversion API (CAPI): This innovative server-to-server integration empowers businesses to achieve more precise conversion tracking by circumventing browser constraints like cookie limitations. It allows marketers to gain in-depth insights into user behaviour, even when conventional tracking approaches fall short.
Enhanced Conversions for Leads: This feature enhances LinkedIn’s capacity to link lead generation forms with actual sales, offering marketers a clearer understanding of how their LinkedIn campaigns translate into revenue. By connecting offline sales data with LinkedIn advertisement interactions, businesses can evaluate their return on investment (ROI) with greater accuracy.
Why is it important?: LinkedIn’s new attribution tools are designed to tackle the significant challenges marketers encounter in assessing the effectiveness of digital advertising:
More Accurate Conversion Tracking: As privacy regulations become more stringent and cookie usage diminishes, traditional tracking methods lose reliability. The LinkedIn Conversion API addresses this issue by gathering data directly from servers, eliminating the need for third-party cookies.
Better ROI Measurement: Identifying which LinkedIn ads drive actual sales is essential for refining advertising strategies. Enhanced Conversions for Leads guarantees that businesses can directly link revenue to their LinkedIn campaigns, thereby substantiating their marketing expenditures.
Improved Lead Quality Insights: Numerous B2B marketers face challenges in correlating ad-generated leads with successful conversions. This update facilitates enhanced tracking of high-quality leads, enabling businesses to concentrate their efforts on what genuinely delivers results.
Stronger Data Privacy Compliance: With the tightening of data privacy regulations, companies require solutions that not only adhere to these laws but also yield meaningful insights. These tools enable marketers to monitor performance effectively without relying on third-party cookies, aligning with a privacy-first approach.
What action should you take?: Put the LinkedIn Conversion API into practice to improve conversion tracking and obtain more precise data, set up CAPI. Collaborate with your CRM provider or development team to incorporate LinkedIn's API into your backend systems.
Turn on Improved Lead Conversions, to monitor offline conversions, link your sales database or CRM to LinkedIn's platform. This will assist you in determining which LinkedIn ad leads result in paying clients.
Make your LinkedIn Advertising Strategy better, make use of these attribution insights to improve your creative strategies, budget allocation, and targeting. Campaigns that produce real business results should be prioritised over flimsy metrics like impressions or clicks.
Bonus Update
As brands increasingly turn to AI-driven personalisation to enhance customer loyalty, affiliate marketers must adapt to remain competitive. AI is transforming how businesses engage with consumers, offering hyper-personalised experiences that foster deeper relationships and long-term brand affinity. This shift presents both challenges and opportunities for affiliates who rely on traditional marketing tactics.
For affiliate marketers, AI-powered personalisation means that generic, one-size-fits-all promotions are becoming less effective. Consumers now expect recommendations that align with their interests, browsing behaviour, and purchase history. Brands leveraging AI can tailor product suggestions, email campaigns, and dynamic pricing to individual users, making their direct marketing efforts more compelling than ever. As a result, affiliates must refine their strategies to offer similarly personalised experiences, ensuring their content remains relevant and competitive.
AI-driven loyalty programs also present an opportunity for affiliates to integrate deeper into the customer journey. Many brands now use AI to predict customer needs and offer incentives at the right moment, increasing retention rates. Affiliate marketers who align with these trends—by promoting exclusive AI-driven deals, recommending personalised product bundles, or leveraging first-party data for targeted content—can enhance their value to both brands and consumers.
Another key shift is the impact of AI on affiliate attribution. As AI-powered marketing tools become more sophisticated, brands can better track customer interactions across multiple touchpoints. This could challenge traditional last-click attribution models, requiring affiliates to demonstrate their contribution throughout the buyer journey. Marketers who invest in data-driven strategies and collaborate more closely with brands on attribution models will be better positioned to secure their commissions and long-term partnerships.
Our final thoughts ...
Influencer marketing continues to be a powerful driver of brand awareness, engagement and sales. As consumer trust in traditional advertising declines, influencers offer an authentic, targeted and cost-effective way for brands to connect with their audience. However, success in influencer marketing requires a strategic approach, aligning with the right influencers, creating long-term relationships and leveraging data-driven insights to optimise performance. Due to the ever-evolving landscape of influencer marketing, brands must keep up to date with new trends and performance-driven strategies. Whether through affiliate networks, direct influencer partnerships, or AI-driven personalisation, brands that prioritise authenticity and data-driven decision making will continue to thrive in the digital space.
At Customer First Digital, to ensure we keep thriving and growing, we will continue to take a hands-on approach to influencer marketing by curating partnerships that align with brand goals and were possible are measurable and monetised, via a brands affiliate marketing programmes.
For further information on any of the latest product updates or anything new that is on your mind, get in touch with our team of digital experts today.
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