RewardStyle’s newest feature is a transparency tool for brands.
The influencer monetization platform has launched a free, cloud-based portal available to its 5,000 brand partners, which include QVC, DSW, Loft, Free People, Colleen Rothschild, Abercrombie & Fitch and Urban Outfitters. The portal allows brands to monitor influencer campaigns in real time and view their performance on the Liketoknow.it app.
A beta version of the portal opened early last week. On May 8, RewardStyle expanded the beta to include all of its retail partners.
“The first step in driving greater results with influencers is understanding how you’re doing,” said Amber Venz Box, RewardStyle cofounder. “The platform tracks what we call RPIs, revenue-producing influencers, someone who’s actively driving not just traffic but sales. It allows the brand to understand the sources of traffic and revenue.”
Consumers have purchased $1 billion worth of products from RewardStyle’s retail partners over the past six months, Venz Box said. Half of those purchases occurred within the Liketoknow.it shopping app.
In April, RewardStyle grew 300 percent, marking its highest growth in a single month since its inception. The company now works with 5,000 retailers and 70,000 influencers.
WWD previously reported that RewardStyle saw a 40 percent year-over-year increase within the commission on sales side of its business in March, when the coronavirus first caused U.S. retailers to temporarily close stores. RewardStyle also experienced a 30 percent increase in paid campaigns in March, illustrating brands’ increasing reliance on influencers during COVID-19.
“Retailers have shifted to depend on the humanization of the brand that influencers offer,” Venz Box said. “That strategy is working for everyone.”
RewardStyle’s brand-facing portal is cloud-based, allowing teams to view an active, live dashboard of their brand’s metrics from anywhere in the world.
“We’ve spent millions of dollars creating this platform, but we see this as what our brands need to be efficient, especially in the new environment,” Venz Box said. “They’ve historically relied on the ability to have an in-store sales force. Ninety percent of their sales have been coming from in-store and in the absence of that, we wanted to get a tool in their hands very quickly that allowed them to monitor their digital distributed sales force at scale and efficiently.”
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