Influencer marketing is a modern strategy that the vast majority of major brands have already adapted to. While influencer marketing is a relatively recent innovation in its current form, that doesn’t mean innovations haven’t already arrived that optimize how it is conducted. One such innovation is influencer whitelisting.

Influencer whitelisting allows brands to post ads that appear on consumers’ feeds that appear to be posted by the influencer. The content is created by the brands and posted through a partnership with the influencer. The ads don’t show up on the influencer’s page, but the ads appear as if the influencers created them.

Whitelisting ads take the brand-influencer partnership to the next level. They allow brands to create ads that appear like influencer-generated content but are created by marketing teams. There are numerous benefits to influencer whitelisting. Let’s dive into the four primary ones that make whitelisting ads a key format for the industry’s future.

Natural Marketing Content that Penetrates Ad Fatigue

Ad fatigue is a real problem many brands must address. According to a 2018 survey, 77% of U.S digital buyers surveyed said they had seen too many ads from the same brands and that it bothers them. No one wants an endless stream of ads, and if you want to appeal to consumers, you have to provide them with native content that blends in with the rest of their feed.

Instagram whitelisting is the perfect example of the type of natural content that will break through ad fatigue. While the posts are still shown to be sponsored, because they appear to be posted by influencers, the content blends in with the rest of your targeted users’ Instagram feed. Whitelisting ads are so helpful because they give brands a huge amount of control while not being posted from their pages.

Higher-Level Control for Brands

Influencer marketing is often incredibly effective, but one issue some brands have is their lack of control over the content. By creating whitelisting ads, brands have a much more significant level of control over what is being posted. Unlike the typical sponsored post, with whitelisting, brands are essentially speaking through the influencers.

Whitelisting ads give businesses the ability to write the copy and include a call to action, which elevates the messaging of the content. With whitelisting, influencers essentially agree to be the ad’s face and name, while brands are the brain behind it. This puts businesses in the driver’s seat and gives them a heightened ability to dictate the direction of the content they are creating.

Better Targeting to Reach the Right Customers

The ability to target your content is what makes whitelisting so important. The typical influencer marketing post goes out to the people followed by that influencer. But with whitelisting, several different targeting settings can allow you to reach a much more significant number of consumers.

The two targeting settings that brands often use when Instagram or Facebook whitelisting are engaged audiences and lookalike audiences. Engaged audiences are people who’ve already engaged with the influencer’s content. This is a smaller but more intimate and connected group to be targeting. Lookalike audiences are demographically similar to the engaged audience, whether it’s due to age, location, or similar accounts they follow. Whitelisted ads can be promoted to these lookalike groups based on the influencer or influencers you are using for your campaign, which can significantly expand the reach of your content.

Build a Mutually Beneficial Relationship

Influencer whitelisting is still relatively new, but it can provide a massive mutual benefit for both brands and creators. The end goal of influencer marketing is to build a strong partnership that benefits both parties, and influencer whitelisting can often lead to that desired result.

For brands, whitelisting ads give them better targeting capabilities, the ability to reach a following beyond just the influencer’s base, and more latitude and control over the content that’s created. While this can lead to higher expenses depending on the influencer, the potential for a greater ROI is massive.

From the perspective of influencers, whitelisting is also a hugely promising development. For micro-influencers, whitelisting is an excellent way for their account to be boosted to a vast new group of followers similar to the group that already follows them. For more prominent influencers, there can be a boost in their payment for a decreased role in producing the content, and it doesn’t have to stay on their permanent feed.

Overall, the benefits of influencer whitelisting are massive. The ability to target a broader yet still specific base, the mutual upside for influencers and brands, the increase in creative control, and the native nature of the content all make whitelisting ads an incredible opportunity for businesses marketing online.