Influencer marketing: pros and cons of PR gifting

What is PR gifting?

PR gifting (or just 'gifting') is a low cost form of influencer marketing strategy commonly used by fashion, beauty and lifestyle product brands for brand awareness.

The brand gives the influencer free products in exchange for being featured in their content.

There is no monetary payment involved. 

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Gifted vs Paid partnerships

When it comes to influencer marketing brands have two options: 

• Unpaid collabs (gifted)

• Paid partnerships

The biggest differences between gifted and paid are:

• Level of control

• Depth of brand focus

• Degree of guarantee

• Scope of usage

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Common misconception of gifting influencers

A lot of brands automatically want to do gifting because it’s cheaper so it feels like you get more bang for your buck.

However, the problem is...

They’re basing this assumption on the idea that gifted delivers the same outcomes as paid.

And, that’s not typically the case.

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Pros & cons of PR gifting

Because there is no monetary payment that reduces the level of input brands have in what, when, how or where the influencer creates the content. Which means, gifted influencer collabs deliver very different outcomes to paid partnerships where brands have a lot more input and the influencer has more concrete obligations.

It's important for brands to understand what PR gifting offers but also its limitations so they can choose the right type of influencer marketing for their needs.

✅ PROS OF GIFTING	❌ CONS OF GIFTING
Cheaper	No guarantee of posting
Ability to do higher volume	No control over content type or quality
Content often more authentic	No control over posting timeline
Affordable long-term brand awareness strategy	Limited access to top tier creators
Good for building relationships	Reduced ability to select preferred creators
	No guaranteed access to content for re-purposing
	No paid usage rights

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PR Gifitng or Paid Partnership: Which one should I use?

Gifted and paid influencer marketing are ultimately two different tools that offer brands two different sets of levers to pull in their campaigns.

Typically, a combination of gifted and paid is recommended with each of them fulfilling different objectives.

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Work with an influencer marketing expert

Influencer marketing is a big part of what we do at SZN in terms of both developing influencer campaigns and incorporating them into growth strategy

But also running our own influencer account. We run the Australian women's fashion account @sznofstyle which has generated 70M+ views across instagram and TikTok.

We know what works and (because we’re part of the industry) we already know a lot of the best Australian influencers

Work with SZN on high-performance influencer marketing - get in touch