Influencer Gifting: 7 Ways To Grow Your Shopify Store Using Influencers

1. Encourage Influencers to Review Your Products

Reviews are a crucial selling tool for Shopify marketers. While a brand can do as much as possible to rave about its own products, consumers are 60% more likely to believe the validity of product recommendations from real people.

Therefore, it’s no surprise that most influencers are expected to review a product they have been gifted by a brand. 

With such a large audience of loyal followers, this is an easy way to encourage more sales and a spike in brand visibility among your demographic.

One of the most common formats for a product review is a video, usually posted on Instagram, TikTok or YouTube, which consists of an influencer trying out a product, filming it in action, and sitting down to give the audience their thoughts.

A great example of a powerful product review comes from the influencer Pooja Mundhra-Mahatme (@thecozyvibe) on Instagram. With more than 600K followers, Indian skincare brand Lakme took the chance to appeal to their shared target audience by gifting her their newest Vitamin C+ range.

From powerful visuals to reviewing the product in action, Pooja’s review received more than 40,000 views, sparking engagement for this skincare brand.

2. Localise Your Influencer Gifting Campaign

If you’re a smaller Shopify store on the market, you may benefit from localizing your influencer marketing campaign. 

While opting for the largest influencer on the market may seem beneficial, you must also think about where your target audience is based.

For example, choosing to partner with an American influencer as a UK-only brand could see your partnership fall flat, as an audience of predominantly American viewers would be unable to access your storefront.

Instead, choose an influencer that is a powerful voice within your own area. If you’re a local business that also runs a brick-and-mortar store, choosing a smaller influencer from within your local community could also drive customers to your physical store, as well as your Shopify storefront.

“Look for an influencer whose audience is primarily in your region to get the most out of influencer marketing,” says Maria Harutyunyan, Co-Founder of Loopex Digital. “A solid local micro-influencer marketing strategy will generate a high ROI and open the door to further growth.”

3. Give Your Influencers Exclusive Discount Codes

When influencer gifting, ensure that you give your influencer target something that will drive engagement on their own channel. 

Attaching exclusive discount codes to your PR package could be the answer if you want your branded gift to stand out from your competitors. Offering exclusive promo codes that can be used by an influencer’s audience encourages the influencer to create content surrounding your brand.

With more than 97% of consumers now looking for deals when they shop online, creating content that shares an affiliate code or promotional discount drives engagement for both the content creator and your brand.

The process of offering a promotional discount through influencers is simple. When forging a partnership between your brand and your chosen influencer, share an exclusive promotional code with their PR package that can only be shared with their followers.

Ensure that you advertise this as a limited-time discount, as the sense of urgency will push followers to act fast.

Trial a few different options with different influencers and see what works for you. Some of the most common discount ideas include shipping discounts, price break promotions and, most habitually, percentage-based discounts for high-demand products.

Another smart approach might be to use a Shopify affiliate app. With an affiliate program, influencers get paid a portion of each sale they generate for your store.

Ensure that your ecommerce storefront is set up to process discount codes and is easy to navigate for leads filtering through from social media. Our advice is to list the products that are currently part of an ongoing campaign at the centre of your storefront, making them visible and easy to interact with.

As a Shopify store, you can also use the Shopify Collabs app to easily assign a discount code to numerous influencers at once for their followers. The use of multiple codes allows you to track which influencer drives the most engagement to your store simply by monitoring the code used at the checkout. 

4. Encourage Gift Unboxing

Gift unboxing experiences always drive engagement. Not only do they show your product range from all angles, but viewers enjoy the element of surprise as the influencer discovers your products for the first time. 

Unboxing videos often drive the most sales for a brand. With the ability to view a content creator’s initial reaction to your product shape, style and smell, consumers believe that the review is more authentic, rendering them more likely to act on a positive review.

Take this example here from popular Instagram and TikTok influencer Louise Pentland. In her newest TikTok series with her daughter Darcy, they shoot content, open up PR packages together and try out the products inside.

With most unboxing videos on her channel bringing in more than 100,000 views, 15K likes, and hundreds of interested comments, their content is a perfect example of how powerful an unboxing video can be for brand visibility in the social sphere.

5. Attach a Branded Hashtag With Your Gift

When influencer gifting, ensure that your PR package centers around a certain campaign or hashtag. Branded hashtags are a no-nonsense way to ensure that your Shopify brand gains visibility across socials.

When completing your influencer gifting package, ensure that either the box or a note inside mentions the key hashtag for the product campaign and let your influencer know that it should be included if/when their review content is posted online.

Air Wick is a great example of a brand that does this well. As a well-known air freshener brand, they use their influencer partnerships to market new product campaigns.

For each of their influencer partnerships, they ask the content creator to add the hashtag #AirWickPartner to their promotional content, making it easy for interested customers to click on the hashtag and discover other famous faces talking about different products the brand has on offer.

This campaign saw the brand’s engagement rate improve by 39% and the campaign also improved the numbers in Air Wick’s branded hashtags.

6. Target Micro-Influencers

Micro-influencing is on the rise. More content creators from niche demographics are becoming key targets for brand partnerships.

While micro-influencers tend to have a smaller following, choosing these content creators for influencer gifting reduces the competition from other brands and provides you with the chance to tailor your marketing to a niche demographic.

Micro-influencers tend to have a small group of loyal followers who rely on their opinions regarding the brand and products they choose to engage with.

Better still, with the ability to forge partnerships with micro-influencers at a fraction of the price it would cost to collaborate with a large-scale content creator, you have the chance to connect with multiple smaller influencers and drive sales from highly engaged online communities.

7. Include A Giveaway Gift In Your PR Package

Last but not least, including a giveaway in your influencer gifting campaign is a great way to encourage engagement from their followers.

This is a win/win opportunity for the brand and the influencer, as often, in order to win a giveaway, followers must engage with both social channels.

Why not launch a contest encouraging an influencer’s following to create content surrounding your brand? You’ll find that most consumers will pull out all the stops for a chance to win free products, so now is the time to get creative.

Take this example from Misfits, for instance. After partnering with fitness personality Kitty Jones Fit, who boasts over 27K followers on Instagram, the company set up a giveaway of their protein bars.

Here, she detailed the rules of the competition, suggesting that followers must enter the code KittyComp20 when ordering a product from Misfit’s storefront for a chance to win the giveaway. 

Influencer Gifting Outreach Template

Hi [Influencer's First Name],

I hope you're having a great day! I came across your content on [Platform] and love how you [mention something specific about their content—e.g., "create such engaging skincare reviews" or "have a great eye for minimalist fashion"].

We’re [Brand Name], a [brief description of your brand—e.g., "a sustainable skincare brand that believes in clean, effective beauty"]. We’d love to send you a gift from our latest collection, no strings attached!

We know your audience values [mention a benefit of your product—e.g., "high-quality, cruelty-free beauty products"], and we think they’d love to hear your honest thoughts if you enjoy using it.

Let us know if you’re interested, and we’d be happy to send a package your way. Just let us know where to ship it! 😊

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

Best,

[Your Name]

[Your Brand]

[Your Contact Info]

[Your Website/Socials]

💡 Pro Tip: Personalization is key! Before sending this, tweak it to fit each influencer’s unique style and audience.

1. Use Influencer Content in Your Paid Ads

Influencer content makes some of the best ad creatives. Why? Because it feels authentic. Consumers are more likely to engage with an ad that looks like a real review rather than a brand-produced campaign. Take snippets of influencer testimonials, product demos, or unboxing videos and turn them into:

• Facebook & Instagram Ads - Use influencer UGC to create scroll-stopping video or carousel ads
• TikTok Spark Ads -  Boost organic TikTok videos from influencers directly
• YouTube Ads -  Feature influencer reviews as part of a retargeting strategy

2. Feature UGC on Your Website

Your website should reflect social proof, and what better way to do that than by showcasing real influencer content like watch brand Cluse does? Repurpose influencer reviews, testimonials, and product images to:

• Create a dedicated “As Seen On” section featuring influencers who love your brand
• Replace studio-shot product images with influencer lifestyle photos to make your products feel more relatable
• Embed influencer video reviews on product pages to improve conversions - video content increases purchase likelihood by up to 85%

3. Add Social Proof to Your Email Campaigns

Emails packed with influencer UGC perform better than generic brand-driven campaigns. Sprinkle influencer-generated content into:

• Welcome sequences - Feature influencers unboxing your products to build excitement
• Abandoned cart emails - Include influencer testimonials to nudge hesitant shoppers toward purchase
• Post-purchase emails - Encourage customers to share their own UGC by showcasing influencer-created content

4. Boost Your Organic Social Presence

Make your influencer gifting campaign work harder by repurposing UGC across your own social pages:

• Repost influencer content on Instagram Stories, TikTok, and Facebook
• Turn testimonials into quote-style graphics for LinkedIn and Twitter
• Create Instagram Reels or TikTok compilations featuring multiple influencers using your product

5. Leverage UGC in Retargeting & Remarketing

Not every shopper converts on the first visit, but influencer content can help bring them back. Use UGC for:

• Retargeting ads - Show influencer testimonials to visitors who abandoned their carts
• Google Display Ads - Use influencer images to add social proof to your remarketing strategy
• Email remarketing campaigns - Send a “See what others are saying” email featuring influencer reviews

By integrating influencer content across your entire marketing ecosystem, you ensure that every gifted product delivers lasting value beyond a single post. The result? A campaign that keeps working long after the initial influencer mention.