A sponsored post on Instagram might not look like much. Maybe it’s just a well-lit matcha latte with a cafe tagged. But if it’s coming from an account with millions of followers, there’s far more work than what meets the eye to make that collaboration possible. A staggering 69% of consumers trust the recommendations that influencers give them for new products or services, according to Hubspot — despite knowing they're usually paid to do so.
Influencer marketing raked in $21.1 billion globally in 2023 — with a market behind it that acts as a matchmaker between influencers and brands. Influencer platforms like Collabstr have a lot to gain, as long as their content is catching the eyes of prospective influencers and brands.
Collabstr is a platform that makes “influencer marketing easy,” connecting brands to a vetted, vast database of influencers to collaborate with for Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube content. It streamlines collaborations with secure communication, payment handling, and performance tracking to make influencer marketing accessible and efficient for both brands and creators.
Collabstr relies on brand awareness to attract both brands and content creators to its marketplace. By 2024, it had done an amazing job with its growth. Just five years after its founding, the platform had established itself as a prominent influencer marketplace, spanning over 30 countries worldwide. But while Collabstr had experienced strong organic growth so far, founders Clayton Rannard and Kyle Dulay recognized the need to scale their content efforts even further.
They looked for a solution to help them scale up and boost their organic presence and brand awareness — ensuring their content reached the right audiences. They found the perfect match in Stacker.
The initial goal was to create more high-quality industry insights and market trends content to improve their rank in organic search and be noticed by media outlets that their audiences were already reading.
Collabstr worked with Stacker's Connect+Studio product, leveraging the newsroom-as-a-service offering, which pairs turn-key distribution with custom content production. With the Studio service package, Collabstr hand-picked a curated list of unique, newsworthy story angles that would resonate with both the creator and social media industries and then let Stacker’s expert writers and editors spin their storytelling magic. Next, Collabstr's stories were distributed to thousands of publishers on the Stacker Newswire, with strategic timing and optimization to maximize their reach and engagement.
Stacker helped Collabstr get the earned media coverage they were looking for by creating and distributing stories like How TikTok has changed the music industry, which earned over 480 placements in partner publications.
Collabstr quickly saw positive downstream impacts from the new domain-wide authority that their site had earned through their Stacker stories. Within three months, Collabstr gained 369 new referring domains, 5.3k in new organic traffic, and 315 new top-ranking keywords. The platform swiftly increased its visibility and SEO, solidifying its reputation as a leading influencer marketplace for platforms like TikTok. These early wins made the Collabstr leadership early fans of Stacker.
“This was something we had tried to achieve through more traditional methods but were not able to get to. Stacker was a game changer.” - Clayton Rannard, Cofounder at Collabstr
Now, the partnership was on a roll. Collabstr and Stacker continued to create and distribute 12 stories over six months, receiving 4,477 placements viewed by over 450,000 new readers across the US.
With significant leaps in organic traffic to their marketplace, Collabstr cemented its legitimacy as the leader of influencer marketing in a competitive space. Stacker's expansive distribution network and collaborative editorial support surpassed Kyle and Clayton's expectations.
“Our biggest concern was to make sure we got a lot more high-quality traffic back to our site. Stacker helped us create top-notch editorial content via their Studio offering, which enabled us to get our content distributed on publications like MSN, Miami Herald, The Herald, Charlotte Observer, and more,” said Clayton.
Beyond the data-driven results, Kyle and Clayton were also impressed with the Stacker team's responsiveness and collaborative nature.
"The quality of the content that Stacker creates is unmatched," said Kyle. "But above all, it's very easy to work with the team and communicate. We highly recommend Stacker for brands looking to get more high-quality backlinks and reach more viewers, and we're looking forward to exploring other products Stacker has to offer to continue that momentum."
With Stacker, Collabstr was able to position itself as a thought leader in influencer marketing. Stacker’s distribution network and editorial support helped Collabstr secure high-quality traffic to their website, boost their ranking in search, and enhance their visibility. They were able to expand their impact beyond traditional PR by securing thousands of earned media placements in top publications.
With a strengthened digital presence and a steady influx of new audiences, Collabstr continues to build on its momentum. It’s now the go-to platform for brands and creators in the influencer economy.
Read the full case study on Collabstr’s journey or contact us to see how Stacker can help your brand reach the A-List!
Doriane is Stacker’s Director of Marketing. She previously headed marketing departments in various companies, owned a marketing agency for 7 years, and built a startup combining automated marketing workflows with a marketing services marketplace.
Photo Illustration by Stacker // Canva