June 16, 2025 • 28 mins
Discover the future of influencer marketing with Luke Yarnton, founder of Influencer Radar, as he discusses with host Peter Woolfolk how brands are finding their most authentic advocates within their existing customer base.
The marketing landscape is shifting dramatically away from traditional paid endorsements toward genuine customer advocacy. Yarnton's groundbreaking technology identifies customers who already have significant social media followings at the moment they make a purchase, allowing brands to transform existing customers into powerful brand ambassadors.
What makes this approach particularly effective is its foundation in authenticity. These aren't hired spokespeople reading scripted testimonials—they're genuine customers who've spent their own money on products they value. Yarnton shares a fascinating psychological insight: offering to refund a purchase in exchange for content converts at rates 1000 times higher than offering the same amount as a direct payment for posts.
Trust in traditional advertising continues to decline, while word-of-mouth recommendations from friends, family, and smaller influencers remain highly valued. Yeoman notes an inverse relationship between follower count and perceived trustworthiness—as an influencer's audience grows larger, audience trust typically decreases. This makes micro and nano influencers particularly valuable for authentic marketing.
Brands can implement this strategy through simple notification systems alerting them when influencers make purchases, automated email offers exchanging refunds for content, or "surprise and delight" campaigns sending personalized gifts to customer-influencers. Each approach taps into the powerful combination of authentic product experience and established audience trust.
This shift represents a broader transition toward decentralized marketing, where brands empower thousands of individual creators to share products in their own authentic voice rather than tightly controlling messaging. As consumers grow increasingly skilled at identifying inauthentic content, brands that embrace real customer voices will build stronger, more meaningful connections with their audiences.
Ready to transform your existing customers into your most powerful marketing force? Visit theraveco.co or email luke@theraveco.co to learn how Influencer Radar can revolutionize your influencer strategy with authenticity at its core.
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Announcer (00:04):
Welcome.
This is the Public RelationsReview Podcast, a program to
discuss the many facets ofpublic relations with seasoned
professionals, educators,authors and others.
Now here is your host, PeterWoolfolk.
Peter Woolfolk (00:25):
Welcome to the Public Relations Review Podcast
and to our listeners all acrossAmerica and around the world.
Now, apple has ranked thispodcast among the top 1% of
podcasts worldwide and recentlyFeedspot listed this podcast as
number 13 on its top 70 bestpublic relations podcasts in the
United States.
So thank you to all of ourguests and listeners for your
(00:48):
continued support and if youenjoy the podcast, please leave
a review.
Question for my audience haveyou paid close attention to
influence the marketers thesedays?
How many are simply people whosay what you pay them to say and
not much more?
How much would your credibilityfactor multiply if your
organization used actualcustomers speaking from real
(01:11):
experience with your product orservice?
Well, that scenario is now hereand it's doing very well.
Influencer marketing is changingwith influencer radar.
They spot influential customersthe moment they buy.
It focuses on existingcustomers as the real game
changers, rather than theso-called big names.
(01:32):
Imagine harnessing that hiddenpotential in an audience to
transform them into advocates oftheir favorite brands.
It's a topic that's not justtimely but could also increase
the believability factor of yourforward-thinking company.
Now, my guest today is thefounder of the Rave, the creator
(01:52):
of Influential Radar.
They engage influencers fromwithin Friar's customer bases
and pivots them towardsauthenticity and genuine
connections.
So joining me today from MexicoCity, Mexico is, is Luke
Yarnton.
Luke, welcome to the podcast.
Luke Yarnton (02:10):
Peter, I'm so excited to be here.
I was listening to one of yourpodcasts earlier today when you
were speaking with Amber aboutmerchandise for brands, and I
think of all the podcasts I'vebeen on lately, your voice is by
far the most enchanting andleathery.
It's sort of like I'm speakingon a late-night radio kind of
(02:31):
DJ-type situation.
So excited to be here, excitedto get into the deep
conversations about influencermarketing with someone who's
obviously well-experienced inthe space and knows what he's
talking about.
Peter Woolfolk (02:42):
Well, you know, that's the thing that intrigued
me when your office sent me aninvitation to have you on here,
because I'd never heard aboutthis before.
And it makes perfect sense, youknow, using customers to speak
on what they like.
So, basically, how did you?
What caused you to create this?
What did you see that youthought was missing, that led to
(03:03):
your creating Influencer Radar?
Luke Yarnton (03:08):
Yeah, look, there's a couple of different
factors that have come in tothat have fueled us to get us to
the point that we're at now.
I think one of them, one of thekey ones, is that we built I
built a referral and affiliateplatform.
So with a referral andaffiliate platform, the metrics
you care about is who's sharingtheir unique referral links, or
(03:28):
referral affiliate links, totheir friends, family and
followers and how many clicksare they getting, and
consistently, time and timeagain.
What would get the merchants orthe businesses that use our
referral and affiliatetechnology excited was seeing
that a micro influencer or anano influencer was sharing
their product organically.
They somehow happened upon areferral link by themselves and
(03:51):
they're sharing with theiraudience, and they would go wild
.
That's so exciting for them.
So then I took a step back andsaid what are some ways that we
could streamline, uh, getting tothis end point of having, uh,
someone who cares about yourbrand, who's also a
micro-influencer or anan-influencer sharing about it
and I come from a technologybackground, so I'm sort of
(04:13):
well-versed in the judo that istechnology and I said, look,
based on what I know from thisreferral and affiliate platform,
we're consuming a bunch ofinformation when this is
happening.
So every single time a customermakes a transaction at one of
the businesses we work with, weget that customer profile, so we
(04:34):
get the email address, we getthere all these other details
and in a previous world I did alot of work in e-commerce, so I
know from an e-commerceperspective what it's like to
partner with an influencer or acreator, and I know what these
influencer databases look likeand the details that exist in
those databases.
So by that logic, I said itshould be pretty easy if I have
(05:00):
the information that exists onone side, which is here's
everything you need to knowabout creators and influences,
and here's some information thatI own that's on my side, which
is email address, name, deliverydetails, blah, blah, blah.
It should be pretty easy justto match one against the other
and I should automatically beable to find, based on all of
these influencer databasesaround the world, who's actually
(05:22):
an influencer, who's buyingfrom me so what or what?
Peter Woolfolk (05:28):
or?
I guess the best question isonce you have that information
about this particular influencer, how do you get them to become
an influencer for theorganization that wants that
information or wants them to bean influencer?
Luke Yarnton (05:44):
yeah, that's a really good question, peter, and
look, the right approach forthat varies depending on
different businesses and theseat that I'm sitting in here.
Now.
I get to see some businessesdoing some pretty cool stuff in
terms of how they're planning toactivate the influencers who
live within their customer base.
(06:05):
So maybe let me speak just threeor four different versions of
that.
The most basic version thatwe're seeing that is popular and
really easy to set up is weintegrate our technology into
the stores, right, and themoment that an influencer makes
a purchase, we create anotification that goes to the
influencer manager or someone inthe marketing team that says
(06:29):
hey, this person just made apurchase from you.
Maybe you want to to reach outto them and and see if they're
interested in being a partnerwith you.
And they can go through thelist.
Every day there's maybe 10 newinfluences that made a purchase.
And just to give you an idea onvolume, we see, for every 10,000
customers that make a purchase,200 of them have more than
(06:51):
2,500 followers on eitherInstagram, tiktok, youtube or
Twitter X.
So the easiest way is we justsend them a notification saying
maybe you want to reach out tothis person and then they can,
via Instagram, dm or somethingcan, reach out to them and say,
hey, so you made a purchase, anychance you'd be interested in
collaborating in the future?
That's the low lift, easy wayto integrate something can can
reach out to them and say, hey,so you made a purchase, any
chance you'd be interested incollaborating in the future.
(07:11):
That's the the low lift, easyway to integrate.
Let's go to level two.
Level two is such that we setup some email automations so
customer makes a purchase ifthey're identified as an
influencer.
We create an email flow off theback of that.
That happens automatically andthat email flow says and the
(07:32):
email that they receive variesdepending on the follow account
that they have and the mostsuccessful email we have gets
delivered.
We organize it to be deliveredabout 48 hours after the
purchase and it says, hey, wesee you purchased, we love your
content and to acknowledge thatyou made a purchase from us,
we'd love to refund your ordercompletely if you're happy just
(07:54):
to feature our product that youjust purchased in your instagram
story or in some way over thenext week or two and for most
people who've purchased withtheir own money, you're not
putting too much pressure onthem to brand it or post it in a
certain type of way, shape orform.
It's purely just.
If you can just feature us inany way you want, happy to
(08:15):
refund that that purchasecompletely free of charge.
Peter Woolfolk (08:17):
Wait, I just, I just want to make sure I
understand for you.
If they agree to be a um aninfluencer for you, the
companies will then give themtheir money back in exchange for
doing that exactly so.
Luke Yarnton (08:33):
So this is weird.
We've sampled by accidentacross this weird phenomenon,
phenomenon which is um.
Refunds of purchase tend to beheld in a different regard to
cash for posting.
So, for example, if you were toreach out to an influencer and
say I'm going to give you ahundred dollars for an Instagram
post, most of them will tellyou no, go away, not interested.
(08:55):
That's well below my marketrate.
But if they've spent a hundreddollars on a product and you
offer to refund the full priceof that product, so it's a
hundred dollars in exchange forthem featuring you in a post,
the conversion rate is athousand times higher than the
previous situation.
You're saying I want to give you100 to post about me for some
reason, and look, I'm sure some,uh, consumer psychologist is
(09:18):
going to be able to tell me theexact reason why that occurs.
I I'm not sure about myself,but it seems to change the logic
if it's a refund versus a netpayment.
So offering that refund say hey, so we purchased, here's a
refund.
All you need to do is justfeature it in some way over the
next two weeks.
Would love to go through thatprocess with you.
Peter Woolfolk (09:41):
Well, you know, it makes a lot of sense to me.
It does simply because Ipurchased without knowing
anything about being aninfluencer.
I purchased it because I neededit or wanted it or I like it.
Exactly.
Announcer (09:52):
So now.
Peter Woolfolk (09:54):
I have no problem speaking up to say that
I like it and enjoy it, and thebonus, of course is that I'm
going to?
Luke Yarnton (10:01):
get paid You're going to give me my money back
for saying that I like somethingthat I was going to pay for?
anyway, Exactly, exactly,exactly, exactly, exactly
exactly, um, and the key thingis, once you like you, it's the
start of a partnership side, ofa relationship.
So, while getting one simplepost to a uh an instagram
(10:21):
account now might seeminsignificant, the idea is, once
you've got them to do something, once the likelihood of you
being able to to get into postmultiple times or to actually
build a relationship and forthem to be invested in an
advocate of your brandsignificantly increases.
Um, the third, third, third,third layer, the third version,
(10:41):
the third uh option that I I wastalking about and this is my
favorite at the moment.
I think this is like reallycool, um, is that we work with a
lot of brands who just do these.
We call them surprise anddelight campaigns.
Where they'll they'll gothrough on a quarterly basis.
Look at everyone who'spurchased from them in the last
quarter, find all of theinfluences in there, plus all
the influences who purchasedfrom them previously, and
(11:06):
they'll just see in somethingwhat, to the average person,
might seem small andinsignificant, but from a brand
that they already know and careabout, a handwritten note with
something for free and the.
The unfair advantage and thekey benefit here is these brands
know the size, they know thedelivery address, they know the
details, the order details ofthese influencers and creators,
(11:27):
because they've gone through andmade a purchase in the past.
So it might cost a couple ofthousand dollars, but you've
just sent out a bunch of reallyexciting uh activation content
to these creators, uh and, and Ithink that's a really
interesting and innovative wayto sort of make the most out of
these creator partners thatexist within your database.
Peter Woolfolk (11:52):
Now let me ask you is there any way that, once
the organization brings thisperson on as an influencer, is
there any way to measure theirproductivity?
In other words, did they postsomething nice about, whatever
it was, the product that theybought, and can then the
(12:13):
merchant track the results ofthat posting?
Luke Yarnton (12:19):
So I've got a couple of answers to that
question For me.
Obviously, I'm from the world ofreferral and affiliate
marketing, and when it comes toreferral and affiliate marketing
and when it comes to referraland affiliate marketing, we're
laser.
It's, everything is fullyattributable and and fully
visual.
So I believe that trying toencourage your creators to post
(12:41):
a specific link that's unique tothem, that allows you to track
exactly how many clicks they'regetting and what the engagement
of those customers looks likewhen you get to the website, is
the the the key is is probablythe best practice and the
healthiest way to go about thatprocess.
Um, in saying that, I I thinkit's also true that the way we
(13:03):
consider these engagements andrelationships with creators and
influencers is changing, and bythis I mean, I think we're
shifting towards thisdecentralized marketing world,
and by that I mean it used to bethat the brand makes all of the
decisions around what the brandlooks like and what people say
about the brand and the font andeverything we're.
(13:25):
Now we're starting to see thatdecentralized, where the brand
is actually being represented bythousands of different creators
and influencers who all speakabout the brand in their own way
, shape or form.
So putting pressure on thesecreators and influencers for a
style of language or a type ofperformance that you're looking
(13:46):
for.
I'm not sure if that's going tobe the winning formula going
forward, and the decentralizedapproach should be we're going
to reward you if you can maketransactions, but you have
freedom to achieve thosetransactions in any way, shape
or form you see fit.
We'll just make the best damnproduct we possibly can and let
(14:07):
you, the creator, do what you dobest, which is finding an
engaged audience and tellingthem about our product in a way
that makes sense to you andmakes sense to them well, you
know, I'm certainly on boardwith that, because when
information comes from somebodythat you know and trust and have
seen around for a long time, uh, the believability factor is so
(14:27):
much higher you know, ascompared to an advertisement on
TV or online or from somebodyyou don't know.
Peter Woolfolk (14:36):
So that believability factor well, I've
been knowing you for a long time.
If it's good for you, it's goodenough for me, sort of thing I
think holds up a lot better orworth a lot more than the fact
that you paid somebody I don'tknow a couple hundred dollars to
say that it's good.
Luke Yarnton (14:51):
Exactly.
And look, I think you'respeaking to a very interesting
trend that's happening at themoment, where there's some good
charts out there on the internetthat I suppose the folks
listening to this can have alook at afterwards, and it shows
the trust in different forms ofmedia over time and you'll see
that the trust in traditionaladvertising is falling.
(15:11):
The trust in traditional mediais falling dramatically.
Even the trust in liketraditional influencer marketing
, which is you partnering withan influencer with 1 million or
2 million followers.
The trust in them is fallingsignificantly.
Where the trust remains is withword of mouth from friends and
friends and family andco-workers.
(15:32):
That's still super high, andwith the.
There's a sort of a converserelationship when it does come
to Instagram influencers or orTikTok influencers or YouTubers,
where, as the follower countincreases, the level of trust in
them decreases.
So you want to occupy that asmany as you can towards the
(15:54):
bottom of the.
The smaller the better.
You want to build an army ofthese sort of smaller high trust
influencers and ambassadorsthat are going to carry your
brand to the next level.
Peter Woolfolk (16:04):
Well, I mean I can certainly understand that,
because if people can see thatyou, your how would I put it?
Your remarks about this havebeen influenced about how much
you got paid, not how much youvalue it or how much you use it
or how much it benefits you ascompared to well, I've been
(16:25):
using it for years the fact thatthey gave me a couple of
dollars or refunded it, I meandidn't make that much difference
to me because I was going tobuy it anyway.
I mean I can certainlyunderstand the difference and it
does make sense to me and I canunderstand the value to the
employer or the person wantingit.
It stands out and thebelievability factor is far much
(16:49):
higher.
So I can certainly understandwhy those ratios are what they
are, because of how it's done.
Luke Yarnton (16:58):
Yeah, and look, I think, further to that point.
Consumers are wising up to thisidea of authenticity and they
can tell when someone's beinginauthentic, when they're
talking about a brand that theydon't actually know and love,
which I think this is why it isso critical If you can find a
creator who actually spent theirown hard-earned cash to buy
your product or to experienceyour service or to go to your
(17:19):
event.
If they spent their money andthey're going to be talking
about it, they were genuinelyexcited to make that purchase.
And so being able to capturethose people when the time is
right.
That's one of the best sort ofmarketing or PR assets you can
have in 2025.
Peter Woolfolk (17:36):
Well, you know, the other thing too is this sort
of intersexual interlocks withstorytelling, Because when
people are looking forstorytelling, it's the
authenticity.
I mean it's been shown that themore authentic and honest that
you are about it, the morebelievable you are and the more
attraction you get.
Luke Yarnton (17:54):
So I mean, from what I'm hearing now, these two
things actually go together 100%and look, I think, to that
point as well when it comes tostorytelling.
If I'm a creator with 3,000 or4,000 followers and they're
engaged and they love my contentwith 3,000 or 4,000 followers
and they're engaged and theylove my content, I don't want to
(18:14):
risk sort of like breakingtheir trust or telling them a
story that they're notinterested in, about a product
that I don't even love, as asmall sort of like that 3,000,
4,000 follower count influence.
I want to be telling themgenuine things that I love, that
I know they're going to careabout, that I trust completely
because that relationship I havewith them is so important and
(18:35):
I'm not going to risk that onsome cheap paid endorsement from
some brand I've never heard of.
Peter Woolfolk (18:42):
Well, you know, it also obviously depends on who
you bring on board, becausethere are some people that care
more about how much money theymake and so, you know, just
prostitute themselves to say ifthat's what you want me to say,
then that's what I'll say.
That's a huge difference fromsomebody saying hey look, I said
it because I believe in it.
I've been using it for yearsand I wouldn't do it if I didn't
(19:04):
believe in it.
Those are two different things,and the believability factor
and whoever brought you on boardadds to their credibility
because you brought on somebody.
That also believes it.
Luke Yarnton (19:17):
yeah, look, I think that's a short-sighted
approach where, if you're justgoing to sell out to whoever
wants to pay the most money,people are going to start
realizing that it's not genuineand it's not real.
And look, the same applies tothese brands who are starting to
get ai influencers, like fakeavatars that are talking about
the brand pretending to be aninfluencer Again, short-sighted
approach.
It's not real, it's not genuine.
People are going to see throughthat.
Peter Woolfolk (19:38):
Well, you know, and these are the things that I
think, as you point out earlier,consumers are catching on to
this.
Now you know what I mean.
Ai is going to get to the pointthat if it's misused, it's
going to damage your product oryour service, because people can
see through some of thesethings.
Maybe you might get them on thebeginning, because they don't
(19:59):
know any better, but once theyfind out that you've tried to
pull the wool over their eyes,you're going to lose a lot, not
only to them as a customer, butthey're going to tell their
friends and neighbors about ittoo, and so the wheels really
begin to come off after thatlook, I think that's one of the
most insulting things you can doas a brand is to try and pull
the wool over your customerseyes and give them a fake
(20:20):
endorsement or like a fake storyabout a product.
Luke Yarnton (20:23):
If you're a good brand that makes a good product
or a good service or a goodexperience, you should have no
trouble finding people to tellthat story to the world.
That's the way the world works.
Now is that these snippetsexist on on social media.
You should have no trouble, andwhat what we're doing is just
for these good brands, that thatmake good products and and tell
(20:44):
good stories.
We help them find the peoplethat are happy to tell that
story.
Um plus, they've got a big oldmicrophone so they can tell a
lot of people because theyalready have this built-in reach
that exists when they made thatpurchase.
Peter Woolfolk (20:59):
Now, how wide has your influencer radar gone
now?
Where is it?
Is it in the US?
Is it in Mexico?
Is it in Europe?
Just how far has it gone thusfar?
Luke Yarnton (21:11):
Yeah, we're still pretty early on the journey.
We're only working with justover 100 brands, so far.
The biggest brand we're workingwith is a big secondary
ticketing marketplace calledEvent Ticket Center.
I think they're one of the topfive ticketing platforms in the
US.
We're working with a bunch ofinteresting e-commerce stores
(21:33):
the likes of some of them youmight have heard of in the
Shopify space, sort of aroundthat enterprise scale level.
One of them's Form.
One of them's a nice yogacompany called Stacked.
There's a bunch of them thatexist in that space but we're
sort of rapidly ramping up andour bread and butter is in
(21:54):
e-commerce but we're looking togrow beyond that.
So anyone that has a customerlist of 10 000 customers or more
can usually see pretty goodvalue in what we're doing here
so how does uh the the companyor organization and employers
you, how do they go about payingfor this?
Peter Woolfolk (22:09):
that is, uh, do you charge?
How do you decide how much aninfluencer should get for coming
on and being part of yourinfluencer radar?
Luke Yarnton (22:23):
Yeah, look.
So our influencer radar workssort of independent of these
dollar amounts that exchangeright.
So we work with brands and theprice we charge brands depends
on the volume of the emails thatwe're analyzing on their behalf
.
So it tends to be like a setmonthly fee for us to be
consistently analyzing everyemail that comes through the
(22:43):
platform and telling them who'san influencer and who's not when
it comes for the brand findingthe right price to pay that
influencer for that, thatcontent.
Um, we've got some strongsuggestions, but there's a bunch
of different factors that comeinto play around like uh, what
is the value of the product?
Can they refund the entirevalue of the product or not?
(23:04):
Uh, can they?
Uh, is it something that has alot of social currency or is it
something that doesn't have alot of social currency?
If it doesn't, if it's notsomething naturally interesting
for people to talk about, youhave to turn the price up a
little bit to make them morelikely to want to post about it.
And and there's a few differentways that you can sort of put
(23:24):
that together and then,obviously, to that previous
point around the way we price,we can also do massive
retrospective looks.
So just this week we'veonboarded a business that has
just over a million customers inthe email database.
So we've gone through thatentire customer list and found a
cohort of thousands of creatorsthat have purchased over the
(23:46):
last four or five years.
They now have a really engagedemail list of all the creators
that ever purchased from them,where they're exclusively
getting creator offers.
Peter Woolfolk (23:56):
Okay, well, luke , let me say this you have been
great in letting us know aboutInfluencer Radar.
If someone wants to get moreinformation about it, how would
they reach you?
Luke Yarnton (24:12):
Yeah, look, you can visit us at theraveco.
That's our website theraveT-H-E-R-A-V-E dot C-O.
Feel free to email me directly,luke, at theraveco, or you can
find me on LinkedIn.
I imagine my LinkedIn profileis going to be attached to the
show notes of this podcast.
Peter Woolfolk (24:29):
Well, let me say this I think our listeners are
really going to appreciate this,because when I got the
information about what you did,I said, wow, this is spectacular
, and this is the kind of thingthat I like to bring to my
audience, because they like tohear this kind of stuff as
something new and more important, something they can possibly
use.
That's the most important partabout this thing.
(24:51):
So I want to thank you againfor reaching out and for coming
on and being a guest on thePublic Relations Review podcast.
Luke Yarnton (25:01):
Look, peter, I'm so happy to be here.
Look, if anyone's even slightlyinterested in hearing more,
feel free to reach out to medirectly.
Look, the technology is stillsuper new and we're still
working out what the rightdirection is to take it, what
features we need to add.
So if anyone feels strongly orhas any ideas, don't be a
stranger Jump into my inbox andlet's sit down and have a
conversation not dissimilar tothe conversation I've had with
(25:21):
Peter right here.
Peter Woolfolk (25:23):
Well, let me say again thank you to Luke Yarland
.
He is the founder of theInfluencer Radar and if you've
enjoyed it, we certainly suggestthat you reach out to him and
get more information as to howit can benefit you.
And, of course, if you, thelistener, have enjoyed the
podcast, we certainly like toget a review from you, and you
can do that by going right toour website.
(25:44):
But also, let me say, pleaseshare this information with you
and your colleagues and join usfor the next edition of the
Public Relations Review Podcast.
Announcer (25:55):
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Thank you for joining us.
Welcome.
This is the Public RelationsReview Podcast, a program to
discuss the many facets ofpublic relations with seasoned
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Now here is your host, PeterWoolfolk.
Peter Woolfolk (00:25):
Welcome to the Public Relations Review Podcast
and to our listeners all acrossAmerica and around the world.
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So thank you to all of ourguests and listeners for your
(00:48):
continued support and if youenjoy the podcast, please leave
a review.
Question for my audience haveyou paid close attention to
influence the marketers thesedays?
How many are simply people whosay what you pay them to say and
not much more?
How much would your credibilityfactor multiply if your
organization used actualcustomers speaking from real
(01:11):
experience with your product orservice?
Well, that scenario is now hereand it's doing very well.
Influencer marketing is changingwith influencer radar.
They spot influential customersthe moment they buy.
It focuses on existingcustomers as the real game
changers, rather than theso-called big names.
(01:32):
Imagine harnessing that hiddenpotential in an audience to
transform them into advocates oftheir favorite brands.
It's a topic that's not justtimely but could also increase
the believability factor of yourforward-thinking company.
Now, my guest today is thefounder of the Rave, the creator
(01:52):
of Influential Radar.
They engage influencers fromwithin Friar's customer bases
and pivots them towardsauthenticity and genuine
connections.
So joining me today from MexicoCity, Mexico is, is Luke
Yarnton.
Luke, welcome to the podcast.
Luke Yarnton (02:10):
Peter, I'm so excited to be here.
I was listening to one of yourpodcasts earlier today when you
were speaking with Amber aboutmerchandise for brands, and I
think of all the podcasts I'vebeen on lately, your voice is by
far the most enchanting andleathery.
It's sort of like I'm speakingon a late-night radio kind of
(02:31):
DJ-type situation.
So excited to be here, excitedto get into the deep
conversations about influencermarketing with someone who's
obviously well-experienced inthe space and knows what he's
talking about.
Peter Woolfolk (02:42):
Well, you know, that's the thing that intrigued
me when your office sent me aninvitation to have you on here,
because I'd never heard aboutthis before.
And it makes perfect sense, youknow, using customers to speak
on what they like.
So, basically, how did you?
What caused you to create this?
What did you see that youthought was missing, that led to
(03:03):
your creating Influencer Radar?
Luke Yarnton (03:08):
Yeah, look, there's a couple of different
factors that have come in tothat have fueled us to get us to
the point that we're at now.
I think one of them, one of thekey ones, is that we built I
built a referral and affiliateplatform.
So with a referral andaffiliate platform, the metrics
you care about is who's sharingtheir unique referral links, or
(03:28):
referral affiliate links, totheir friends, family and
followers and how many clicksare they getting, and
consistently, time and timeagain.
What would get the merchants orthe businesses that use our
referral and affiliatetechnology excited was seeing
that a micro influencer or anano influencer was sharing
their product organically.
They somehow happened upon areferral link by themselves and
(03:51):
they're sharing with theiraudience, and they would go wild
.
That's so exciting for them.
So then I took a step back andsaid what are some ways that we
could streamline, uh, getting tothis end point of having, uh,
someone who cares about yourbrand, who's also a
micro-influencer or anan-influencer sharing about it
and I come from a technologybackground, so I'm sort of
(04:13):
well-versed in the judo that istechnology and I said, look,
based on what I know from thisreferral and affiliate platform,
we're consuming a bunch ofinformation when this is
happening.
So every single time a customermakes a transaction at one of
the businesses we work with, weget that customer profile, so we
(04:34):
get the email address, we getthere all these other details
and in a previous world I did alot of work in e-commerce, so I
know from an e-commerceperspective what it's like to
partner with an influencer or acreator, and I know what these
influencer databases look likeand the details that exist in
those databases.
So by that logic, I said itshould be pretty easy if I have
(05:00):
the information that exists onone side, which is here's
everything you need to knowabout creators and influences,
and here's some information thatI own that's on my side, which
is email address, name, deliverydetails, blah, blah, blah.
It should be pretty easy justto match one against the other
and I should automatically beable to find, based on all of
these influencer databasesaround the world, who's actually
(05:22):
an influencer, who's buyingfrom me so what or what?
Peter Woolfolk (05:28):
or?
I guess the best question isonce you have that information
about this particular influencer, how do you get them to become
an influencer for theorganization that wants that
information or wants them to bean influencer?
Luke Yarnton (05:44):
yeah, that's a really good question, peter, and
look, the right approach forthat varies depending on
different businesses and theseat that I'm sitting in here.
Now.
I get to see some businessesdoing some pretty cool stuff in
terms of how they're planning toactivate the influencers who
live within their customer base.
(06:05):
So maybe let me speak just threeor four different versions of
that.
The most basic version thatwe're seeing that is popular and
really easy to set up is weintegrate our technology into
the stores, right, and themoment that an influencer makes
a purchase, we create anotification that goes to the
influencer manager or someone inthe marketing team that says
(06:29):
hey, this person just made apurchase from you.
Maybe you want to to reach outto them and and see if they're
interested in being a partnerwith you.
And they can go through thelist.
Every day there's maybe 10 newinfluences that made a purchase.
And just to give you an idea onvolume, we see, for every 10,000
customers that make a purchase,200 of them have more than
(06:51):
2,500 followers on eitherInstagram, tiktok, youtube or
Twitter X.
So the easiest way is we justsend them a notification saying
maybe you want to reach out tothis person and then they can,
via Instagram, dm or somethingcan, reach out to them and say,
hey, so you made a purchase, anychance you'd be interested in
collaborating in the future?
That's the low lift, easy wayto integrate something can can
reach out to them and say, hey,so you made a purchase, any
chance you'd be interested incollaborating in the future.
(07:11):
That's the the low lift, easyway to integrate.
Let's go to level two.
Level two is such that we setup some email automations so
customer makes a purchase ifthey're identified as an
influencer.
We create an email flow off theback of that.
That happens automatically andthat email flow says and the
(07:32):
email that they receive variesdepending on the follow account
that they have and the mostsuccessful email we have gets
delivered.
We organize it to be deliveredabout 48 hours after the
purchase and it says, hey, wesee you purchased, we love your
content and to acknowledge thatyou made a purchase from us,
we'd love to refund your ordercompletely if you're happy just
(07:54):
to feature our product that youjust purchased in your instagram
story or in some way over thenext week or two and for most
people who've purchased withtheir own money, you're not
putting too much pressure onthem to brand it or post it in a
certain type of way, shape orform.
It's purely just.
If you can just feature us inany way you want, happy to
(08:15):
refund that that purchasecompletely free of charge.
Peter Woolfolk (08:17):
Wait, I just, I just want to make sure I
understand for you.
If they agree to be a um aninfluencer for you, the
companies will then give themtheir money back in exchange for
doing that exactly so.
Luke Yarnton (08:33):
So this is weird.
We've sampled by accidentacross this weird phenomenon,
phenomenon which is um.
Refunds of purchase tend to beheld in a different regard to
cash for posting.
So, for example, if you were toreach out to an influencer and
say I'm going to give you ahundred dollars for an Instagram
post, most of them will tellyou no, go away, not interested.
(08:55):
That's well below my marketrate.
But if they've spent a hundreddollars on a product and you
offer to refund the full priceof that product, so it's a
hundred dollars in exchange forthem featuring you in a post,
the conversion rate is athousand times higher than the
previous situation.
You're saying I want to give you100 to post about me for some
reason, and look, I'm sure some,uh, consumer psychologist is
(09:18):
going to be able to tell me theexact reason why that occurs.
I I'm not sure about myself,but it seems to change the logic
if it's a refund versus a netpayment.
So offering that refund say hey, so we purchased, here's a
refund.
All you need to do is justfeature it in some way over the
next two weeks.
Would love to go through thatprocess with you.
Peter Woolfolk (09:41):
Well, you know, it makes a lot of sense to me.
It does simply because Ipurchased without knowing
anything about being aninfluencer.
I purchased it because I neededit or wanted it or I like it.
Exactly.
Announcer (09:52):
So now.
Peter Woolfolk (09:54):
I have no problem speaking up to say that
I like it and enjoy it, and thebonus, of course is that I'm
going to?
Luke Yarnton (10:01):
get paid You're going to give me my money back
for saying that I like somethingthat I was going to pay for?
anyway, Exactly, exactly,exactly, exactly, exactly
exactly, um, and the key thingis, once you like you, it's the
start of a partnership side, ofa relationship.
So, while getting one simplepost to a uh an instagram
(10:21):
account now might seeminsignificant, the idea is, once
you've got them to do something, once the likelihood of you
being able to to get into postmultiple times or to actually
build a relationship and forthem to be invested in an
advocate of your brandsignificantly increases.
Um, the third, third, third,third layer, the third version,
(10:41):
the third uh option that I I wastalking about and this is my
favorite at the moment.
I think this is like reallycool, um, is that we work with a
lot of brands who just do these.
We call them surprise anddelight campaigns.
Where they'll they'll gothrough on a quarterly basis.
Look at everyone who'spurchased from them in the last
quarter, find all of theinfluences in there, plus all
the influences who purchasedfrom them previously, and
(11:06):
they'll just see in somethingwhat, to the average person,
might seem small andinsignificant, but from a brand
that they already know and careabout, a handwritten note with
something for free and the.
The unfair advantage and thekey benefit here is these brands
know the size, they know thedelivery address, they know the
details, the order details ofthese influencers and creators,
(11:27):
because they've gone through andmade a purchase in the past.
So it might cost a couple ofthousand dollars, but you've
just sent out a bunch of reallyexciting uh activation content
to these creators, uh and, and Ithink that's a really
interesting and innovative wayto sort of make the most out of
these creator partners thatexist within your database.
Peter Woolfolk (11:52):
Now let me ask you is there any way that, once
the organization brings thisperson on as an influencer, is
there any way to measure theirproductivity?
In other words, did they postsomething nice about, whatever
it was, the product that theybought, and can then the
(12:13):
merchant track the results ofthat posting?
Luke Yarnton (12:19):
So I've got a couple of answers to that
question For me.
Obviously, I'm from the world ofreferral and affiliate
marketing, and when it comes toreferral and affiliate marketing
and when it comes to referraland affiliate marketing, we're
laser.
It's, everything is fullyattributable and and fully
visual.
So I believe that trying toencourage your creators to post
(12:41):
a specific link that's unique tothem, that allows you to track
exactly how many clicks they'regetting and what the engagement
of those customers looks likewhen you get to the website, is
the the the key is is probablythe best practice and the
healthiest way to go about thatprocess.
Um, in saying that, I I thinkit's also true that the way we
(13:03):
consider these engagements andrelationships with creators and
influencers is changing, and bythis I mean, I think we're
shifting towards thisdecentralized marketing world,
and by that I mean it used to bethat the brand makes all of the
decisions around what the brandlooks like and what people say
about the brand and the font andeverything we're.
(13:25):
Now we're starting to see thatdecentralized, where the brand
is actually being represented bythousands of different creators
and influencers who all speakabout the brand in their own way
, shape or form.
So putting pressure on thesecreators and influencers for a
style of language or a type ofperformance that you're looking
(13:46):
for.
I'm not sure if that's going tobe the winning formula going
forward, and the decentralizedapproach should be we're going
to reward you if you can maketransactions, but you have
freedom to achieve thosetransactions in any way, shape
or form you see fit.
We'll just make the best damnproduct we possibly can and let
(14:07):
you, the creator, do what you dobest, which is finding an
engaged audience and tellingthem about our product in a way
that makes sense to you andmakes sense to them well, you
know, I'm certainly on boardwith that, because when
information comes from somebodythat you know and trust and have
seen around for a long time, uh, the believability factor is so
(14:27):
much higher you know, ascompared to an advertisement on
TV or online or from somebodyyou don't know.
Peter Woolfolk (14:36):
So that believability factor well, I've
been knowing you for a long time.
If it's good for you, it's goodenough for me, sort of thing I
think holds up a lot better orworth a lot more than the fact
that you paid somebody I don'tknow a couple hundred dollars to
say that it's good.
Luke Yarnton (14:51):
Exactly.
And look, I think you'respeaking to a very interesting
trend that's happening at themoment, where there's some good
charts out there on the internetthat I suppose the folks
listening to this can have alook at afterwards, and it shows
the trust in different forms ofmedia over time and you'll see
that the trust in traditionaladvertising is falling.
(15:11):
The trust in traditional mediais falling dramatically.
Even the trust in liketraditional influencer marketing
, which is you partnering withan influencer with 1 million or
2 million followers.
The trust in them is fallingsignificantly.
Where the trust remains is withword of mouth from friends and
friends and family andco-workers.
(15:32):
That's still super high, andwith the.
There's a sort of a converserelationship when it does come
to Instagram influencers or orTikTok influencers or YouTubers,
where, as the follower countincreases, the level of trust in
them decreases.
So you want to occupy that asmany as you can towards the
(15:54):
bottom of the.
The smaller the better.
You want to build an army ofthese sort of smaller high trust
influencers and ambassadorsthat are going to carry your
brand to the next level.
Peter Woolfolk (16:04):
Well, I mean I can certainly understand that,
because if people can see thatyou, your how would I put it?
Your remarks about this havebeen influenced about how much
you got paid, not how much youvalue it or how much you use it
or how much it benefits you ascompared to well, I've been
(16:25):
using it for years the fact thatthey gave me a couple of
dollars or refunded it, I meandidn't make that much difference
to me because I was going tobuy it anyway.
I mean I can certainlyunderstand the difference and it
does make sense to me and I canunderstand the value to the
employer or the person wantingit.
It stands out and thebelievability factor is far much
(16:49):
higher.
So I can certainly understandwhy those ratios are what they
are, because of how it's done.
Luke Yarnton (16:58):
Yeah, and look, I think, further to that point.
Consumers are wising up to thisidea of authenticity and they
can tell when someone's beinginauthentic, when they're
talking about a brand that theydon't actually know and love,
which I think this is why it isso critical If you can find a
creator who actually spent theirown hard-earned cash to buy
your product or to experienceyour service or to go to your
(17:19):
event.
If they spent their money andthey're going to be talking
about it, they were genuinelyexcited to make that purchase.
And so being able to capturethose people when the time is
right.
That's one of the best sort ofmarketing or PR assets you can
have in 2025.
Peter Woolfolk (17:36):
Well, you know, the other thing too is this sort
of intersexual interlocks withstorytelling, Because when
people are looking forstorytelling, it's the
authenticity.
I mean it's been shown that themore authentic and honest that
you are about it, the morebelievable you are and the more
attraction you get.
Luke Yarnton (17:54):
So I mean, from what I'm hearing now, these two
things actually go together 100%and look, I think, to that
point as well when it comes tostorytelling.
If I'm a creator with 3,000 or4,000 followers and they're
engaged and they love my contentwith 3,000 or 4,000 followers
and they're engaged and theylove my content, I don't want to
(18:14):
risk sort of like breakingtheir trust or telling them a
story that they're notinterested in, about a product
that I don't even love, as asmall sort of like that 3,000,
4,000 follower count influence.
I want to be telling themgenuine things that I love, that
I know they're going to careabout, that I trust completely
because that relationship I havewith them is so important and
(18:35):
I'm not going to risk that onsome cheap paid endorsement from
some brand I've never heard of.
Peter Woolfolk (18:42):
Well, you know, it also obviously depends on who
you bring on board, becausethere are some people that care
more about how much money theymake and so, you know, just
prostitute themselves to say ifthat's what you want me to say,
then that's what I'll say.
That's a huge difference fromsomebody saying hey look, I said
it because I believe in it.
I've been using it for yearsand I wouldn't do it if I didn't
(19:04):
believe in it.
Those are two different things,and the believability factor
and whoever brought you on boardadds to their credibility
because you brought on somebody.
That also believes it.
Luke Yarnton (19:17):
yeah, look, I think that's a short-sighted
approach where, if you're justgoing to sell out to whoever
wants to pay the most money,people are going to start
realizing that it's not genuineand it's not real.
And look, the same applies tothese brands who are starting to
get ai influencers, like fakeavatars that are talking about
the brand pretending to be aninfluencer Again, short-sighted
approach.
It's not real, it's not genuine.
People are going to see throughthat.
Peter Woolfolk (19:38):
Well, you know, and these are the things that I
think, as you point out earlier,consumers are catching on to
this.
Now you know what I mean.
Ai is going to get to the pointthat if it's misused, it's
going to damage your product oryour service, because people can
see through some of thesethings.
Maybe you might get them on thebeginning, because they don't
(19:59):
know any better, but once theyfind out that you've tried to
pull the wool over their eyes,you're going to lose a lot, not
only to them as a customer, butthey're going to tell their
friends and neighbors about ittoo, and so the wheels really
begin to come off after thatlook, I think that's one of the
most insulting things you can doas a brand is to try and pull
the wool over your customerseyes and give them a fake
(20:20):
endorsement or like a fake storyabout a product.
Luke Yarnton (20:23):
If you're a good brand that makes a good product
or a good service or a goodexperience, you should have no
trouble finding people to tellthat story to the world.
That's the way the world works.
Now is that these snippetsexist on on social media.
You should have no trouble, andwhat what we're doing is just
for these good brands, that thatmake good products and and tell
(20:44):
good stories.
We help them find the peoplethat are happy to tell that
story.
Um plus, they've got a big oldmicrophone so they can tell a
lot of people because theyalready have this built-in reach
that exists when they made thatpurchase.
Peter Woolfolk (20:59):
Now, how wide has your influencer radar gone
now?
Where is it?
Is it in the US?
Is it in Mexico?
Is it in Europe?
Just how far has it gone thusfar?
Luke Yarnton (21:11):
Yeah, we're still pretty early on the journey.
We're only working with justover 100 brands, so far.
The biggest brand we're workingwith is a big secondary
ticketing marketplace calledEvent Ticket Center.
I think they're one of the topfive ticketing platforms in the
US.
We're working with a bunch ofinteresting e-commerce stores
(21:33):
the likes of some of them youmight have heard of in the
Shopify space, sort of aroundthat enterprise scale level.
One of them's Form.
One of them's a nice yogacompany called Stacked.
There's a bunch of them thatexist in that space but we're
sort of rapidly ramping up andour bread and butter is in
(21:54):
e-commerce but we're looking togrow beyond that.
So anyone that has a customerlist of 10 000 customers or more
can usually see pretty goodvalue in what we're doing here
so how does uh the the companyor organization and employers
you, how do they go about payingfor this?
Peter Woolfolk (22:09):
that is, uh, do you charge?
How do you decide how much aninfluencer should get for coming
on and being part of yourinfluencer radar?
Luke Yarnton (22:23):
Yeah, look.
So our influencer radar workssort of independent of these
dollar amounts that exchangeright.
So we work with brands and theprice we charge brands depends
on the volume of the emails thatwe're analyzing on their behalf
.
So it tends to be like a setmonthly fee for us to be
consistently analyzing everyemail that comes through the
(22:43):
platform and telling them who'san influencer and who's not when
it comes for the brand findingthe right price to pay that
influencer for that, thatcontent.
Um, we've got some strongsuggestions, but there's a bunch
of different factors that comeinto play around like uh, what
is the value of the product?
Can they refund the entirevalue of the product or not?
(23:04):
Uh, can they?
Uh, is it something that has alot of social currency or is it
something that doesn't have alot of social currency?
If it doesn't, if it's notsomething naturally interesting
for people to talk about, youhave to turn the price up a
little bit to make them morelikely to want to post about it.
And and there's a few differentways that you can sort of put
(23:24):
that together and then,obviously, to that previous
point around the way we price,we can also do massive
retrospective looks.
So just this week we'veonboarded a business that has
just over a million customers inthe email database.
So we've gone through thatentire customer list and found a
cohort of thousands of creatorsthat have purchased over the
(23:46):
last four or five years.
They now have a really engagedemail list of all the creators
that ever purchased from them,where they're exclusively
getting creator offers.
Peter Woolfolk (23:56):
Okay, well, luke , let me say this you have been
great in letting us know aboutInfluencer Radar.
If someone wants to get moreinformation about it, how would
they reach you?
Luke Yarnton (24:12):
Yeah, look, you can visit us at theraveco.
That's our website theraveT-H-E-R-A-V-E dot C-O.
Feel free to email me directly,luke, at theraveco, or you can
find me on LinkedIn.
I imagine my LinkedIn profileis going to be attached to the
show notes of this podcast.
Peter Woolfolk (24:29):
Well, let me say this I think our listeners are
really going to appreciate this,because when I got the
information about what you did,I said, wow, this is spectacular
, and this is the kind of thingthat I like to bring to my
audience, because they like tohear this kind of stuff as
something new and more important, something they can possibly
use.
That's the most important partabout this thing.
(24:51):
So I want to thank you againfor reaching out and for coming
on and being a guest on thePublic Relations Review podcast.
Luke Yarnton (25:01):
Look, peter, I'm so happy to be here.
Look, if anyone's even slightlyinterested in hearing more,
feel free to reach out to medirectly.
Look, the technology is stillsuper new and we're still
working out what the rightdirection is to take it, what
features we need to add.
So if anyone feels strongly orhas any ideas, don't be a
stranger Jump into my inbox andlet's sit down and have a
conversation not dissimilar tothe conversation I've had with
(25:21):
Peter right here.
Peter Woolfolk (25:23):
Well, let me say again thank you to Luke Yarland
.
He is the founder of theInfluencer Radar and if you've
enjoyed it, we certainly suggestthat you reach out to him and
get more information as to howit can benefit you.
And, of course, if you, thelistener, have enjoyed the
podcast, we certainly like toget a review from you, and you
can do that by going right toour website.
(25:44):
But also, let me say, pleaseshare this information with you
and your colleagues and join usfor the next edition of the
Public Relations Review Podcast.
Announcer (25:55):
This podcast is produced by Communication
Strategies, an award-winningpublic relations and public
affairs firm headquartered inNashville, Tennessee.
Thank you for joining us.
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