Table of contents
- 5k to play
- Founded to get out of the house
- Monetization sans ad campaigns
- LTK betting on shoppable video
[–>
Affiliate shopping app LTK provides social media-goers with a place to save the outfits of their favorite influencers. On the flip side, influencers have an opportunity to monetize their product recommendations—even if there is no official coop with the recommended brands in place. Founded in 2011, LTK is not only one of the oldest affiliate shopping platforms, but with more than 40m MAUs, it’s also the largest. However, it now has to compete with its own affiliate and shopping tools from YouTube, Tiktok and others. Today, we’re taking a closer look at LTK and its standing within the German creator economy.
Today, influencer Carmen Kroll has paired a tennis skirt with a polo shirt, a blue knitted jumper and some New Balance sneakers. Taken in the rolling hills of the Tuscan countryside, the image is flush with local cypress trees and dolce vita vibes. Kroll, who’s better known by her social media handle Carmushka, casually holds a badminton racket in her hand. The image is composed to evoke a response and wanting out of recipients—and to redirect users to LTK, where all manner of user questions regarding the outfit are answered directly: Who made it? How much? Can I get it for my next round of badminton?
Kroll wore the outfit at this year’s creator event “The House of Carmushka” and then uploaded a photo of it to LTK, where creators have profiles that users can follow. There is also an app that is designed for inspiration and discovery—in theory, at least. In most cases, affiliate marketing still works particularly well via links in Instagram stories, says Niclas Kroll, Carmen Kroll’s husband and CEO of the joint creator agency Somefriends. Users then land directly on the specific product or outfit they are interested in via the LTK link—not on the platform itself.
5k to play
To join LTK, creators need at least 5,000 followers and can then apply to become an LTK creator. The company tends to look for people who post regularly, preferably daily, and frequently tag products and brands. Once registered, creators can create commissionable links to over 7,000 retailers and share them on Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Pinterest, their own blogs, and more. They can also feature their favorite products in their own LTK store. A personal shopping page is reminiscent of a typical social media profile, such as one found on Instagram. However, there is one key difference: whereas the purpose of social media is to casually promote products and encourage purchases, here the focus is clearly on shopping. When you click on a photo post, you will see a list of all the products featured in the photo. This area is called “Shop this post,” and clicking on a product takes you directly to the retailer’s website. When a purchase is made, both LTK and the creator receive a commission.
LTK continues to adapt its style to social media platforms, apart from competitors such as YouTube and Tiktok-Shop’s MagicLinks, ShopMy and Stylink, but the platforms themselves are increasingly competitive, with each platform gradually launching its own affiliate and shopping tools to keep users within their respective ecosystems. But LTK’s main weapon is the breadth of its brands. “The reason LTK has been successful and will continue to be successful is because we don’t discriminate,” says LTK’s Alison Yazdian. “Creators can showcase their whole life, they’re not siloed across different platforms.” Affiliate marketing expert and managing director of MAI xpose360, Markus Kellermann, also sees this as a crucial shortcoming of the YouTube Affiliate Program. The program is currently only available in the United States and South Korea, not in Germany. This is an attractive opportunity for YouTubers to monetize their video content, but creators can only promote products from participating YouTube merchants. “Plus, the 10,000 subscriber minimum requirement pretty much rules out smaller creators,” Kellerman says. “In my opinion, affiliate programs through Amazon and Affiliate Network are much better.”
For Carmushka, LTK remains the most important player in affiliate marketing, says Niclas Kroll. “I’d say it’s 70% LTK and 30% other affiliate platforms.” Amazon Affiliate is second. “Platforms like Stylink and Zezam haven’t really taken hold as part of the everyday yet.” For agency-supported creators, affiliate platforms have a big advantage in that they offer more transparent and real analytics on their performance. “But you can also proactively attract the attention of brands.” In Carmushka’s case, the pair were early adopters of LTK. “This was around 2016 or 2017, when influencer marketing was still new to a lot of brands or was out of reach,” he says. LTK has allowed them to build a broad portfolio of brands.
Founded to get out of the house
LTK was co-founded by Americans Amber Benz Box and her then-boyfriend and now-husband Baxter Box in 2011, a year after Instagram was launched. Benz Box was also a creator at the time, and was only 23 years old. Her goal at the time was to make enough money to leave home. The company is now valued at $2 billion, after SoftBank, a Japanese telecommunications and media group, invested $300 million in 2021. The company said that in 2023, LTK creators generated $4.1 billion in sales from purchases made through store profiles at retailers in more than 150 countries. LTK’s own sales figures are not disclosed.
We reported on LTK in 2016 (link in German), when it was still called Liketoknow.it and before that Rewardstyle. There is another important difference from the LTK we reported on: selling on Instagram was only a dream for many brands, and there was no option to post links directly under images. Tools such as Liketoknow.it offered a workaround for generating affiliate links, at least for Instagram influencers and brands. Today, you can specifically link products in your stories, but without collaborations and affiliate links this is still not very useful for content creators.
Monetization sans ad campaigns
The two monetization options – collaborations and affiliate commissions – are completely different, especially for creators with a large following, emphasizes David Völler, CEO of influencer agency All Impact. “Creators with a vibrant community often generate completely different value through collaborations and campaigns, which usually cannot be compensated for by a cut from an affiliate link.” That said, affiliate platforms such as LTK are a good way to take your followers into your daily life, for example by linking a coffee machine in the background of Howl. “The advantage is that the influencer is compensated for advertising, and it is a service for users who want to know where they can get a certain product.” Völler believes that this can also contribute to reliability and authenticity. This means that products are not only promoted in places where there are advertising partnerships. “The link gives them the opportunity to share products that they have in their environment or at home and that they enjoy themselves, and to earn something from them.”
LTK betting on shoppable video
LTK is now expanding its creators’ personal stores and offering additional presentation options. The company has launched a shoppable video feature, much like YouTube Shorts, TikTok and Instagram Stories, with one key difference: LTK users can find a sort of shopping carousel below the video with all the products featured in the video. This is clearly the platform’s response to competition from social media platforms.
According to the company, LTK’s video posts are accessed by shoppers twice as often as other posts, and video content can increase creators’ revenue on the platform by up to 46%. Niklas Kroll is still unsure about the added value of the feature: “It’s a ‘nice to have,’ but not an absolute ‘need to have.’ Compared to followers on the LTK storefront, the majority of the community makes impulse purchases through Instagram stories and broadcasts.”
