Awario vs. GRIN vs. Upfluence

Awario is incredible for finding just about any odd brand mention online. It even picks up brand mentions on spammy spun content sites. I use it daily for keeping track of everything that's going on with the brands I manage.

Incentivized

GRIN is well suited for companies that are seeking an all-in-one solution for influencer program management and place a high value in repurposing UGC for marketing purposes. I would also say that GRIN makes sense for those who are aggressively scaling their influencer program and are planning on having at least 100-150 creators in the program. GRIN would be less appropriate for companies who may not have a large influencer program and are merely seeking to track affiliate link/coupon code performance.

Incentivized

• Monitor brand mentions & keywords across a number of platforms (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Reddit, and blogs/websites).
• Advanced filtering by date range, country, negative keywords, domains, and more.

Incentivized

• customer service on all levels
• streamlines resources (creator search, emails, Shopify orders, payments, etc) all on one platform
• The amount of customization and overall tools - sometimes this feels overwhelming but I'm grateful they are there to build on as I grow my experience with the platform

Incentivized

• A better onboarding process would've gotten me hooked earlier
• Better ongoing training and support, perhaps a certification process, would make this easier to customize for niche use cases.
• Using advanced functionality would be easier with more hand-holding

Incentivized

• Creator search tool - doesn't bring up viable creator options, which means we do primarily off-platform seeding.
• The landing page is clunky and not functional for reviewing creators - it adds a lot of time to my team's day looking through the creators with the way it's set up.
• Email templates have funny formatting, and the typeface always seems to get messed up.

Incentivized

I wouldn't be able to run as high of a profitable or functioning influencer program without it. GRIN seriously is the organizational tool that propels us towards success, it is not in any way going to do the work for you, but it does make the work more efficient, easier, and WAY more organized

Incentivized

The user interface of the platform is very well designed and extremely intuitive. You almost don't need an onboarding process because the workflow is so straightforward. The only item I would mention as a downside is the reporting. In order to get comprehensive reports, you need to go into each individual campaign. There is no aggregated report with all conversions.

Incentivized

I haven't had any actual issues with Awario, but the few times I have had questions the live chat agents were extremely helpful and quick to respond. They were polite, courteous, and patient when explaining different settings and/or pointing me to articles in the help center/knowledge base. I couldn't have asked for a better experience when it came to getting the help and answers I was looking for.

Incentivized

We have our own support rep who helped get us set up, and as odd one off questions have come up has continued to support us. The rep is super knowledgeably and has also helped with some creative ways to get what we need. They are also always super fast to help when anything comes up

Incentivized

I don't have any key insights here. If you have someone organized and aware of how the influencer workflow operates then it will be a very easy implementation process for you. I would just ensure you have all of your products setup in Shopify before starting the implementation with Grin.

Incentivized

There are a lot of excellent options, but Awario has it all. I also originally got it as a lifetime deal, so I don't have to worry about paying for it ongoing.

Incentivized

I was looking around at Dovetale, which connected with Shopify, and although it may be an easy connection because it's within the Shopify website, it isn't as user-friendly. It also doesn't offer the same hands-on experience from the GRIN team, 24/7 customer support, or bi-weekly calls with your direct contact. It just doesn't feel like it's worth it to me for the "convenience."

Incentivized

• I've been able to find a handful of negative mentions about my brand that wound up being a misunderstanding - by responding to these complaints I was able to clear up misunderstandings, which helped retain customers and bring on new ones - it's hard to calculate exact ROI, but it's definitely been in the positive.

Incentivized

• We are just getting moving with Grin but I am excited to grow our overall program.
• The Grin community has provided a wealth of insights that we have been able to implement.
• The addition of EMV data has been great for tracking success.

Incentivized