FROM OUR BLOG
Product Seeding vs Influencer Gifting: What works for your brand?
Jun 6, 2025
Have you ever wondered
“How to get influencers to promote your product for free?”
The answer is product seeding.
What is Product Seeding?
Product seeding is when a brand sends free products to creators without asking them to post or promote anything.This is a way for brands to build relationships to get their product noticed. Brands simply hope influencers enjoy the product and possibly share it on their socials (typically Instagram and Tiktok) and generate hype around the product.
There is no obligation or transaction. Some creators genuinely use and feature the product in their daily lives just because they enjoy it and it is a great product. This is where the money is for a brand: genuine love for a product and authentic engagement. Consumers nowadays are savvy and can tell when an influencer is paid to post a product, and thus ignore it.
Big influencers may ignore PR boxes and product seeding gifts, however micro influencers (1,000-20,000 followers) often feel honored to be noticed as they have a smaller and more loyal audience base with high engagement that can lead to better visibility for your brand. In addition, build trust and possibly create usable UGC, if they agree to share. Our tool influencer gift form simplifies this with a built in agreement that lets content creators opt in for brands to use their content that simplifies this process.
At its core, product seeding is a PR strategy that puts your product in the hands of creators in order to build long term brand recognition and media attention without paying for every single post.
For seeding and gifting, the FTC requires clear disclosure. Make sure creators tag posts as “gifted” or use hashtags like #giftedor #giftedby so your brand stays compliant.
Engineered Nutrition
What is Influencer Gifting?
Influencer gifting may often get confused and is sometimes used interchangeably with product seeding without realizing the difference. The major difference is with influencer gifting, brands expect the creator to post something in return for the free product such as a promotional post, story or an unboxing video.
Influencer gifting is a cost-effective way for brands to boost visibility and generate authentic content without paying for full sponsorships. It helps reach new audiences and supports organic brand growth. Many brands combine gifting with product seeding to increase both reach and engagement.
Unlike seeding, gifting gives brands control. Creators receive clear guidelines for what to post, their tone, format, and message, making content more predictable. Brands can also use trackable links and discount codes to measure performance and decide if a creator is worth future paid partnerships.
It’s a good way to test influencer engagement before committing long term. Choosing creators whose followers match your target audience is key. And when entering new markets, gifting can help gauge interest and build early awareness.
Influencer gifting trades products for guaranteed content. It gives brands control over how they’re seen, helps generate branded posts, and provides a budget-friendly way to reach core or new audiences without the cost of paid deals.
Popsips
What is the difference between Product Seeding and Influencer Gifting?
How to Choose Between Influencer Gifting and Product Seeding
Before anything, define the goal of your gifting campaign. Is it to build awareness or to drive sales?
If your goal is awareness and have a budget → go with product seeding
If your goal is sales and looking for content in return → go with influencer gifting.
Use this checklist to decide whether product seeding or influencer gifting fits your campaign needs best.
Product Seeding | Influencer Gifting |
☐ Raise awareness of brand | ☐ Want increase in sales |
☐ Getting started, relationship building | ☐ Relationship has been established |
☐ Want exposure & get on influencer’s radar | ☐ Wants to customize and specific deliverables |
☐ Building your influencer list | ☐ Want to track results |
☐ No obligation to post | ☐ Build and scale an influencer program |
☐ Want product feedback | ☐ Want content that is reusable for ads and marketing material |
☐ Lower cost, sent at scale | ☐ Higher effort per creator |
☐ Focused on brand awareness and long term value | ☐ Focused on content and near term ROI |
Steps to run a Product Seeding Campaign
Define your target audience and your target creator profile.
Source and Qualify Influencers.
If you want a shortcut to find creators fast, check out this free list of travel influencers in in the US or use this directory of influencer platforms to explore other outreach tools.
Create a list for your product seeding campaign.
Work on outreach message templates and create tracking spreadsheet.
Use our free Instagram mass DM tool to reach creators faster without manually copying and pasting every message.
Send outreach and start tracing replies.
Automate with Influencer Gift Form.
Track responses and ship products.
Monitor for organic posts.
Engage with the creators content.
Save UCG content for future use.
Continuous build relationship and community with influencers.
Creator gifting by the numbers
If you are wondering if influencer gifting or product seeding campaigns are worth the effort, here are some real statistics from a well executed product seeding campaign.
Beyond these statistics, this brand was also able to receive real product feedback, lots of UGC for social and ads, discovered new keywords for SEO, a few video events went viral and transferred into a real surge in sales.
As you can see from the statistics that this brand has contacted 4000+ creators, 50 is just not enough. It can be easily done with virtual assistant (VA) and Influencer Gift Form to automate the whole process.
How to scale gifting with a Virtual Assistant
Running a product seeding or influencer gifting campaign does not mean you have to complete everything yourself. One of the easiest and efficient ways to scale your outreach is by hiring a virtual assistant (VA) especially when you are doing this at a large scale.
There are platforms like Upwork and Fiverr that make it fast and affordable to find a VA. Many creators hire VAs at rates as low as $8/hour for 8 hours a day they can reach around ~50 influencers daily. Over the course of 3 months that is 3000+ influencers contacted for around $3000 in total, which is even less than a mid-tier influencer post.
A VA can help with:
Sourcing and quality flying influencers.
Sending out DM outreaches.
Following up and managing responses and track shipments and delivery statuses.
Logging UGC and post activities in a spreadsheet.
The most key to this is setting up a clear and repeatable workflow to the VA:
Creating standard operating procedures.
Message using templates for outreach, follow ups.
Automating updates and notifications with tools like Zapier.
Tracking all progress in a single tracking system.
This workflow makes running a creator seeding or influencer gifting campaign at scale repeatable, fast and cost-effective.
Conclusion
Whether you’re looking to boost brand awareness or drive direct sales, influencer gifting and product seeding campaigns each offer unique advantages depending on your goals. Product seeding is perfect for sparking authentic buzz and building long-term relationships, while influencer gifting gives you control and guaranteed content in exchange for your product. Done right and with the help of a virtual assistant and the right tools, both strategies can scale efficiently, deliver meaningful ROI, and help your brand stand out in today’s crowded creator economy.
