A lot of people are surprised to learn that they don’t have to be a major influencer to make money, thanks to companies like Sephora.
Sephora is a personal care and beauty product retailer with over 2,600 stores in 34 different countries. The name comes from the Greek spelling of Zipporah, which means “wife of Moses.”
Sephora is a popular store for people who are into beauty products, including makeup. I mean, can you name a beauty guru who doesn’t talk about Sephora?
But trust me when I say, many times, those beauty gurus are getting paid to do just that. But you don’t have to be a big-time influencer with millions of followers to cash in on Sephora promo.
I’m not a fan of most affiliate programs because they honestly don’t pay much. In fact, sites like Amazon and Walmart will often pay as little as 1%-2% commission on a sale. That’s often not even worth your time. Sephora, however, will pay you up to 15%, depending on the product you are promoting.
The average order at Sephora is $50. If you are earning 15% that means you’ll $7.50. That may not sound much, but $7.50 here, $7.50 there … it all adds up.
How to become a Sephora Affiliate
To get started, you first need to apply to their program, which you can do so by going to Sephora.com/beauty/affiliates and filling out their form.
I think you need to be 18 or older for this.
Sephora runs its affiliate program through a company called Rakuten marketing. They handle affiliate programs for multiple companies, but for today, we are just going to focus on Sephora.
After filling out the form, you need to wait to be approved. This can take a few days or even a few weeks. But once approved, you can start making money promoting Sephora products immediately.
How many social media followers to become a Sephora Affiliate?
Well, here is the thing, Sephora’s affiliate program isn’t designed specifically for social media influencers as much as it is for beauty bloggers. But that doesn’t mean you can’t do it through social media alone. It will just take a little bit of work to set things up on your end.
Sephora’s affiliate program is not the same as the #SephoraSquad, a program they first launched in 2019. This program was designed specifically for paid social media influencers to do a year-long partnership with the brand. This program is really for those bigger social media influencers, who they send free products, and in return, the influencer talks about them on social media. Last year they only accepted 15 beauty influencers for this program out of the thousands and thousands that applied.
That, however doesn’t mean you still can’t make money promoting Sephora on social media, you just need to do it through their affiliate program.
So to answer your question, how many followers do you need to make money promoting Sephora online? Well, to be honest, the more followers you have, the more money you are going to make because logistically, you’ll have more people to promote the products to.
First, let’s figure out what type of influencer you are. There are five types of social media influencers.
Nano influencers: Nano influencers specialize in a specific niche, with a small and engaged community that feels like they know the influencer on a personal level.
- YouTube: fewer than 5,000 subscribers
- Instagram: 2,500 – 10,000 followers
- TikTok: 5,000 – 50,000 followers
Micro-influencers: Like nano influencers, micro-influencers offer their audiences knowledge of a specific niche.
- YouTube: 5,000 – 25,000 subscribers
- Instagram: 10,000 – 100,000 followers
- TikTok: 50,000 – 150,000 followers
Mid-tier influencers: Once an influencer enters the mid-tier stage, they begin to transition their platforms from a hobby to a profession.
- YouTube: 25,000 – 250,000 subscribers
- Instagram: 100,000 – 500,000 followers
- TikTok: 150,000 – 750,000 followers
Macro influencers: Macro influencers are established personalities who have amassed a large following.
- YouTube: 250,000 – 1 million subscribers
- Instagram: 500,000 – 2.5 million followers
- TikTok: 750,000 – 2.5 million followers
Celebrity influencers: Celebrity influencers are ones who have reached a “celebrity status” due to their presence on social media.
- YouTube: 1 million+ subscribers
- Instagram: 2.5 million+ followers
- TikTok: 2.5 million+ followers
For the Sephora affiliate program, it doesn’t matter how many followers you have. In the end, you only make money if you make a sale. So they aren’t out anything by accepting smaller influencers into their program since they only have to pay you once you’ve made them money in the first place.
How does it work then?
So if you only have social media like Instagram and no personal website, just how do you make money from Sephora’s affiliate program?
Well, if you have a good Twitter or Facebook following, it’s simple enough, you tweet about something you like and then provide your special Sephora link. But Instagram isn’t as easy. You need to then use IG stories swipe up or link feature in stories to promote Sephora. IG doesn’t allow direct links on caption posts that’s why you have to do it via stories on Instagram.
If you want to use reels to promote Sephora, then another option is to create something like a Linktree page.
When you visit our Instagram page @GirlPowerGirlStrong, you’ll see not only our bio but an actual link to our website.
If you don’t have your own website, you can create Linktree page and put that in your Instagram bio. Then when you promote a product you put a link to it on your links page and that way you can simply put “LINK IN BIO” on your IG caption.
Linktree is one of those free sites that let you create a collection of “links” on a page. It’s a free website to help you keep up with a bunch of links all in one place. Great for people who don’t have their own website.
Or just IG stories, because that way you can put a link in the story and people can just click directly on your link. To add a clickable link to your Instagram stories, click on the LINK “sticker” when adding a story graphic/video.
So now you know how you can make money by promoting things from Sephora.
Join their affiliate program, then get your special link from them to promote their website and/or products. Then earn money for every sale you make.
If you refer someone to Sephora because you suggested they say try some new kind of lipstick, Sephora will send you money for that!
How much will you make? That depends. The more followers you have, the more chance to have to “influence” someone to buy something.
As an added bonus, they will also offer you discounts and samples.
So good luck, and here’s to hoping you make tons of money with Sephora! I mean you are going to go there anyway to buy new makeup, mind as well tell your friends about something great you picked up while there and make money if they buy it too, right?!
Be sure and check out “How to be a Social Media Influencer,” which is now available at Amazon!
