Frederica is a Portugal-based beauty and wellness brand founded by Vanessa. She is one of the top health and lifestyle influencers in Portugal, with more than 600,000 followers on Instagram.
The brand began as a personal project when Vanessa created melatonin-infused sleeping gummies to improve her own sleep. The tremendous interest from her audience quickly turned this personal project into a full-fledged business.
Over time, the brand expands their product range to support various aspects of well-being, such as hair health, skin tanning, and menstrual pain.
As Frederica grew, so did the challenge of reaching more people while staying true to its roots. Vanessa’s connection with her audience had always been a strength, so influencer marketing felt like the perfect next step. It was a way to keep that connection alive, but now with a larger network of trusted voices.
However, managing all these partnerships manually became difficult. To ensure their influencer marketing program runs smoothly, Frederica decided to use UpPromote. The platform helps the team manage their influencer network and track performance metrics, allowing them to scale their efforts effectively.
Leverage the CEO’s influence to attract influencers
The brand has leveraged the CEO’s influence to expand their network, successfully recruiting around 200 active influencers all located in Portugal. That’s a great result as these influencers will help the brand introduce products to their target audience – Portuguese consumers.
Because our CEO is an influencer, we use her name a lot. That’s easier to reach big influencers. For those who aren’t responding to us, our CEO even gets in contact with them and encourages them to join the program.
Giovanna Barione – Marketing Team Lead
Quality over quantity: The secret to building a strong influencer team
Frederica focuses on quality when recruiting influencers for their program. They carefully select individuals who are a good fit for the brand and can effectively promote their products.
To maintain high standards, every new influencer starts with a three-month contract. If they fail to meet sales targets during this period, they will be removed from the program.
With UpPromote’s real-time tracking and analytics, Frederica gains valuable insights into each influencer’s clicks, referrals, and commissions. This allows the team to identify high-performing influencers and address underperformance early.
Of course, the brand stays transparent about these rules in the first place. They ensure that influencers are fully aware of the terms before joining the program. Their performance will be evaluated, and they must meet the set requirements to stay in the program.
What’s more, these influencers must follow clear posting guidelines from Frederica. They need to post at least a story per week and a feed post per month on Instagram, tagging the brand in every post. Then the Frederica team will check their activity every week and ensure they meet the program’s standards.
We have a three-month contract. So after three months, their performance is analyzed. If it’s under a certain number, they get fired….They have to share a story at least once per week and one feed post per month.
Giovanna Barione – Marketing Team Lead at Frederica
Foster meaningful bonds with influencers
Consistent communication is essential for managing affiliates and influencers. The more the brand engages with their influencers, the better the influencers understand the products, and the better they can promote them.
With UpPromote, brands can easily stay connected with their influencers using bulk emails or the in-app chat feature. These tools allow merchants to share program updates, announce product launches, or inform ambassadors about upcoming promotions.
At Frederica, the team stays in regular contact with their influencers, addressing any questions or concerns they may have.
We like to create a good connection with the influencers and talk with them if they have any doubts or questions, or if they want to grow in this process with us – with Frederica.”
Joana Pedro – Influencer Marketing Specialist at Frederica
Empower influencers with tools and knowledge
Frederica wants to ensure that their affiliates have everything they need to promote products. With the help of UpPromote, the brand lets influencers choose between affiliate links and coupons.
Coupon codes are a powerful tool for social media promotions, and this is especially true for Frederica’s brand. The majority of referrals for the brand come from influencers sharing their coupon codes.
Rafaela Figueiredo is one of the influencers of the brand, with more than 65K followers on Instagram. She recently promoted the brand’s “Gummies to Tan” on her feed, highlighting her exclusive coupon code for her followers to use. UpPromote will ensure all purchases made through her code are tracked and credited to her.
UpPromote makes it easy for brands by automatically assigning coupon codes to new affiliates as soon as they join the program. That saves time for brands while allowing affiliates to start promoting immediately.
Additionally, merchants can manually create custom coupon codes tailored to specific affiliates. For instance, influencers with larger followings can receive higher-value coupons compared to smaller-scale affiliates.
No matter what method influencers use, links or coupons, UpPromote tracks every referral they bring to the store. Then the Frederica team can regularly monitor individual influencer performance and the overall effectiveness of the program.
What’s more, the brand also hosts special events to strengthen their relationships with influencers. These events include giveaways, product demonstrations, and valuable knowledge-sharing about the brand’s niche.
This year, we’ve already held two events for influencers. One took place at a hair salon where I promoted our products. We treated influencers to a spa day and gifted them nail & hair products. The second event was a fitness class.
Giovanna Barione shares in the interview.
The results & lessons learned
In less than a year of leveraging affiliate marketing with UpPromote, Frederica has seen outstanding results:
- Affiliate marketing drives up to 25% of overall revenue.
- The influencer team has expanded to 200 members.
Frederica aims to take their affiliate program even further, with a bold goal of driving 50% of total sales through affiliate marketing.
The brand builds a strong affiliate network by selecting influencers who align with their brand, motivating affiliates to succeed, and filtering out underperformers. UpPromote is proud to provide the tools and insights to support their journey, helping Frederica effectively manage and scale their program.
Frederica’s advice for other businesses is simple but powerful: choose affiliates who match your brand and cultivate meaningful relationships with them.
You need to know your brand very well to find affiliates who are the right fit. That’s essential. And you must build strong relationships with your affiliates. Make them feel like they are part of your community – that’s very important for sure.
Beatriz Patachão – Influencer Marketing Specialist at Frederica
Ellie Tran, a seasoned SEO content writer with three years of experience in the eCommerce world. Being a part of the UpPromote team, Ellie wants to assist Shopify merchants in achieving success through useful content & actionable insights. Ellie's commitment to learning never stops; she's always eager to gain more knowledge about SEO and content marketing to create valuable content for users. When she's not working on content, Ellie enjoys baking and exploring new places.
