Cleverbridge is moving deeper into the creator economy.
The global commerce company has launched a new influencer marketing service aimed specifically at software and SaaS businesses, bringing creator partnerships into a part of the market that has traditionally leaned much more heavily on affiliates, paid acquisition and performance marketing.
The new offering is powered by Later‘s creator marketing platform and becomes part of Cleverbridge’s wider growth services business, alongside affiliate marketing, retention marketing and conversion rate optimization.
For software brands, that creates an interesting crossover: influencer marketing isn’t being positioned simply as an awareness play. Cleverbridge wants creators to become another measurable part of the path from product discovery to purchase.
Cleverbridge Brings Influencer Marketing Into Software Sales
Influencer marketing has long been associated with consumer categories such as fashion, beauty, fitness and lifestyle. Software works differently. Buyers may spend considerably more time researching whether a product actually fits their workflow, integrates with existing systems, offers the right pricing and will still be useful months after they subscribe.
That’s exactly where Cleverbridge sees an opening.
Instead of treating creators as another advertising surface, the company is positioning them as independent voices that can help potential customers understand and evaluate software before buying it.
That could mean tutorials, demonstrations, comparisons, reviews or creator-led explanations that reach buyers while they’re still figuring out which product deserves their attention.
Cleverbridge CEO Richard Stevenson pointed to changing software discovery habits as part of the reason behind the move, particularly as AI reshapes how people search for and evaluate information online.
Third-party validation, in other words, is becoming part of the sales funnel.
Later Gives Cleverbridge Access to More Than 20 Million Creators
Cleverbridge isn’t building the creator infrastructure from scratch.
The service is supported by Later’s creator marketing platform, which Cleverbridge says reaches more than 20 million creators globally.
There’s another number worth noticing. Cleverbridge already works with a network of more than 350,000 affiliate partners.
Putting those ecosystems closer together could allow software companies to run affiliate and influencer campaigns as connected performance channels rather than two completely separate marketing programs.
That’s an important distinction. A creator campaign might introduce a product to an audience, while affiliate tracking can help connect that attention with traffic, conversions and revenue.
For brands under pressure to prove what influencer spending actually delivers, the combination makes the creator channel easier to defend internally.
Software Brands Can Choose Managed or Self-Directed Campaigns
Not every SaaS company has an influencer marketing team sitting in-house. Cleverbridge has accounted for that.
Clients can choose between managed and self-directed approaches depending on their resources and campaign goals.
Under the managed model, Cleverbridge handles the influencer program directly and applies experience from its affiliate marketing operations to areas including campaign efficiency, conversions and overall performance.
Companies with their own marketing resources can take the more self-directed route while still accessing the creator marketing capabilities provided through Later.
Both approaches are designed to sit alongside existing affiliate and digital commerce activity, giving brands a broader view of how influencer campaigns contribute to growth instead of isolating creator marketing in its own reporting bubble.
Influencer Marketing Is Starting to Look Different in B2B and SaaS
The more interesting story may be bigger than Cleverbridge itself.
Creator marketing has been slowly escaping the boundaries of traditional consumer influencer campaigns. Software creators on YouTube, LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram and other platforms can influence buying decisions without necessarily looking like conventional influencers.
A developer explaining a coding platform. A video editor demonstrating new software. A marketing creator comparing AI tools. A productivity creator walking through an automation stack.
Those recommendations can arrive much closer to a purchase decision than a glossy brand campaign does.
And software is unusually well suited to demonstration. Creators can actually show viewers what a product does, where it works, where it doesn’t and whether it solves a specific problem.
That kind of content can carry more weight than another banner ad following someone around the internet.
Rising Acquisition Costs Make Creator-Led Demand More Attractive
There is also a less glamorous reason software companies are looking at creators: acquiring customers isn’t getting cheaper.
Cleverbridge specifically framed the launch against rising paid acquisition costs and changing buyer behavior. If companies can generate demand through trusted creators while also measuring downstream performance, influencer marketing starts looking less like experimental brand spending and more like another acquisition channel.
It won’t automatically make every creator campaign profitable. Software audiences can be narrow, buying cycles can be long and a creator with a massive following may still be completely wrong for a particular SaaS product.
Relevance matters more here than follower count.
A smaller creator whose audience consists almost entirely of designers, developers, marketers or business owners may be far more valuable to a specialized software company than a mainstream influencer reaching millions of people.
Creator Marketing Moves Closer to Performance Marketing
Cleverbridge’s expansion is another sign that the dividing line between influencer marketing and performance marketing is getting harder to see.
Creators can build awareness. Affiliates can generate measurable conversions. Increasingly, the same person can do both.
For software brands, that’s probably where the opportunity becomes most compelling. Creator marketing doesn’t need to replace affiliate programs, paid advertising or traditional demand generation. It can sit between them, helping buyers discover products through people they already trust and then providing a measurable path toward conversion.
Cleverbridge’s new service is available immediately to both new and existing clients.
The company operates across more than 240 markets and has offices in Chicago, Austin, Cologne, London and Singapore.