Kess Berlin is revolutionizing the everyday beauty game with its cruelty-free, vegan range of makeup. Germany-based, the company also serves clients in Italy, the Netherlands, and Austria from a multi-portfolio portfolio that includes highlighter and blush duo sticks, mascaras, eyebrow pencils, kajal eyeliners, lip glosses, and eyeshadow palettes.
What actually differentiates Kess Berlin is its emphasis on sustainability and quality. It applies dermatologically tested ingredients in its cosmetics as well as environment-friendly packaging, unifying beauty and sustainable consumption.
Building Community Through Influencer Marketing
It is in the heart of Kess Berlin’s success that they have a love for community and genuine relationships. Just as their products are meant to empower individuals, so too does their marketing. The brand places influencer marketing in the hands of beauty lovers to build trust and initiate conversations.
By bringing genuine product use into influencer content, Kess Berlin creates actual brand-to-customer connection. Although, while scaling the program out, it began to get increasingly harder to maintain a mass army of influencers.
Streamlining with UpPromote
UpPromote has been utilized by Kess Berlin to scale out their affiliate program in an efficient manner. With the help of the system, they have managed to:
Track affiliate real-time sales
Track campaigns’ performance
Make it simple to manage relationships with influencers
A Value-Based, Selective Recruitment Process
Rather than casting a wide net, Kess Berlin attempts a strategic and selective influencer recruitment. They thoroughly screen applicants to ensure that each one of them represents the same core values of natural beauty, empowerment, and authenticity that the brand does.
“We sort a lot of quality upfront. We take no affiliate influencer. We make sure they’re good, they’re very active, and belong to our target group audience. That leads to better performance.”
— Pauline Stark, Influencer Marketing Team Lead at Kess Berlin
By selecting high-quality active creators, the brand ensures better conversion rates and true-to-life brand representation.
Fair and Flexible Rewards for Influencers
Transparency and fairness are prerequisites for Kess Berlin influencer partnerships. For strong, mutually beneficial partnerships, the brand offers an attractive hybrid compensation structure:
- 10% commission on each sale generated through affiliate links
- Flat fees of up to €500 for Instagram feed or stories featuring Kess Berlin products
This two-tiered solution compensates both content creation and sales performance equally, encouraging influencers to produce high-performing, repetitive content.
Custom Commission Structures with UpPromote
UpPromote allows Kess Berlin to tailor commission types—percentage of sales, flat rate per item, or per order—and gain flexibility on various levels of affiliates.
Equipping Influencers with the Proper Tools
Kess Berlin equips their influencers to sell the brand efficiently. Every creator receives:
- Free product samples to experiment and develop content with
- A personalized affiliate dashboard via UpPromote to track clicks, referrals, and commissions
- Monthly campaign bundles with creative materials, content briefs, and new discount vouchers (typically 20–25% off or more for promotions)
“Every month, we have a new campaign theme. Our affiliates get a new briefing and new discount code to share with their users.”
— Pauline Stark
Influencer @paulaasworld, with over 117K followers, shared her go-to Kess Berlin blush sticks in a summer makeup round-up, stating the brand and including affiliate links that drive measurable traffic and sales.
44,000+ Referrals and an Expanding Program
All because of their influencer-first strategy and UpPromote’s powerful tracking capabilities, Kess Berlin has generated more than 44,000 affiliate referrals—all through just 44 active influencers. Such a spectacular outcome is proof that quality trumps quantity is the key to serious influence.
The brand will keep digging deeper into the power of UpPromote in the coming days to further optimize their affiliate program, enhance influencer support, and create even better results.
About the Author
Ellie Tran is an experienced SEO content writer with a passion for eCommerce. She is a member of the UpPromote team dedicated to equipping Shopify merchants with actionable insights and knowledge base blog articles. Ellie spends her leisure time baking and discovering new places.
