Who would have thought that drag queens could be the ultimate influencer partners for a tech brand?
Surfshark is a cybersecurity company that offers a variety of online security tools, including a VPN, antivirus, and data leak detection.
When we first teamed up with Surfshark VPN in 2019, we started with 4 creators to trial working influencers to drive conversions Fast forward 5 years, and our partnership has solidified. Together we have seen huge success, unlocking the formula for promoting a VPN service to fresh audiences.
YouTube is the primary platform for our partnership with Surfshark and has been since we started working together. This is because YouTube creators can take the time to effectively explain the benefits of what may seem like a complicated product, they can also put a direct link to the product in their bio that their viewers can easily navigate to.
By prioritizing the power of YouTube influencers, we’ve not only educated viewers about online security but also demonstrated how Surfshark VPN seamlessly fits into their daily lives. To maximize impact, we’ve meticulously tested and scaled across demographics, platforms, and markets – blending localized messaging with tailored core narratives to drive conversions.
The results speak for themselves: Over 2,000 creators, 4,000+ sponsored videos, and a staggering 1 billion+ views. Most impressively, 65% of Surfshark’s product sales can be linked to YouTube influencer partnerships.
So, what’s the secret behind this success? Experimenting with influencer partners who don’t fall into the obvious tech vertical…
When you think of tech marketing, beautiful and creative drag queens might not be the first influencers that come to mind - but that’s exactly why they’ve become such powerful brand advocates for Surfshark.
We’re always on the lookout for fresh, unexpected ways to drive engagement. By continuously testing new verticals, we identify opportunities where brands can thrive before their competitors, and allocate a portion of the budget to influencer experimentation.
From analyzing historic data and running affinity profiling, we discovered that drag queen creators could be the secret sauce for Surfshark.
Tracking campaign performance and storing historical data allows us to uncover unexpected success stories. By analyzing past wins in new verticals, we can dive deeper into the data and start projecting the potential return of specific niches.
Composer, our in-house workflow companion logs our campaign data, allowing us to draw insights from past performance across various industries. We built the tool and integrated Generative AI and Google Gemini, to identify patterns and opportunities that may not have been an obvious first choice, but with data backing the success, we can confidently experiment with new strategies for our clients.
Take Bussy Queen, for example. What started as an experimental partnership in 2020 has evolved into a long-term collaboration. Bussy Queen has become a go-to content creator for Surfshark VPN, as well as their sister brands Incogni (a personal data removal service) and Saily (eSIM solution).
Our partnership with Surfshark prioritizes driving clicks to the Surfshark site, and ultimately VPN downloads. Bussy’s conversions, along with our other regular creator partners, are consistently high.
Bussy has created a total of 54 videos for Surfshark and its sister brands, and as they are consistent with this partnership and their messaging surrounding Surfshark, Bussy’s audience can put trust in the partnership.
Bussy’s highest-watched video for Surfshark has racked up over half a million views! They shared how sometimes the episodes of Ru Paul’s Drag Race that they want to make commentary videos on aren’t always available where they live, but with Surfshark, they can set their VPN to any country of their choice to get access to the episodes. In turn, this means Bussy can deliver even more Drag Race commentary videos to their audience!
Novympia is another of our regular drag queen partners on the Surfshark campaign. They have produced 36 videos in partnership with the brand. In their most-watched video in partnership with Surfshark, which has 170k views, the queens speak about how they use the VPN to watch location-locked Eurovision song contests. The way they speak about the product is completely true to their interests and the topics they usually cover with their audience.
Want to discover the unexpected influencer niche that will drive results for your brand? Reach out to us at hello@digitalvoices.com.
