Effinity and Cyrillus: turning authentic influence into scalable performance

About Cyrillus and Effinity: heritage style meets modern storytelling

Cyrillus is a French heritage fashion and lifestyle brand known for its timeless aesthetic, high-quality materials, and refined take on family fashion and home décor. With roots in classic French style, the brand has built a loyal customer base around elegance, authenticity, and attention to detail, spanning womenswear, childrenswear, and interior collections.

Paris-based Effinity is a digital marketing agency specialising in performance-driven strategies across affiliate marketing, influencer marketing, and social commerce. Known for its hybrid approach that blends data, technology, and creative partnerships, Effinity helps brands design scalable acquisition strategies while maintaining strong brand equity. 

The Challenge: overcoming brand hesitations and prove influence can drive performance

When Effinity began working with Cyrillus on a new influencer marketing strategy at the end of 2024, the ambition was clear. Drive sales performance while preserving a carefully crafted brand image.

But there was hesitation. Like many premium brands before it, Cyrillus was concerned that an overly promotional approach to influencer marketing could damage the brand image. 

“There is often that concern amongst premium brands,” explains Alexia Soulabail, Influence Manager at Effinity. “It’s up to us to reassure clients that it won’t, and that it can actually amplify what makes them unique.”

Cyrillus needed a strategy that would deliver measurable results while staying true to its identity. The answer lay in rethinking how influencer marketing could work alongside affiliate marketing, to the benefit of both levers.

The Strategy: where affiliate and influencer marketing meet in the middle

Effinity mapped a hybrid model strategy that combined influencer marketing with affiliate performance mechanics.

At its core, the approach was simple but powerful. Activate creators who already loved the brand at scale, reward them based on performance, and build long-term relationships instead of one-off activations.

“The idea was to integrate influence into the affiliate programme for tracking, partnership management, and billing, while still sourcing creators through Kolsquare,” explains Jean-Baptiste Barat, Directeur Social Commerce & Influence at Effinity.

Instead of large upfront budgets, the campaign relied on product gifting and commission-based remuneration. Creators received curated product selections and earned 11% commission on the revenue they generated.

Crucially, the strategy was designed to scale. By combining gifting with performance-based remuneration, Effinity created a model that could continuously expand the pool of active creators.

“These campaigns don’t just activate creators, they attract new ones,” explains Jean-Baptiste Barat. “Over time, we see more profiles joining the programme organically, without gifting or fixed fees, simply because they want to monetise content around the brand.”

This hybrid approach transformed influencer marketing from a campaign-based channel into a growing ecosystem of creators contributing to Cyrillus’ performance over time.

It was a model that reassured the brand on two fronts.

“It’s a performance lever first, and it allows us to control costs while still scaling content and visibility,” adds Jean-Baptiste. “If creators perform well and align with the brand, we include them in a longer-term approach rather than one-off collaborations.” 

Creator selection: authentic voices, curated aesthetics

The success of the strategy relied heavily on careful creator selection though Kolsquare. Key to a successful selection process was identifying creators who were already talking about the brand organically. 

Effinity focused on nano and micro creators, typically between 8K and 25K followers, with strong engagement rates and a natural affinity for Cyrillus. 

From there, the team refined their selection using several criteria:

• High engagement, often above 4%
• Predominantly French audiences, typically above 70–75%
• Strong visual identity aligned with Cyrillus’ aesthetic
• Content quality, both visually and editorially

“We used Kolsquare to analyse the quality of content, the visual style, and the tone. It needs to feel polished but still natural, something that fits the brand’s universe,” Alexia explains.

Content was largely built around Instagram, with creators given freedom to select products and shape their narratives. This autonomy ensured authenticity while maintaining consistency with brand guidelines.

Kolsquare: data-powered KOL discovery 

Kolsquare played a central role in enabling Effinity to execute this strategy at scale. 

“The starting point was to find who was already talking about the brand. Kolsquare allowed us to do that instantly, instead of searching manually on Instagram,” explains Alexia Soulabail. “Kolsquare is a huge time saver and a strong starting point for building a relevant creator shortlist.”

The platform enabled precise filtering based on audience size, engagement, demographics, and content quality. 

Kolsquare also strengthened collaboration with the client by providing clear, structured insights into the KOL selection process.

“We use Kolsquare to share detailed profiles with the client, including audience breakdowns and key metrics, so they have everything they need to validate or challenge our selection,” Alexia explains.

Beyond sourcing, the platform supported a broader strategic vision.

“Kolsquare helps us identify the right creators not just for one campaign, but to build long-term ambassador relationships,” adds Jean-Baptiste.

Results: performance, growth, and a self-sustaining creator ecosystem

The results go beyond campaign performance. The strategy fundamentally changed the scale of Cyrillus’ influencer and affiliate ecosystem.

What started as curated creator activations evolved into a self-sustaining growth engine, with more than 130 active influencers and a sharp increase in affiliate-driven creator participation.

The campaign scaled steadily across multiple activations, with around 20 creators per campaign and several waves throughout the year. Over time, the strategy generated a powerful ripple effect.

“These campaigns also helped recruit new creators organically into the affiliate programme, without gifting or fixed fees,” explains Jean-Baptiste.

As visibility increased, creators began joining the programme independently to monetise their content. This created a scalable ecosystem of creators contributing to the brand’s growth.

Key highlights include:

• 32% of customers acquired through influencer marketing were new customers
• A significant increase in active creators, with over 130 influencers engaged compared to around 30 previously
• A strong uplift in affiliate programme participation, with +188 registrations versus 45 before

Beyond numbers, the campaign delivered consistent, high-quality content aligned with Cyrillus’ brand identity while expanding its reach into new audiences.

Closing: a model for modern, scalable influence

Effinity’s work with Cyrillus shows how influencer marketing can evolve beyond awareness into a fully measurable, performance-driven channel without losing its human touch.

By combining authentic creator relationships, affiliate logic, and data-driven tools like Kolsquare, the agency built a strategy that is both scalable and sustainable.

The result is not just a successful campaign, but a long-term influence engine powered by real brand advocates.

Want to build smarter, more scalable influencer campaigns like Cyrillus? Book a demo with Kolsquare and see how data can transform your influence strategy.