--- title: "Ad Specialist vs. Linkster: Tool or Execution? – Ad Specialist" description: "Linkster or an agency? Explore its conversion tracking, the internal work it requires and when Ad Specialist with IDA is a better fit." canonical: https://www.adspecialist.de/en/vergleich/linkster/ --- # Ad Specialist vs. Linkster: Tool or Execution? – Ad Specialist > Linkster or an agency? Explore its conversion tracking, the internal work it requires and when Ad Specialist with IDA is a better fit. Kanonische URL: https://www.adspecialist.de/en/vergleich/linkster/ ## Ad Specialist vs. Linkster Linkster connects creator discovery, campaigns and conversion tracking into your store. It handles booking and measurement, but your team still chooses creators, negotiates and scales the channel. See when the platform is enough and when an agency adds more. ## What Linkster does well - Linkster is a Hamburg-based influencer marketing platform for D2C and enterprise brands. The provider puts measurement first, tracking clicks, conversions and revenue through to ROI. - Features include creator discovery, automated campaign briefs, bulk creator management, CRM and multi-market support. One interface manages fixed-fee, barter and affiliate campaigns; the larger package connects your store. Linkster also offers training and a managed service. - It is a considered tool for teams running their own campaigns and tracking revenue per creator. As of September 2026. ## Where the work begins From measurement to scale - Linkster shows which campaigns generated clicks, conversions and revenue. That's valuable. Your team still makes the decisions before and after: whom to approach, at what price, with which brief, and what the results mean for the next round. - That's where the learning curve develops. Which creators sell for you, why, and where do you find another? Without benchmarks, decisions often rely on intuition, and every selection, briefing or pricing mistake comes out of your budget. - We bring benchmarks from over 20,000 campaigns and build the channel in three phases: potential analysis, testing roadmap and scaling. As we scale, we look for creators with profiles similar to your top performers. ## The real calculation Licence fees plus internal hours Linkster publishes its prices: Discovery costs €299 per month, while the suite with store integration starts at €999 per month, with an annual contract after a three-month pilot (as of September 2026). Creator fees and your team's time come on top. ## The comparison at a glance ## What IDA measures differently from a campaign tool - Linkster measures what a campaign generates in your store. IDA does too, with each booking considered alongside results from over 20,000 campaigns that inform our next selection. - Every creator gets a unique discount code and UTM link, synced with your store. IDA pulls orders, codes and basket data from Shopify daily, showing top products, new-customer share and order value per campaign. You can see who sells and who only brings reach. - Every new proposal includes expected views, effective CPM and total costs in IDA before you approve the creator. Learn more about [IDA](/en/ida/). ## When Linkster is the right choice - Linkster suits teams running their own creator campaigns, managing many collaborations in parallel and wanting revenue data directly from their store. - If no one internally will own the channel, or you mainly lack experience of which creators work at which prices, execution is the gap. See [Ad Specialist vs. an in-house team](/en/vergleich/inhouse-team/). ## The results - **Duschbrocken: 3,877 new customers through YouTube**: New-customer costs fell from €38 to €25, generating around 20% of the brand's new customers. - **BlueBrixx: €156,000 in revenue from one placement**: One creator, €7,800 invested, and 1,575 conversions at a €5 CAC after one month. - **MagicHolz: over 4,000 conversions from one placement**: An outdoor format in the middle of Q4, new-customer costs below €10 and a reach of two million. ## Your questions answered - **Can we keep using Linkster if we work with you?**: Yes. Your team can continue using Linkster for its own research and analysis. You don't need a separate licence for campaigns we run: we handle scouting, negotiation, briefing, booking and reporting, with measurement in IDA. - **What budget makes working together worthwhile?**: There is no universal figure; we assess every case individually. A typical starting point is €5,000–€10,000 in monthly creator spend plus our retainer. We assess the potential before any budget goes to creators. - **How soon will we see results?**: After four weeks, you receive the potential analysis: response rates, suitable verticals and a budget recommendation. The testing roadmap typically identifies the first top performers within three months. From month four, we scale what works. - **How do you measure what creators deliver?**: With IDA, our own analytics software. It combines codes, UTM links, store data and platform reports, breaking each placement down into CAC, ROI and CLV at creator level. That tells us who deserves more budget. - **Where does your information about the tool come from?**: Exclusively from the provider's official website, as of September 2026. We quote prices only where the provider publishes them. Features and pricing change; the provider's offer is always authoritative. If you spot an error, please let us know. ## See what a creator really delivers in IDA We'll use real campaigns to show how we select creators and break every booking down into revenue, CAC and ROAS. If you'd like to explore the channel afterwards, the potential analysis is the next step.