XXL Nutrition Expansion: Leveraging Influencer Marketing for Growth in Germany
Submitted by The Cirqle

XXL Nutrition Germany Instagram Partnership Ads

Influencer Marketing

The Cirqle's platform connected XXL Nutrition with 14 German fitness and sports influencers for WHEY ISOLATE ZERO, whose content became Partnership Ads that cut CPC by -56.8%.

-24.25%CPM Decrease
-56.8%CPC Reduction

About the campaign

XXL Nutrition used The Cirqle's platform to turn German influencer content into Meta Partnership Ads that cut CPM by 24.25%. The brand sells sports nutrition in the Netherlands and Belgium, where it had already worked with influencers. Its goal was to raise brand awareness in Germany for its flagship product, WHEY ISOLATE ZERO.

Through the agency, XXL Nutrition contracted 14 German fitness and sports influencers. They showed the product's selling points in Instagram Reels and Carousels, producing 28 creatives for paid media. The brand then launched a traffic-focused awareness campaign on Meta with the platform's campaign creation widget. That campaign followed the agency's recommended structure, which is built on creator-based audiences.

The agency reports results against a similar campaign that ran with XXL Nutrition's own ads. CPM fell by 24.25% and CPC fell by 56.8% for the Partnership Ads. Click-through rate on the Partnership Ads was 79.74% higher than on the brand's ads.

Case in 60 seconds

XXL Nutrition had already built its influencer success in the Netherlands and Belgium, and it wanted to repeat that in Germany, which meant raising recognition for WHEY ISOLATE ZERO in a new market through a setup that could scale.

A brand entering a new country has no audience of its own there yet, because recognition takes time to build, so local creators and their audiences give its ads a familiar face from the first impression.

Creator content became the paid awareness engine for the German entry, with posts from local fitness and sports influencers converted into Meta Paid Partnership Ads that ran inside a traffic-focused campaign.

Through The Cirqle, XXL Nutrition contracted 14 German fitness and sports influencers who presented WHEY ISOLATE ZERO in Instagram Reels and Carousels, yielding 28 creatives that ran on Meta under a recommended structure built on creator-based audiences.

The Cirqle reports that the Partnership Ads cut CPM by 24.25% and CPC by 56.8% against XXL Nutrition's own ads in a similar campaign, while click-through rate ran 79.74% higher.

Strategy Breakdown

Consumers in Germany, reached through the followings of German fitness and sports influencers and through creator-based audiences on Meta.
XXL Nutrition led with a single flagship product, WHEY ISOLATE ZERO, so every Reel and Carousel carried the same product story and its selling points into a market that did not yet know the brand.
Audiences respond to ads fronted by creators they follow differently from ads fronted by an unfamiliar brand, which is why the campaign structure targeted creator-based audiences when the content moved into paid media.

Creative & Execution System

Assets & channels

  • Instagram

Partners

  • The Cirqle

Results & Evidence

MetricValue
CPM Decrease24.25% decrease
CPC Reduction56.8% reduction
CTR Uplift vs Brand Ads2.75%
Influencers Contracted14 influencers
Creatives for Paid Media28 creatives

Why The Cirqle's strategy worked

  1. 1

    Contracting creators for paid usage stretches one sourcing round across a whole ad campaign, because 14 influencers delivered 28 creatives, so the brand had enough variants to run on Meta without commissioning more.

  2. 2

    Benchmarking partnership ads against the brand's own ads in a similar campaign isolates what the creator adds to cost and clicks, which gives a performance team a comparison it can act on.

  3. 3

    A playbook proven in the Netherlands and Belgium can travel to a neighbouring market when creator sourcing runs through a platform, since the brand repeats the process with local talent instead of rebuilding it.

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