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When attempting to think out-of-the-box for the campaigns, marketers often run the risk of losing touch with their potential customers. This challenge becomes even more pronounced during the Halloween marketing campaigns, which officially mark the beginning of the holiday shopping season.  

So, every year, more and more brands reach out to Halloween influencers as their go-to advertising channels to run creative and relatable campaigns. Take Chipotle's Roblox influencer campaign, for example. 

In 2021, Chipotle celebrated the 21st anniversary of its “Chipotle Boorito Halloween” campaign by foraying into the metaverse with influencers. Instead of following the stereotypical method of launching an in-restaurant offer, they took the experience on Roblox - Chipotle Boorito Maze.

Chipotle created a virtual lookalike of their restaurant in Roblox. Players had to dress up their avatars in Halloween costumes. Then, navigate the maze by collecting real ingredients and avoiding monsters, and finally reach the  maze center to get an exclusive item for their avatar. 

The influencers started exciting conversations with their followers to create buzz before the game launched. Chipotle also invited Roblox gaming influencers to play the game before the launch. They released YouTube videos on the launch day to explain to followers how it works. The results: Chipotle earned over 8 million visits to the virtual restaurant, 4.6+ billion PR impressions, and 50k+ social mentions. 

Since we're stepping into September already, this is the perfect time for you to begin planning your Halloween influencer marketing campaign. According to Google Trends, the search for "Halloween" increases from early September and remains at its peak till the holiday. It  shows that by this time, your audience is already searching for costume ideas, makeup for Halloween, Halloween decoration ideas, and more. 

So, to help you begin planning, we have handpicked the top Halloween influencers on Instagram, generating the highest engagement rates you can follow for spooky inspiration. We also break down the best Halloween influencer campaigns towards the end of the article to get your creative juices flowing. 

So why wait? Let's dig in! 

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Best horror influencers on Instagram for your Halloween Campaign 

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1. Tamara Bowman @tamaracameraphoto - (40.5k followers)

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Tamara Bowman is a micro mom influencer and author sharing her family life on Instagram. She promotes kids' toys, clothing, and candies to fellow parents.  She generates a spectacular 3.9% engagement rate, catering to a 60% female audience in the US. The influencer is an excellent pick for brands looking to run Halloween campaigns and planning to target millennial moms for the holiday season. In 2022, Bowman partnered with a community of mom content creators to host a Halloween giveaway for her followers. She has previously collaborated with BubbaBurger, Torani, PetSmart, Dunkin', Walmart, and other big brands.

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2. Candice Sedighan @thatgoldendog - (277k followers) 

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Candice Sedighan is a dog photographer and pet influencer, having a 9.83% engagement rate on her content. The main highlight of her page is that she posts images of pups in different settings like Christmas, Thanksgiving, and even Halloween, making her a perfect choice for Halloween influencer campaigns. In 2022, Stella & Chewy's partnered with the creator to promote their festive pumpkin-spiced latte for dogs. Over the years, her key brand collaborations include Amazon Pets, PetSafe, Raid, ZippyPaws, and more. 

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3. Selena Tay @tay.mk - (4.7k followers) 

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Selena Tay is a parenting influencer in Singapore. She shares images of her family and also reviews of salons and restaurants. She talks a lot about kid's food, candies, lunches, and toys, creating a 5.86% engagement rate. According to affable.ai data, her content caters to 72.11% female audience, of which 67.61% are aged between 26 and 32 years, indicating that her key audience is millennial moms. Brands can partner with her to promote kids Halloween costumes, candies, and other items. 

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4. Arpita Singh @the_etiquette_rouge - (78.7k followers)

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Arpita Singh is an Indian makeup influencer who shares creative makeup looks for different occasions. The creator shared her Salty Siren makeup look for Halloween last year as part of NYX Cosmetics' Cirque Du Soleil campaign. She can be a good choice for Halloween makeup and costume ideas. Her key brand collaborations include big-name makeup brands like MAC Cosmetics, Maybelline, Swiss Beauty, Nykaa Cosmetics, and BarryM Cosmetics. 

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5. Tiana @tianakun - (123k followers)

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Tiana is a UK-based fashion influencer on Instagram. Her fashion content game is perfect for your next Halloween campaign. You can collaborate with her to churn content like last-minute Halloween costume ideas, easy Halloween costumes, and Halloween outfit ideas. ROMWE.com partnered with her in 2022 to promote their scary cool Halloween outfit collection with their target audience. In addition, Shein, Rocawear, Annie Liu, UnzzyStore, and other fashion companies have approached her.

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6. Hattie Smith @hattiebourn - (469k followers)

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Hattie Smith, the momtrepreneur on Instagram, hustles through work and parenting. And she shares it all on her YouTube and Instagram pages. Her content generates a 4.28% engagement rate, indicating that her audience enjoys and engages with her posts and videos. Whether it's GRWM videos with her kids or her work outfits, Smith shares relatable content with her followers, which makes her an ideal fit for Halloween influencer campaigns. Her latest Halloween collaboration includes H&M Kids, for which she dressed her kids as trick-or-treaters with the brand's clothing. 

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7. Natalie & the Aguilars @natalientheaguilars - (473k followers) 

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Natalie & the Aguilars is one of the top Halloween influencers on Instagram. Natalie Aguilars manages the family content page and generates a high engagement rate of 18.61%, higher than similar Halloween influencers. Aguilars shares fun family vlogs and Reels to entertain her audience. She usually promotes FMCG products like Always, Febreze, Nescafe, and Bounty. For Halloween 2022, CocaCola invited the Aguilars to attend Knott's Scary Farm, the Halloween-themed event in California. The influencer shared images of her and her family on the page having fun at the farm with Coke and popcorn. 

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8. Kaelin Dunn @dunnfamilyfun - (101k followers) 

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Kaelin Dunn is a mom and family influencer boasting her family of 5 (soon to be 6) on Instagram. She discusses everything from kids' toys to breastfeeding essentials and back-to-school outfits on her page. In 2022, she promoted several candy brands her kids like  at Walmart, letting the parents know where to buy their trick-or-treat goodies. Other key collaborations include IKEA, Nordstrom, Netflix family, LEGO, and other brands. 

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9. Aiman @justaiming - (472k followers) 

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Aiman is an entertainment content creator famous for her relatable meme Reels. She also shares images and videos of her outfits, making her an ideal partner for lifestyle brands like Lancome, Maybelline, Olaplex, Garnier, Netflix, Samsung, and many more. Her audience receives her content well, generating a 20.97% engagement rate. Moreover, she relates to a Gen Z audience aged between 19 and 25 years. 

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10. Lucas Olioti @t3ddyyyy - (6.1m followers) 

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Lucas Olioti is a Brazilian video content creator on Instagram with over 6 million followers and a 3.53% engagement rate. His YouTube channel has more than 16 million subscribers who follow his gaming, meme, and reaction videos. For his Instagram page, he often dresses up as fictional characters like the Joker from Batman and more. Brands looking to collaborate to create buzz during Halloween can partner with him. In 2022, he collaborated with Fanta to promote them for Halloween. 

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5 Spooktacular Halloween Influencer Marketing Campaigns‍

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1. NYX Professional Makeup - Taking inspiration from fictional characters 

L'Oreal cosmetics brand NYX Professional Makeup is known for its out-of-the-box influencer marketing campaigns. They often partner with globally trending makeup influencers and use their content for their organic social media content and creator licensing ads. The Halloween 2022 campaign was no different. 

The brand partnered with makeup Halloween influencers, including @kaylinnbihari, @maddys.makeup, @justaiming, and more from all over the world to promote their limited edition products like lip lingerie, marshmallow primer, and plump setting spray. The influencers dressed up as the fictional characters from Cirque Du Soleil, a no-animal character-driven circus in Las Vegas. The Halloween makeup looks inspired several consumers to create their makeup looks for Halloween using the brand's products. 

Many customers imitated the looks shared by the Halloween influencers, creating tons of UGC for the company. NYX shared this content on their social media page to boost holiday sales. 

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2. Spirit Halloween - Partnering with a mix of influencers 

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Spirit Halloween, the Halloween pop-up shop in the USA, collaborates with Halloween influencers to spread the word about their costumes and home decor accessories. 

In 2022, they collaborated with a mix of fashion, makeup, mom, dance, and niche Halloween influencers. The campaign started in late September and ran till the holiday to hype up their target audience and make them aware of Spirit Halloween products. The influencers showcased the products in fun and creative ways while relating to their audience in their own way. 

For example, @merrickhanna shared quick and fun transitions to spotlight his Halloween outfit ideas inspired by the brand's clothing collection. Mom influencer @twomomsandthebabes dressed up her family as famous Toy Story characters and posted an image posing right in front of the Spirit Halloween store to boost in-store traffic. On the other hand, @annieeebewitch shared an unboxing video of her favorite decor items from the store. 
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Another interesting thing about their campaign is that they partnered with a mix of micro, mega, and macro influencers to generate awareness and inspire action in their audience. 

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3. Heinz - Creating a fictional character for the occasion 

The USA-based ketchup brand Heinz went all out for its 2022 Halloween campaign. They collaborated with actor, comedian, and entertainment influencer E.J. Marcus to relaunch their limited-edition tomato blood ketchup for Halloween.

For the campaign, Marcus dressed up as Toby - The Vegetarian Vampire who follows a veggie diet and eats only tomato blood rather than human blood. Heinz shared the adventures of the vampire on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and even Twitch to reach the maximum audience. They also partnered with TikTok creators and asked them to share creative videos of how they use tomato blood for Halloween-themed recipes, decorations, and outfits. 

This Halloween campaign was a hit on TikTok, especially as it inspired other creators to share their creative videos using the product. The #heinztomatoblood currently has over 1.2 million views. 

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4. Hot Topic - Going with good old product seeding campaigns 

Hot Topic went for a product seeding campaign for Halloween 2022. They gave Halloween costumes to micro-influencers like musicians and models, who often dress up like famous characters, cartoons, vampires, and more. 

Seeing their type of content, they seemed like the perfect choice for the brand to showcase their Halloween costumes. The influencers used the products to create inspiring Halloween outfit ideas and shared static posts, stories, and Reels  with their followers.  Seeing their type of content, they seemed like the perfect choice for the brand to showcase their Halloween costumes. 

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The influencers used the products to create inspiring Halloween outfit ideas. The brand went a step further and collaborated with the same Halloween influencers for their Christmas campaign to spotlight their holiday gift options and rope in late shoppers during the holiday season. 

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5. Target - Enticing the early shoppers with in-store shopping videos 

In 2022, Target aimed to attract early Halloween shoppers by releasing an early TikTok campaign in mid-September. The USA-based retail chain took the help of TikTok creator Dalia Elizabeth to post a Halloween shopping video on their channel. 

The video featured the influencer shopping for her favorite decor and gifting items for the Halloween season. Since the campaign started in early September, it created immense engagement, encouraging people to share their Halloween product collection from Target.  This resulted in tons of quality user-generated content, creating social proof for the brand. 

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To Summarize

The holiday season is the best time for brands to leverage creative influencers to boost their sales. And since Halloween is the first holiday of the season, it's best to start recruiting your holiday influencers now. 

If you're unsure where to begin, the influencer marketing platform affable.ai can help you land the perfect influencer collaboration for the holiday season. Book a free trial! 

Or, if you want to explore more about holiday influencer marketing in detail, check out our comprehensive Holiday season playbook. It is packed with calendars, expert insights, and the best holiday campaign examples! 

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