A new global study has revealed that the amount of money being spent by marketers on campaigns involving influencers has nearly doubled in the last two years.
Unlike some other digital marketing trends, which come and go, influencer marketing still seems to be a big hit with brands. They are spending around 40% of their overall marketing budgets on campaigns involving work with influencers. In the UK alone, this amounts to around £800,000 a year spent on influencer campaigns.
How are marketers investing influencer marketing budgets differently?
According to researchers at Rakuten Marketing, there has been a change in the way that marketing managers are spending money on influencer campaigns. Back in 2017, they were very happy paying £75,000 or even more to a celebrity influencer for a single Facebook post. This year, this figure is dropped by a huge £50,000 to just £25,000 a post, presumably as marketers fail to convince those in charge of the purse strings that this spend represents good value for money.
Other findings from the study included:
- Nearly half of all consumers worldwide use influencer marketing to learn about new products and discover new brands
- Marketers are still struggling slightly to prove the success and ROI of influencer campaigns – although the number of marketers who aren’t fully sure whether these methods are driving sales has dropped from 38% to 29%
- Around 30% of UK companies are using last-click measurement to analyse campaign success.
Micro-influencers on the rise
One important trend that emerged in the study, which involved 900 influencer marketers (including 200 in the UK) along with 3,500 consumers, was that marketers are moving away from celebrity endorsements. Instead, they prefer to spend their money on micro-influencer campaigns.
Micro-influencers tend to have smaller communities of followers but have greater credibility and trust when it comes to their recommendations. According to the research, they are receiving up to £26,000 a campaign from marketers.
The Managing Director at Rakuten Marketing, Anthony Capano, commented on this particular finding, saying:
“Knowing that consumers are going to influencers for trusted recommendations on new products may explain the shift from celebrity to micro-influencers. Micro-influencers tend to be typically more engaged, as are their audience who feel like their friends.”
Does influencer marketing really work?
This is the crucial question – is it worth spending a good chunk of your marketing budget on? This piece of research is extremely useful as it includes consumers as well as marketers in its surveys. It found that a huge 80% of consumers said that they had purchased something recommended by an influencer by clicking on an image or link in a post they had shared.
There is no doubt that there is enormous power in influencer marketing, but allocating budget to it can be a balancing act. As with everything in marketing, there’s no one magic formula for success, and many methods are best used when running alongside other complementary campaigns and strategies.
For more advice on influencer marketing and to get your campaigns off the ground, contact the experts here at Ambos Digital.