By the Numbers: The State of Influencer Marketing

Influencer Marketing has exploded over the last several years and recently released data suggests it will continue becoming more popular. AspireIQ, an Influencer Marketing platform, recently released a report that proved these notions. “The State of Influencer Marketing 2019” has a wealth of great information on trends in the Influencer Marketing industry. A quick read of the 42-page report will give you the information you need to start your next campaign.

Right off the bat, one of the most powerful stats from AspireIQ is that 93% of marketers already use Influencer Marketing. With about 830,987 influencers on Instagram alone, there’s a lot of talent to choose from on the brand side. When the right talent is selected, the campaign is typically profitable as well. According to Nielsen Catalina, a social media campaign generated 11 times the ROI of a regular digital media campaign. If your brand is part of the 7% that doesn’t take part in Influencer Marketing, it’s time to start looking into including influencers in your next digital campaign.

When creating a campaign involving influencers, it’s important to understand what you’ll be advertising. While traditional media campaigns typically focus on a certain product or product line, an AspireIQ survey found that 79.2% of companies use influencers to promote their brand as a whole. Sales were only a focus of 44.1% of the time in these campaigns. When looking to use influencers, make sure you understand what works best for your brand and how you want to use them before implementing a strategy.

In your search for the right influencer, you will come across smaller, niche accounts that may be a great fit based on their content. It’s important to note their follower count but also their engagement rate to determine how influential they will actually be to your audience. According to AspireIQ, an influencer on Instagram is defined as an account with over 4,000 followers, 400 average engagements, and 50 total posts. An account with this type of following would typically be described as a “nano influencer,” but are still effective in creating a positive brand association. On average, influencers on Instagram have about 1,561 likes on their posts and 59% of influencers fall in the 10,001 to 50,000 follower range. As a brand, you will have to decide how much of an audience your influencer should have when creating your campaign.

Determining how many followers you want your influencer to have can affect many factors. You will most likely see a higher engagement rate in your posts based on how recognizable the influencer is, but an account with more followers and better engagement will also cost you more money. Over the years, the cost per engagement (CPE) of influencers has been steadily rising. Since January 2019, CPE costs have risen $0.18 from $0.08 to $0.26 in June 2019. Cost per click (CPC) costs are around $1-2, and AspireIQ sees influencers to be heavily undervalued because of this. For a company looking to get into influencer marketing, now would be a good time before prices dramatically increase even more.

Whether you allocate a larger budget for influencers or not, ROI on Influencer Marketing campaigns is increasing as well. On average, brands spend $6,249.81 on influencer campaigns and earn a median value of $26,986.77. That equates to an ROI of 432%. Brands, if they haven’t started already, need to begin investing heavily in Influencer Marketing campaigns to stay relevant in today’s ever-changing marketing landscape. The results are proven, so get going on your next campaign!

Note: All information in this article has been pulled from this year’s AspireIQ Annual Industry Report. Read it here.