The growing influencer marketing landscape
Over the past decade, the influencer marketing industry has exploded worldwide, spanning millions of creators and thousands of brands across a myriad of consumer and B2B categories.
Massive opportunity championed by brand leaders
Influencer Marketing Hub projects that total worldwide influencer marketing investment will hit $24 billion in 2024, up 14% over 2023.
Market Size in Billion US Dollars
Further, it states that 86% of brands have a dedicated influencer marketing budget, with 59% expecting to increase investment in 2024.
A new study conducted by Forrester Consulting surveying 650+ senior marketers mirrors these findings, with 54% of respondents listing influencer marketing as a top three priority investment, with 30% listed it as their number one priority. These were the highest figures for any channel or initiative.
Millions of potential creator partnerships
According to a 2023 study by TrendHero, tens of millions of people consider themselves influencers. The firm reported there are 50 million-plus Instagram influencer accounts, about five million YouTube influencers, and over 100,000 TikTok influencers.
While TikTok’s figure likely looks low to you it is climbing dramatically, particularly since the September 2023 launch of TikTok Shopping. With so many voices, it's safe to assume there are authoritative creators who can support most products and categories.
Instagram, TikTok, Facebook platforms most used
According to EMARKETER, about 44% of US influencer spending funds Instagram posts, with 18% each for TikTok and YouTube. Facebook posts capture just over 13% of influencer investment. In China, where influencer marketing is most active, Chinese social platforms dominate, including Sina Weibo, Weixin (WeChat), Douyin (TikTok), and QQ.
US Influencer Marketing Spending Share, by Platform, 2019-2024
% of total influencer marketing spending
Micro-influencers: Critical for sales performance
When people think of influencers, they often conjure images of top celebrities with enormous followings. While such creators are an important part of the ecosystem, expert voices with smaller but more focused followings are playing an increasing role in the industry.
Influencers are generally categorized based on the size of their followings.
- 1 million-plus followers: Key Opinion Leaders
- 500,000 to 1 million followers: Macro-Influencers
- 100,000 to 500,000 followers: Mid-Influencers
- 10,000 to 100,000 followers: Micro-Influencers
- 10,000 followers and below: Nano-Influencers
Influencer Follower Tiers
Micro- and nano-influencers have been critical to transforming the space from a channel primarily used for building awareness to one equally successful at generating large sales volumes. This is because they have extremely high credibility for a specific topic (like a recognized authority on the best laptop computers or a person with a highly-refined personal style) resulting in an audience more engaged and therefore quicker to buy than from a celebrity.
Micro-influencers are critical to driving strong brand awareness and sales conversions for retailers.
Another benefit to smaller creators is they are often more flexible with the compensation models they accept. Virtually all influencers aim to work on a flat fee or pay-per-post basis versus on performance. However, many micro-influencers are open to hybrid or performance compensation once it has been established that they can drive sales and make money with a program. For example, a micro-influencer might work on a per-post basis for the first program with a brand but move to a hybrid fee plus performance compensation model for the second initiative. As payment models are redefined, brands gain better ways to ensure accountability.
These benefits and more are why many retailers are able to get large numbers of transactions through creator programs leveraging micro- and nano-influencers. At Awin we see this trend playing out as well, with these groups making up more than 90% of creator campaigns.
At the end of the day, though, whether you choose to work with micro-influencers or the biggest celebrities, it’s important to remember these brackets aren’t mutually exclusive and shouldn’t be viewed as a ‘growth mountain’ to climb. You can just as successfully work with key opinion leaders on an affiliate basis as you could with a micro-influencer on a flat fee, upfront payment.
More money flowing to more categories
In the early years, influencer marketing was primarily focused on beauty and fashion categories, where many creators had large, loyal followings. These categories continue to perform extremely well, but many other industries now have sizable creator communities. According to Influencer Marketing Hub, the top categories by the number of marketers leveraging influencer marketing are:
- Fashion and Beauty
- Gaming
- Sports
- Travel and Lifestyle
- Family, Parenting, and Home
- Health and Fitness
Other popular categories include Electronics, B2B Software, and DTC Subscription Services.
Multiple types of measurement
Influencer marketing began as an extension of public relations (PR) and was primarily focused on top-of-funnel activities like brand building and differentiation. At that time, the channel was seen as a cost-effective way of reaching audiences using highly-credible content, recommendations and endorsements from prominent figures.
While top-of-funnel metrics remain an important source of value for influencer marketing, many brands are now pursuing direct sales through these unique partnerships. That makes affiliate-style performance measurement a critical part of influencer marketing.
As more investment has entered the space, brand objectives have diversified and broadened. While top-of-funnel metrics remain an important source of value for influencer marketing, many retailers are also pursuing direct sales through these unique partnerships. To enable this transition, affiliate-style performance metrics and tracking are increasingly key parts of creator performance measurement, and in 2024 popularity for full-funnel measurement continues to grow.
This chart outlines some example influencer marketing metrics for each stage in the customer journey.
Influencer Measurement Hierarchy
In addition, many creator programs now incorporate unique affiliate links so that brands can measure traffic and sales driven by influencers. Affiliate technology solutions like Awin have created proprietary measurement solutions and also partner closely with leading influencer platforms and sub-networks to deliver maximum insight.
Insights summary
It is clear the influencer marketing industry is massive and incredibly diverse. With millions of potential creator partnerships spanning virtually every lifestyle and product category, brands can easily find powerful influencer collaborators to help achieve any of their marketing goals.
With affiliate tracking and measurement tools, brands can drive strong ROI from influencer marketing.
Influencer marketing measurement has improved dramatically and retailers can now track the impact of a campaign for any stage in the customer purchase journey, driving strong, measurable ROI from this channel.
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