As the marketing landscape rapidly shape-shifts to retain relevancy for both marketers and consumers, influencer marketing gets stronger. The following 15 influencer marketing statistics will reveal the true position the new advertising strategy took over in a span of 5 years.
Follow along as we discover and digest meaningful influencer marketing facts. Let the numbers show you how much marketers and consumers trust content creators and how great of a potential they hold for your business.
First off, let’s see what’s in it for you. Working on social media campaigns with influencers convinced marketing specialists that this new form of organic advertising holds great potential. This is backed by market studies that expect a market value growth of 5 to $10 billion by 2020.
Established brands around the world, as well as new industry players, are all seeking new strategies of attracting social and mobile audiences. As influencer marketing is optimized for small screens and dominates social channels, marketers didn’t hesitate to take advantage of it.
Brands seek collaborations with influencers to achieve certain goals. Their campaigns either reinforce cross-channel campaigns or replace marketing platforms altogether as a cost-effective solution.
The Tomoson agency took the pulse of the industry by conducting polls with marketers. The results spoke for themselves. For each dollar companies spend with influencers, businesses are earning $6.50.
The same study revealed that marketing teams are extremely hopeful regarding organic social media commerce. In fact, they believe influencer marketing has already overshadowed unpaid search results and newsletters.
Based on the established publishers’ sentiment, marketing budgets are getting a reconfiguration. More than half of the interviewed marketing specialists plan on redirecting finances to sponsored posts on social media in the following 12 months.
Sponsored posts on social media are amassing exponential influence throughout the modern marketing landscape. In fact, 86% of marketers gave them a go back in 2017. After their first contact, 92% of them registered fruitful results.
Based on their satisfactory experiences, marketers are integrating influencer marketing in their advertising plan. Social media channels witness a natural increase in #ad hashtags and brand-creator collaborations that stimulate eCommerce. All in all, influencer marketing has clearly taken strong roots in today’s advertising business.
Based on a study on 6,000 sponsored campaigns, Mobile Marketer concluded that 93% of marketers design their projects with influencers specifically for Instagram.
Thanks to its visual appeal that sparks a desire for lifestyle improvements, Instagram created a nourishing environment for content creators. 80% of influencers chose Instagram as their primary platform for publishing their content.
In the meantime, other social platforms are losing ground. Facebook and Twitter saw 20% and 10% respectively fewer influencer campaigns.
Brands are also drawn to new content formats. Instagram Stories are present in 60% of all influencer campaigns. These influencer marketing statistics vouch for the prevalence of sponsored posts on Instagram.
Marketers are leveraging the potential of Instagram for a reason. 60.8% of micro-influencers confirmed that Instagram is their go-to social channel.
Other channels managed to raise interest in fewer influencers. Only 17.4% of creators publish most of their posts on Facebook. Twitter was chosen as the primary publishing platform by 12.4% of them. YouTube and its challenging conditions for video creation are home to 7.3% of micro-influencers.
Influencer marketing ascended at such a rapid pace because it is of a different breed. This form of advertising works as long as it remains organic. Product endorsements influence users only if influencers themselves believe in them.
94% of marketers who have already generated word-of-mouth ripples throughout social media are certain of one thing. Brands can enjoy success as long as they allow influencers to speak freely about their products, making way for transparency and authenticity.
How receptive are micro-influencers to brand partnerships? Micro-influencer stats reveal that they are actually open to monetizing their social accounts.
As a matter of fact, 84% of brand recommendations take place either daily or weekly. Product mentions are quick at boosting brand awareness which in turn triggers lead generation automatically.
Almost half of micro-influencers publish at least 2 posts (whether organic or sponsored) a day. This shows commitment to their communities that accrues trust in creators and their product endorsements.
Let’s close the circle to gain a clear view of the bigger picture. You’ve learned how marketers and influencers feel about it, but how about consumers?
Market stats are clear about it. 82% of consumers admitted that they would not hesitate to purchase products backed by their favorite content creators. Such a study result confirms the great value influencer marketing brings to all involved parties: companies, creators, and consumers.
Influencer marketing statistics reveal that this industry is not without its hurdles. In fact, 36% of marketers believe recruiting influencers is the most challenging phase.
Other obstacles revolve around influencer contract management, keeping up with deadlines, and payment processing. Marketers need resources to overcome these challenges efficiently.
As influencer marketing evolves, so does the number of regulations that administrate this industry. To avoid penalties and even lawsuits, influencers need to mark their sponsored posts. This usually happens with the use of an #ad hashtag.
For businesses, this might have gone awry. Users can now see whenever their favorite influencers get paid. Such a level of transparency might make product recommendations generate weaker influence over consumers. Nonetheless, expectations weren’t met at all in this case.
Actually, #ad is the hashtag with the highest engagement rate leaving other hashtags far behind. In the end, this finding underlines how effective sponsored ads are on social media.
Monthly reports regarding sponsored posts performance differ from those in other areas. That’s due to the fact that marketers prioritize different measuring metrics.
Since quantifying organic campaigns doesn’t leave much room for automation, marketers became creative. Consequently, 90% of specialists look at engagement rates to make out the impact of their influencer campaigns. In contrast with a majority of traditional marketing channels, only 54% of influencer specialists look at conversion rates first.
Marketing teams that have not tapped into Instagram yet are missing out. Don’t be left behind – more and more companies are redirecting efforts towards the number one influencer marketing channel: Instagram.
That’s what a 23% increase in social post frequency on behalf of brands shows us. After years of testing this new campaign type, marketers reached the conclusion that social celebrity endorsements work. And they show no signs of quitting.
Influencer partnerships are not news anymore. Still, brands are becoming more and more assured of their efficiency based on the positive results they return. The time has come to take a look at those influencer marketing statistics that reveal business improvements by the numbers.
Return on investment usually decides whether marketers should repeat, improve or cancel advertising strategies altogether. For influencer marketing, ROI appears favorable.
In fact, 48% of marketing teams registered a higher ROI with influencers than with any other campaigns. Not only that, but 41% of marketers measured similar results with other channels. In other words, sponsored content is at least as powerful as any other traditional marketing practice for 89% of marketers.
As such, these defining influencer marketing statistics paint an emerging and viable industry. If there are still businesses that doubt influencer marketing reliability, almost 90% of brands that tried it show them otherwise.
No in-house studio photography can convert better than User-Generated Content (UGC). At least this is what 85% of consumers are saying.
To make the most of this finding, marketers should encourage more creators to create authentic visual experiences around their products. Not only that, but they can bring the power of UGC in their eCommerce stores.
Use Flaminjoy to automatically turn UGC into visual commerce that adds value to your online store. A Flaminjoy shoppable gallery lowers bounce rate by 30% and makes visitors linger 4 times more on site.
In 2015, adblockers cost companies $22 million. Moreover, financial loss continues to take its toll. In one year only, ad blocking usage increased by 41% at a global level.
Therefore, publishers and advertisers have to turn to an organic approach to supplement traditional digital marketing. As shown so far, influencer marketing reaches social and mobile users naturally through sponsored posts.
Moreover, consumers trust influencers and their product recommendations. Brands also earn powerful visuals in the shape of UGC which in turn can benefit companies more than in one way. Shoppable galleries powered by UGC stimulate more site interactions than a traditional online store can.
In the end, our 15 surprising influencer marketing statistics unveil an ambitious industry that is just getting started. If you are not already part of this advertising revolution, now is the time to join in.
Influencer marketing is an organic promotional strategy that benefits all involved parties (brands, creators, consumers). Projections expect a clear market value growth in 2020, and a majority of marketers are satisfied with its ROI.
What influencer marketing statistics surprised you most? Share your view with us in the comments and don’t forget to show your colleagues these stats as well!
Next time Influencer Marketing makes a move, you'll be the first to know!
