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Influencer marketing is on the rise, and increasingly more companies are using their marketing budgets on influencers. But are the results accurate or hyped-up? How can you make the most of your campaign?
You can find out from the influencer marketing stats below.
Trust, Engagement, And Purchase Preferences
Let’s start with these numbers:
1. 61% of people put more trust into influencers’ recommendations.
2. 50% of millennials trust influencers over celebrities, as they find them more authentic.
3. 80% of people bought something via influencer recommendation by clicking on a link or image.
These three influencer marketing statistics speak volumes about customers’ views on marketing. First, it’s obvious that traditional advertising has seen a massive decline.
Today, it’s no longer enough for a company to showcase its products to hook customers.
Advertising is no longer what it used to be.
Even long-standing brands with high reputations face difficulties promoting their products the old-fashioned way. The explanation is straightforward:
This sort of advertising doesn’t seem authentic.
Everyone knows that brands’ primary goal is to increase their ROI. Therefore, the things they say about their products—albeit true—don’t seem authentic.
And that’s an essential distinction in the world of marketing: truth versus authenticity.
As things are standing now, micro-influencer marketing emanates more authenticity because your customers follow the recommendations of other real people.
The Right Influencers For Your Audience
If you want to see those numbers happen, you must use the right influencers and pick the right audience.
4. Nano-influencers (below 10,000 followers) have the highest engagement rates (4%). The smaller the audience, the higher the engagement rate.
- Micro-influencers (10,000-100,000 followers): 2%
- Mid-tier influencers (100,000-600,000 followers): 1.6%
- Macro-influencers (500,000-1,000,000 followers): 1.3%
- Mega influencers and celebrities (1,000,000+ followers): 0.8%
5. The proportion of influencers according to their number of followers and market share goes as follows:
- Micro-influencers: 47.3%
- Mid-tier influencers: 26.8%
- Nano-influencers: 18.74%
- Macro-influencers and celebrities: 0.5%
6. 78% of brands prefer to work with nano or micro-influencers.
7. Influencers’ appeal varies according to generation:
- Gen Z (age 16-23): 28%
- Millennials: 23%
- Gen X: 16%
- Boomers: 9%
8. The demographic breakdown shows women aged 16-24 are the most likely to follow influencers at 33.1%.
9. Statista points out that 84% of all social media influencers are females.
Based on these influencer marketing statistics, a first conclusion is that nano-influencers have the best results in generating engagement. This is because people perceive them as the most genuine type of influencers. They address a smaller group of individuals, so they’re more likely to engage personally with those people through direct messages and conversations.
The larger an influencer’s audience is, the less success they have at generating engagement.
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However, companies predominantly opt for influencers with bigger followings for their marketing campaigns. Why does that happen?
An answer may have to do with the hard math. If a micro-influencer with 50,000 followers has a 1.4% engagement rate, that means they’ll mobilize 700 people.
A nano-influencer with a 5% engagement rate and 5,000 followers will reach 250 people.
Brands want to reach as many people as possible with the least amount of effort. That’s not always the best solution, especially if you wish to create a deeper connection.
Pro tip: Personalize all your influencer marketing campaigns instead of following the numbers blindly.
But who relates to influencers?
The influencer marketing statistics above point out that young women aged 16-24 are the most likely to follow influencers and purchase according to their recommendations. There are two problems with this point:
- This age group has the lowest income across generations because it mainly comprises high-school students, university students, and very young professionals.
- The 9% of boomers who actively follow influencers can deter you from trying an influencer-based campaign for this age group.
What are the mistakes here?
First, remember that your ultimate purpose is to generate as many sales as possible. If you’re not actively increasing your ROI with a particular campaign, why use it in the first place?
Sure, popularity, awareness, and engagement are key campaign objectives – but they ultimately need to serve that same purpose of increasing sales.
Medium story long (ha!), it’s essential to follow your gut and watch those sales.
Here’s an example. Moon Lin is a 93yo fashion blogger with 100k followers. She’s proof that you can reach older generations with influencers, though you’d have to plan this campaign better and craft more convincing messages.
However, do it right, and it will be worth it. These older generations have the most funds, and they’re the least fickle when it comes to their brand preferences.
You also have to remember that just 16% of influencers are males. That can be a problem, especially with older generations that grew up with a different status quo.
This status quo firstly modelled their subconscious biases—and it’s a proven fact that we base purchase decisions on our subconscious. Plus, the existing state of affairs also determined males to have the most money.
A company trying to reach out to the older generations with influencer marketing will have immense work to do, but that work will also bring the most results.
The Right Channels
Choosing the proper channels can make or break your campaign. Let’s analyze these influencer marketing stats before you decide.
10. The current market value for influencer marketing is 13.8 billion US dollars as of 2021, and that figure is more than twice as much as it was in 2019.11. There are 1.07bn Instagram users worldwide.
12. The Instagram influencer market size is worth 2.3bn USD.
13. There have been 6.12m brand-sponsored influencer posts on Instagram between 2016 and 2020.
14. There are 2.24bn YouTube users worldwide.
15. The Global YouTube influencer marketing spend is 6.6bn USD.
16. The Global user spending on TikTok is 50.4m USD.
17. There are 106,104 TikTok influencers worldwide.
18. The average engagement rate of TikTok influencer content worldwide is 15.86%, but it reaches 17.99% in the US.
19. Snapchat is the least liked channel for influencer marketing according to 62% of brands, but 40% of Snapchat users say they’ve discovered brands thanks to influencers on this platform.
Another year of influencer marketing stats shows Instagram is the most prolific medium for influencers, followed by YouTube and TikTok. The most poignant similarity of these mediums is they’re highly visual.
That brings us to other issues.
Why didn’t Snapchat have the same success?
Snapchat is less user-friendly than Instagram, so brands saw they had more success on this platform. As a result, they started neglecting Snapchat.
Arguably, that’s a potential mistake as well because, as you can see, 40% of Snapchat users say they’ve found out about new brands through influencers who are active on this platform.
So what should you do?
That answer is highly subjective, depending on what you’re marketing. Some brands would be better off ignoring Snapchat altogether, while that would be a mistake for others.
Pro tip: Start from your audience. Figure out who you’re addressing first and then determine what channels they’re using.
Many brands don’t use this strategy, though, because you can see it’s very time consuming. Your research team can point you to four different audiences who use preferentially four other platforms. That means you’d have to construct four separate campaigns with distinct goals, budgets, and messages.
Many brands prefer to cast a wider net in a larger pool instead of setting up multiple rods on various lakes and ponds.
But ultimately, personalized strategies can help you attract and keep more customers.
What about other platforms?
LinkedIn is almost as low as Snapchat within brands’ preferences. 55% of companies believe LinkedIn is the least essential influencer marketing platform for their needs. After all, LinkedIn is all about long, boring articles with lots of writing.
And who reads today, anyway?
But here’s the surprise:
The same survey shows blogs rank third after Instagram and YouTube. Yes, blogs are all about writing. You can’t even find a quick boiled egg recipe without reading a long story about someone’s grandma first.
However, blogs are much more personal than LinkedIn posts. They can trigger particular emotions that can change people’s behaviors faster.
Pro tip: Don’t just decide LinkedIn—or any other platform – isn’t good. Instead, choose according to your customers’ profiles and personalize the content to what they want to see.
Another surprising result is that 42% of companies believe Pinterest is the least essential platform for their needs. Pinterest is highly visual, intuitive, and populated, so it has all the right qualities to be among the most critical platforms.
Why isn’t it?
Well, it may be that Pinterest allows people to pin too many things, and the things they pin are mostly cataloged as interesting, but don’t generate soul-changing impulses.
Pro tip: Whatever platform(s) you end up choosing, make sure that people can quickly click a purchase button. If you make the selling process too complicated, no one will have the patience to buy your products.
Measure The Results
Every first-year marketing student finds out that measuring the results is an essential part of any campaign. But what do the influencer marketing stats show?
20. 86% of marketers consider raising brand awareness the primary goal of their influencer marketing campaigns.
21. 33% of companies don’t measure ROI from their influencer marketing campaigns.
22. 38.5% of companies judge the success of their influencer marketing campaign through the lens of increased conversion and sales. 32.5% rely on engagement or clicks, whereas views, reach, and impressions are important indicators for 29% of companies.
23. 78% of marketers believe that measuring ROI from influencer campaigns is their number one challenge.
24. 18% of marketers believe that it’s challenging to follow the FTC guidelines for ad transparency.
25. 89% of companies say that the ROI they made with an influencer marketing campaign is better or at least comparable to what they’re getting out of other campaigns.
These influencer marketing stats show many companies are still learning the ropes.
Almost 80% of marketers admit that measuring ROI from their influencer campaigns is very difficult. That can be you, too.
Luckily, specialized influencer marketing agencies have figured things out. inBeat also has specific calculators for this job, or you can read this article about how we measure results.
That aside, here’s where the contradictions happen.
For one, marketers say it’s difficult to measure the campaign results; a third of them admits to never trying to gauge the success of their campaigns. However, 90% believe that influencer marketing campaigns are at least as good as other campaigns.
Could all that be just wishful thinking?
Or is it because 86% of brands establish awareness as their main influencer marketing campaign goal?
Here’s what we know so far:
- Billions of US dollars go into influencer marketing each year.
- 4 out of 5 of people buy according to influencers’ recommendations.
It would be elementary for your company to hit the jackpot. However, establishing the correct goals is vital. If you’re using influencers to increase brand awareness like the vast majority of companies, what other campaigns will you use to increase your sales?
Truth is, many businesses are still afraid to use influencer marketing at its highest potential. You may just be too careful about the strategies you’re using and the goals you’re setting.
This precaution can prove damaging to your business, or at the very least, it can cost you lots of money. To avoid that, you should work with an agency that specializes in influencer marketing. Alternatively, you can book a free demo with a micro-influencer platform, such as inBeat, to see how we can help.