Influencer marketing company Influencer Marketing Hub has released the Influencer Marketing Benchmark Report 2024, which summarizes the thoughts of more than 3000 marketing agencies, brands, and other relevant professionals. The report sheds light on the current state of influencer marketing, along with some predictions of how people expect it to move over the next year and into the future.
Here are the major highlights of the report.
1. Influencer Marketing Expected to be Worth $24 Billion by the End of 2024
Despite fears that the COVID-19 pandemic might take a toll on all forms of marketing, their popularity has only increased since 2020. Influencer marketing is no exception in that regard.
While the overall global spending in influencer marketing was merely $1.7 billion in 2016, its market size surged to $16.4 billion in 2022. It was then expected to further increase by 29% to hit $21.1 billion in 2023. While these numbers are already impressive, the Benchmark Report expects the ongoing growth momentum in influencer marketing to help it go past $24 billion by the end of 2024 despite the global economic downturn and increasing inflation rates.
2. Brands Willing Increase Their Influencer Marketing Spend in 2024
59.4% of the people that Influencer Marketing Hub spoke to said that they planned to increase their influencer marketing budget in 2024. However, 22.1% of the respondents also indicated that they would like to keep their budgets the same as in 2023.
9.3% of the respondents weren’t sure about how their influencer marketing budgets would shape up going forward. This means that only 9.2% of the respondents intended to reduce their influencer marketing budgets. This is slightly higher than the 7% figure from 2023. This suggests that there might be sizable spending on influencer marketing in 2024 but at a slower rate than last year.
3. Brands Willing to Spend More Than 40% of Their Marketing Budget on Influencer Marketing
Many brands have found success with their influencer marketing campaigns and are, therefore, planning to spend more towards it.
24.2% of the respondents, who dedicate fixed budgets to influencer marketing, were planning to spend more than 40% of their marketing budget on influencer marketing campaigns. While this is comparable to the 23% figure from last year, it is much more than the 5%, 11%, and 9% figures registered in 2022, 2021, and 2020, respectively.
11.5% of respondents said that they intended to devote about 30-40% of their marketing budget to influencer campaigns. This was less than the 13% figure in 2023. Also, 15.8% of respondents said that they would dedicate 20-30% of their marketing spending to influencer campaigns.
4. 15% of The Respondents Spend Over $500K on Influencer Marketing
The Benchmark Report by Influencer Marketing Hub includes responses from brands of all sizes, which explains the variation in marketing spending of these firms.
So, while 47.4% of the brands surveyed said that their annual influencer marketing spending was less than $10K, 20.9% of the respondents said that their spending ranged between $10K and $50K. Another 8.9% said that they spent between $50K-$100K. Only 14.5% of the surveyed brands said that their influencer marketing spending was more than $500K. However, this was still more than the 11% figure from 2023 and almost 4 times higher than 2022.
5. Brands Planning to Integrate AI or ML in Their Influencer Campaigns
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning have often hogged the limelight over the last year. And brands are well on their way to integrating AI and ML in their influencer marketing campaigns.
While 63% of the respondents said that they would use AI and ML in their influencer campaigns, 27.1% of the respondents said that they might consider doing so. Only 9.9% of the respondents outrightly rejected the idea. Hence, it is only a matter of time before we’ll start seeing brands leveraging AI and ML for influencer identification, locating and distributing relevant content, and identifying bogus engagements.
Bottom Line
Influencer marketing has gained immense momentum and has shown remarkable growth over the years despite concerns about a reduction in marketing budgets and the advent of other marketing forms. This Benchmark Report by Influencer Marketing Hub sheds light on the various trends that will shape influencer marketing going forward and gives brands several insights into how they can use it to enhance their marketing results.
To delve deeper into the findings of the report, download the entire report by clicking here.
We’ll be back with more insightful reports for you. Till then, stay tuned!
It's only a matter of time until brands start using AI and machine learning to identify influencers, locate and distribute relevant content, and detect fake encounters. eggy car