The State of Influencer Marketing 2024: Benchmark Report

The world around us has changed drastically in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. Businesses have been struggling in this new environment and the ones that managed to survive have to always be on the lookout for new ways to market themselves to stand out in their respective industries. This has made creators and influencer marketing much more important than ever for connecting brands with their target audiences.

Influencer Marketing Hub has released its latest report on the influencer marketing industry, which takes a deep dive into 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. The report summarizes the thoughts of more than 3000 marketing agencies, brands, and other relevant professionals. Here are the major highlights of the report.

1. Influencer Marketing to be Worth $24 Billion by the End of 2024

Although there were concerns that COVID-19 might have an adverse impact on all kinds of marketing, including influencer marketing, it has continued to gain popularity since 2020. Influencer marketing’s market size grew from $1.7 billion in 2016 to $16.4 billion in 2022.

The report says that the market size is set to reach an estimated $24 billion by the end of 2024. This indicates a strong ongoing growth momentum in influencer marketing despite challenging economic conditions.

2. About 60% of Respondents Intend to Increase Their Influencer Marketing Budget in2024

The report found that 59.4% of the respondents who have allocated budgets for influencer marketing intend to increase their budgets over the next 12 months.

22.1% of the respondents said that they would keep their budgets the same as in 2023. While 9.3% of the respondents were not sure how their budgets would change, the remaining 9.3% said that they intended to cut their influencer marketing budgets. This means that the percentage of respondents who want to trim their influencer marketing budgets in 2024 is slightly higher than last year’s 7% figure.

3. Almost 15% of the Respondents Spend Over $500k Annually on Influencer Marketing

Since businesses of all sizes deploy influencer marketing in their campaigns, their spending varies considerably too.

47.4% of the respondents admitted spending less than $10k annually on influencer marketing. This is higher than the last year figure of 43%- probably due to a mix of newcomers experimenting with influencer marketing. 20.9% of the respondents spent between $19k- $50k, in contrast to the last year figure of 22%. Moreover, 8.9% of the respondents spent between $50k- $100k, while 14.5% of the respondents claimed to spend over $500k on influencer marketing.

4. Growing Preference for Smaller Influencers

When asked about their preference on working with influencers based on their followers, an overwhelming 44% of the brands said they would prefer working with nano-influencers (1k- 10k followers). This figure is higher than last year’s figure of 39%.

25.7% of the brands said they would opt for micro-influencers (10k- 100k), which is less than last year’s 30% figure. Only 17.4% and 12.9% of the brands said they would chase macro-influencers (100k- 1M) and mega or celebrity influencers, respectively.

5. Brands Prefer Working With Influencers That They Have Previously Worked With

When asked if they had worked with the same influencers across campaigns, 63.2% of the respondents said they had. This figure was up from 57% in 2022 and 61% in 2023. On the other hand, 36.8% claimed to have used different influencers for their campaigns. Interestingly, this number was down from 43% in 2022 and 39% in 2023.

This suggests a pattern of brands choosing to work with influencers that they already knew and their desire to build relationships with existing influencers rather than going through the entire influencer selection process for every campaign.

Bottom Line

Influencer marketing has gone from strength to strength over the years and has firmly established itself as one of the most effective forms of marketing. Brands are more eager than ever to deploy influencer marketing into their operations. Keeping the above trends in mind will surely help brands maximize the potential of their influencer marketing campaigns.

To delve deeper into the findings of the report, download the full report by clicking here.