Fifty-seven percent of marketers plan to increase their influencer budgets in 2020, according to a new study by Linqia
Influencer marketing has entered the big leagues. No longer a niche channel reserved for celebrity endorsers peddling products, influencer marketing is growing to include a diverse range of influencers across a wider variety of platforms.
Linqia, a leading influencer marketing company, released its fourth annual report, “The State of Influencer Marketing 2020,” for which it surveyed 192 marketers and agency professionals across agencies such as CPG, food and beverage, media and retail. They found that 40% of marketers ran six or more campaigns in 2019, and 57% of marketers said that they would increase their influencer marketing budgets this year.
Delving deeper into budgets, 11% to 25% said that they planned to spend over 40% of their digital marketing budgets on influencer marketing. Almost 20% said that they would devote 26-50% of their digital marketing spend to it, a major commitment to a growing channel.
The variety of influencers has also continued to expand—now individuals with differing levels of reach have been engaged to be the subjects of marketing campaigns. Seventy-seven percent of those surveyed expressed interest in working with micro-influencers (5,000 to 100,000 followers), while 64% wish to work with macro-influencers (100,000 to 500,000 followers). One notable disparity was in the intent to use nano-influencers (fewer than 5,000 followers), which was greater than the desire to use celebrity endorsers (25% to 22%).
As far as platform of choice, Instagram reigns supreme for influencer marketing. Nearly 100% of respondents plan to use it for their influencer marketing needs, followed by 83% planning to use the Instagram Stories feature. Facebook is the next closest platform with 79% of the vote.
Visit Linqia’s website to read the full report.
Screenshots via report, courtesy of Linqia. Header image illustration courtesy of unDraw.
Julian Zeng is omni-channel content manager at the American Marketing Association. He may be reached at jzeng@ama.org.