The rise and rise of Influencer Marketing

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Ebiquity surveyed almost 60 clients across multiple markets and found that the ROI of influencer marketing remains elusive for most, and this needs to change.

Although it’s now more than a decade since influencer marketing started to command serious attention and budgets, it is nevertheless still emerging as a discipline, with many brands learning as they go. That said, our survey suggests that influencer marketing is a discipline whose moment may at last have truly come.

HIGHLIGHTS

  • ROI of influencer marketing - 66% of respondents have no clear understanding of bottom-line return
  • Four major reasons why marketers are turning to influencers
  • GenZ and Millennial consumers are the most likely to trust influencer recommendations for shopping
// What we want to investigate and why

Objectives

Despite increased investment in 2020 and plans to boost spend still further in 2021, most brands do not have robust analytics in place to measure the bottom-line ROI of influencer marketing. It is the lack of meaningful ROI that threatens to stand in the way of the discipline.

So, if it is to increase in importance – of 1.5% of global marketing spend and ~5% of spend of those brands in our study – it will need to learn how to justify itself in terms of impact on business performance. ROI of influencer marketing remains the Holy Grail.

Influencers are increasingly shaping consumer decision-making. Recommendations from influencers are involved in up to 60% of purchases. GenZ and Millennial consumers are the most likely to trust influencer recommendations for shopping, 22% and 20% respectively

  • Influencer marketing is a small but increasingly important marketing discipline
  • Learn how to manage and measure influencer marketing
// What we've discovered and suggest

Findings

Although many in the marketing community now consciously avoid meaningless vanity metrics, the time has come for brands to deploy the rigors of marketing management and measurement, including the use of econometrics and testing, to influencer marketing, too. Without serious scrutiny, this discipline cannot hope to emerge from the shadows and clutches of metric-lite PR where it has languished for too long.

  • Influencer marketing role in the marketing mix
  • The growth in spend on influencers is accelerating

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