Influencer Marketing

Influencer Marketing Global Market Outlook

• Influencer Marketing is a sub set of social media marketing, The global social media marketing spend was valued at $102 billion in 2020*, growing at a CAGR of 18.8 percent. Social media spend increased by 56.4 percent in Q3 versus Q1, growth is majorly triggered by COVID-19 outbreak that has led to increased digital consumption and advertisement over social media platform

• Social media is the third largest advertising channel, where North America is spending high on social media channels by contributing to around 30–40 percent

Impact of COVID-19 on Influencer Marketing Industry

• Largest ad-spend growth is witnessed in North American and APAC regions. About 70 percent of the total ad-spending will be generated through mobile by 2026.

• Paid search advertising and video advertising are the way forward for brands, amid COVID-19 crisis

• As consumers stay at home, out-of-home marketing becomes obsolete, and key events are postponed or pushed into a virtual environment

• Facebook Live was the most engaging format for business and received double the interaction from any video format

• Despite the fact that COVID-19 vaccinations begin to accelerate across Europe, and there will be plans to loosen restrictive measures, driving offline business, the demand for influencer marketing will still see growth

Global Influencer Marketing Market: Drivers and Constraints

The growth of online video content consumption with the access to faster network in the mobile devices, together with rising technologies to ease the seamless consumption of video content, contributes to the buoyancy of influencer marketing. Platforms, like Facebook and Instagram, generate high ROI and features, like sponsored posts, Live videos, Stories, posts drive traffic and increase sales.

Industry Drivers

• Rise in usage of ad-blocking software: A large number of internet users utilize ad-blocking software, which could be built as an extension to their browsers or an app. Ad-blocking software prevents the advertising content to be displayed on the website or app that the audience are visiting. A declining brand trust creates an aversion to the mission-related brand messaging and gravitation towards the cause-related messaging by the influencers that addresses unique problems of the consumers.

• Growing Smartphone adoption: Cheaper availability of smart phones and availability of faster networks helped more consumers to adopt social media to stay connected amidst the pandemic. Mobile internet usage have risen to almost double the amount than desktop internet consumption and almost three-forth of the content shared on video-sharing platforms are viewed on mobile devices.

Constraints

• Measuring Influencer Marketing ROI: Measuring Influencer marketing ROI is imperative in the current milieu. Fake followers and bots could burn a major share of the marketing budget and taper the profit margin of brands.