Hey there! 👋

This week, I’m happy to bring you Influencer Hub’s 2024 State of Influencer Marketing Report, which draws insights from 3,000 brands, agencies, and industry professionals.

The report offers an in-depth look at the latest influencer marketing practices, revealing key trends and shifts in influencer preferences, payment models, budgets, KPIs, AI adoption, and more.

If you’re curious about how your operations stack up against your peers, the report provides valuable insights to help you benchmark your practices.

It's a lengthy read, so I’ve selected some of the most notable (and surprising) findings for you below.

A BIG shift toward performance-based payments

Influencer payment models have changed significantly in recent years. Flat-rate payments, once the norm, have given way to performance-based structures, with nearly 50% of influencer payments now linked directly to sales.

Payments based on tiered incentives —where influencers earn increasing payouts as they reach higher performance levels— while much less common, have nearly doubled since 2022.

Wire transfers are the most popular payment method, closely followed by PayPal. Manual payment options, including Cash On Delivery (COD), money orders, and bank transfers, are widely used, while third-party services like Wise are less favored.

Views, reach, and impressions are the most common metrics for measuring success

While nearly 80% of respondents track sales generated from their influencer campaigns, only 22.1% prioritize conversions or sales as their primary success metric. Instead, top-of-the-funnel metrics such as views, reach, and impressions remain the most commonly used measures of influencer marketing success.

Brands prefer working with influencers they know, with nano and micro-influencers leading the pack

Brands prefer working with familiar faces: 63.2% of respondents reported partnering with the same influencers they’ve worked with across multiple campaigns. Meanwhile, 36.8% of respondents reported working with different influencers for each campaign.

There’s also a clear preference for smaller influencers. When asked about the types of influencers they are most likely to use, 44% of respondents favored nano influencers (1K-10K followers), while 25.7% preferred micro-influencers (10K-100K).

Only a small percentage of brands prioritize larger influencers, with 17.4% choosing macro-influencers (100K-1M followers) and just 12.9% opting for mega or celebrity influencers.

When evaluating influencers to partner with, 32.9% of respondents prioritize views, reach, or impressions as the top criterion, while 21.1% focus on content type or category. Interestingly, only 18.4% consider sales performance to be important.

AI/ML is now mainstream in influencer marketing

AI and ML adoption has taken off, with 63% of respondents planning to use it in the next 12 months and 27.1% considering it. Only 9.9% reported no plans to use these technologies.

Among those who expressed interest in using AI/ML, influencer identification was the leading application by a wide margin. Specifically, respondents said that they wanted to leverage social media data analytics to pinpoint the most effective influencers for their brands or campaigns.

While respondents didn’t elaborate on this use case, it likely entails collaborating with one of the many influencer platforms that offer advanced AI-driven identification tools.

Influencer marketing continues to move in-house, supported by third-party platforms and growing budgets

As brands increasingly recognize the value of influencer marketing, more are opting to manage their campaigns internally, utilizing a combination of in-house and third-party tools to optimize their strategies.

76.2% of brands now handle their influencer campaigns internally, up from 72% last year, while 23.8% still rely on agencies or managed services. Many brands have invested in developer talent to build custom solutions, with 72% employing in-house tools for their influencer marketing efforts.

Third-party platforms are also gaining popularity, with nearly 60% of respondents reporting their use. Influencer discovery tools lead the pack at 47.9%, while brands are increasingly adopting platforms for campaign automation and reporting (35.6%), payments (34.5%), and even fraud detection (27.8%).

Despite the growing use of internal and external tools for influencer discovery, 29.8% of respondents identified finding suitable influencers as their biggest obstacle. Payment processing is a close second, cited by 17.1% of respondents; 13.9% noted managing campaign contracts and deadlines, and 13.6% highlighted the difficulty of measuring ROI and campaign results.

Regarding budgeting, almost 60% of respondents plan to boost their influencer marketing budgets over the next 12 months, while 22.1% expect to keep their budgets unchanged.

That’s all for this week! You can read the full report here.

Also, don’t forget to scroll down to the Industry Insights section for more reports, surveys, and insider insights you won’t want to miss.

Find the perfect influencers & automate your outreach

Discover, analyze, and shortlist influencers across all major social media platforms. 

The Superstar Chrome extension reveals valuable data insights, empowers you to reach out directly, and seamlessly integrates with our powerful platform for streamlined campaign management.

Are you tired of endlessly searching social media platforms for the right influencers?

Sick of copying and pasting contact information between platforms?

Do you wish you could personalize outreach messages to multiple influencers at once?

Instantly unlock top influencer insights. Get a demo of the Superstar Chrome extension and get started!

Discover influencers across platforms

Find the perfect creators, no matter where they're active. Superstar's extension identifies influencers on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and more, providing a complete view of their influence.

Unlock meaningful influencer data

Go beyond basic metrics. Get deep insights into audience demographics, content performance, engagement rates, and more—empowering you to make smarter, data-driven influencer decisions.

Streamline your influencer outreach

Skip tedious copy-and-paste. Send personalized messages to multiple influencers directly through the extension, streamlining outreach and saving you valuable time and effort.

Scale your influencer program

Seamlessly integrate your discoveries with Superstar. Launch campaigns, manage contracts, track performance, automate payments—scale your program effortlessly, all from one powerful platform.

Try the Superstar Chrome extension and save hours on influencer research, outreach, and management.

Sign up for the pre-launch and enjoy a 30-day free trial.

Sign me up!

Industry insights

GoDaddy survey exposes generational trust gap in social media shopping

A new GoDaddy survey reveals significant differences in how Gen Z and Millennial consumers approach social media shopping and trust online recommendations. Read more here

Nearly 80% of consumers trust UGC content more than influencers in 2024 [REPORT]

A new report from The Influencer Marketing Factory, The Ultimate Creator Guide, dives into key creator economy trends for 2024, including user-generated content (UGC), creator monetization, and AI’s expanding role in content creation. One standout insight? UGC now surpasses influencer content in consumer trust, with nearly 80% of consumers favoring it. Read more here

US marketers prioritize reach and engagement to measure influencer campaign success

According to EMARKETER, reach, engagement rate, and conversions are the most popular metrics for measuring influencer marketing program success among US enterprise marketers. Read more here

More than two-thirds of consumers are choosing creator-founded products, research shows

New research from Billion Dollar Boy reveals a shift in consumer behavior, with over two-thirds of shoppers opting for creator-founded products. Surveying 4,000 consumers, 500 marketers and 500 creators in the US and UK, the study shows that 65% of consumers have purchased a product or service launched by a creator. Read more here

How influencers are changing advertising, with Digitas CEO Amy Lanzi

As more brands invest in creators and influencers on social media platforms, the advertising landscape is shaking up. To keep up, top agencies like Digitas, a Publicis Groupe company, are expanding their capabilities—acquiring influencer-focused firms and leveraging AI tools to match brands with the right influencers and scale partnerships. Read more here

Join an exclusive community of leading influencer marketers

Our newsletter keeps you informed, and our community keeps you connected. I highly encourage you to join our professional network on LinkedIn.

Join the Creator Marketing Community 

Connect with influencer marketing leaders and professionals from top brands like Nike, Kate Spade, Klarna, Niantic, Red Bull, and Calvin Klein to network and get insider access to exciting deals, events, and job opportunities.

Interesting reads

Why agencies and brands are hiring influencers as business consultants [LINK]

Why marketers like Procter & Gamble’s Marc Pritchard see getting back to basics as a path to growth [LINK]

How — and why — this brand created an ad campaign entirely with AI [LINK]

Free Creator Economy Resource List

Looking for the latest news and insights on the creator economy? We’ve curated a selection of top industry resources — all continuously updated— to help marketers navigate the creator economy more effectively. Don’t miss our global marketing events calendar! Check it out here 👇