Brand marketers are stuck in a ‘tactical trap’ with influencer marketing (IM) according to the State of influence 2.0 report by Traackr.
The global survey of 118 digital marketers at enterprise organisations shows this ‘tactical trap’ occurs when companies are unable to evolve their early IM initiatives from a broadcasting function to a strategic programme that adds value beyond the top of the funnel.
While more companies are moving from experimenting with IM to tactical programmes (28% in 2017 vs 47% in 2018), few have matured to advanced programmes from last year.
The report also shows budgets are on the rise but still constitute a tiny portion of total marketing spend. While 50% of respondents’ allocation to IM was less than $100,000 last year, this year more than 70% have budgets of more than $100,000. However, these budgets only make up less than 10% of the overall marketing spend for more than 60% of respondents.
Technology on the rise
This year, respondents are 30% more likely to use some form of IM technology than the last, with influencer identification technology usage doubling, and influencer management technology increasing by 32%. Opt-in network usage has declined by nearly 20%, however.
Influencer marketing is deemed successful by respondents, but IM still has a way to go to become cross-functional and requires better data on ROI, according to the report.
Pierre-Loïc Assayag, CEO and co-founder of Traackr, said: “For companies to succeed in influencer marketing, they must lead with measurement and move towards consistent influencer campaigns integrated across their marketing activities and functions within the organisation.”
