Study: Influencer marketing spending on the rise for brands already involved

Dive Brief:

The gen.video State of the Union for Influencer Marketing, Trends and Best Practices for 2017 study found that 76% of brand leaders across a wide variety of consumer business sectors consider themselves beginners with influencer video content, per a report made available to Marketing Dive.
51% of respondents plan on “significantly increasing” influencer marketing investment in 2017, but this is off a small base as 45% reported spending less than 10% of digital budgets on influencer marketing. Video influencer content is expected to gain the most with 82% of brands expecting to invest more in video influencer campaigns.
For the brands that do use influencer marketing, increasing sales conversion is the top objective at 64% followed by building brand equity and driving purchase intent, both at 50%.

Dive Insight:

The report described influencer marketing as “on the precipice of exploding growth,” citing YouTube influencers being featured on 60 Minutes and Google investing in an open marketplace for brands and influencers. It also pointed to a Cisco data point that 79% of global internet traffic by 2018 will be video as a reason why video influencer campaigns will be especially relevant.

As the options for influencer marketing grows, marketers may be wondering where best to invest. The survey found that brands rank YouTube as their highest priority, beating out Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

This year could see influencer marketing tied more directly to driving sales, as integrated the content with ecommerce is a high priority for brands, according to the study.

Last year definitely saw influencer marketing move beyond a niche tactic even though there remains issues such as FTC disclosure requirements for paid content and difficulty in gaining reliable ROI and other key performance indicators from influencer campaigns. At the same time, influencer marketing taps into the trust consumers give to peers and individuals seen as experts that brands simply cannot command.

For its survey, gen.video interviewed more than 20 brand leaders across the CPG, Health & Beauty, Electronics, Software, Apparel and Durables business sectors.