78% of online adults said creators were influential to help them discover new brands, per March 2022 research by Meta Platforms which was conducted in nine countries including the US, UK, Germany and Japan.
Influencer marketing spending in the US is up 33.6% to $3.69 billion.
The most popular social platforms that marketers are planning to invest in as part of their influencer marketing strategy in 2022 are Instagram, TikTok, Twitter and YouTube.
However, reports from VidCon surfaced that influencer marketing campaign budgets are being cut, according to influencers/content creators and industry execs.
Brands in some industries are canceling campaigns and delaying payments to influencers as they brace for a downturn. Some influencers in these industries have struggled to land new deals and have earned decreased affiliate commissions.
Some industry categories such as cryptocurrencies and the automobile industry, which are currently experiencing a lot of turmoil, may end up pulling back on influencer marketing as part of broader budget cuts.
However, the current travel boom will likely lead to bigger expenditures on influencer marketing as businesses such as hotels, travel destinations, and cruise lines woo vacation-starved consumers. Forty-nine percent of US Gen Z adults and 50% of Millennial adults followed at least one travel influencer, per 2021 Morning Consult data.
In addition, advertisers like Kraft Heinz and American Eagle are dedicating more of their marketing budgets to TikTok as a way to target Gen Z, and they’re finding success when they partner with influencers to help them navigate the platform. The salad chain Sweetgreen is another brand investing heavily in TikTok as it sets out to be the top fast-food restaurant for the health-conscious Gen Z generation. The company’s recent “Create Your Own” ad on TikTok featuring NBA star Devin Booker, which was directed by food content creator Owen Han, drove the highest click-through rates of any of its campaigns with a rate of 24% from users aged 13 to 17.
Fresh thinking:
Advertising budgets are typically the first slasher victim of economic downturns. However, over the past two years, influencer marketing campaigns have generated so much ad revenue growth that the shift from “experimental test” to key marketing tool has already been made. In addition, there are many data points that suggest that maintaining (or increasing) marketing budgets in a downturn deliver improvements in ROI.
