The amount of money UK marketers are prepared to pay a celebrity influencer for a single post mentioning their brand name on Facebook has fallen by 67% to £25,000 from £75,000.
The study polled 200 marketers working in consumer-facing sectors including fashion, cosmetics and travel. It was conducted by Viga on behalf of Rakuten Marketing, a digital advertising specialist, in December 2018 and January 2019. The last research from the company was carried out in July 2017.
Rakuten claimed the change in fee levels brought celebrities on to par with "micro-influencers", which it defined as having fewer than 10,000 followers. Marketers would pay nearly £26,000 for a marketing campaign from a micro-influencer, it said.
However, spending has risen alongside sophistication, with marketers now allocating 40% of their budgets to influencer marketing compared with 24% in the previous study.
In 2017 uncertainty about how influencers’ fees should be calculated was expressed by 86% of marketers, but now three in 10 state they "completely" understand how fees should be calculated.
In addition, the proportion of marketers measuring the impact of their influencer marketing efforts by indirectly influenced sales, as opposed to the last click, has risen by 12% to 32%.
Anthony Capano, EMEA managing director at Rakuten Marketing, said: "Influencer marketing has continued to be an incredibly hot topic for marketers who are clearly putting their money where their mouth is when it comes to backing these campaigns.
"Two years on [from our last survey], it is clear that marketers are making strides to ensure they understand the real impact that influencer programmes have on the purchase journey, before spending huge sums of money. However, there is still a gap between what they are measuring and their spend. If this industry continues to grow at the rapid pace it is now, decreasing that gap will be key."
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