Influencer Marketing

The State of Influencer Marketing 2023: Benchmark Report

The Influencer Marketing Benchmark Report 2023 is our latest overview of the influencer marketing industry. It summarizes the thoughts of more than 3500 marketing agencies, brands, and other relevant professionals regarding the current state of influencer marketing, along with some predictions of how people expect it to move over the next year and into the future. 

The world around us has changed considerably over the last few years. The arrival of Covid in 2020 turned much of the world on its head, with enforced lockdowns and scenes reminiscent of a Hollywood disaster movie. By 2022, however, much of the world was learning to live with Covid, clamoring for something resembling their old lives. Unfortunately, they were also learning to live with the economic consequences of Covid, with supply chain disruptions, a chronic shortage of key workers, and creeping inflation threatening to unsettle the global economy. 


The State of Influencer Marketing Benchmark Report 2023:

Notable Highlights


Survey Methodology

We surveyed approximately 3500 people from a range of backgrounds. 38% of our respondents worked at marketing agencies (including those specializing in influencer marketing), and 22.5% considered themselves brands (or brand representatives). 4% are PR agencies. We merged the remaining 35% as Other, representing a wide range of occupations and sectors.

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We have noticed a more global response to this year’s survey. 31% of our respondents come from Africa (5% in 2022), 16% came from the USA (57% in 2022), 14% from Asia (APAC) (13% 2022), 8% from Europe (11% 2022), 4% South America (2% 2022), and 28% describe their location as Other (11% 2022). It is highly likely that many respondents who selected Other in 2022, have been more precise in 2023’s survey.

Influencer Marketing Expected to Grow to be Worth $21.1 Billion in 2023

Despite concerns that influencer marketing (indeed, all marketing) might decrease due to Covid19, it didn’t, and has continued to increase in popularity since 2020. Initially, some industries, such as tourism and airlines, had to retrench dramatically and cut back their operations and marketing, but many others adjusted their models to survive in the Covid and post-Covid world. Now there is even renewed life in those more Covid-affected industries.

Over the last year, we have experienced a global economic downturn, and increasing inflation rates, making it more difficult for people to pay for their everyday purchases, nevermind perceived extras. Firms are having to compete more fiercely for the consumer’s dollar, pound, or euro. Successful businesses understand the importance of marketing, including influencer marketing, in tough times, and increase their expenditures on this, even when they have to cost-cut expenses elsewhere.

Results From Our Survey

Sizeable Increase in Content in Recent Years, But Rate Slowing

We asked our respondents whether they had increased content output over the last two years. A sizable 71% of them admitted to having upped the amount of content they produced. This is, however, noticeably down on last year's 84%. 

Despite the comparative fall in increased content, many firms still realize the insatiable demand for online content. The majority of marketers have still increased their content marketing, year after year. Much of this increase in content must be created and delivered by influencers on behalf of brands. Clearly, new content is continually being developed and shared over newer social networks like TikTok.

An Increasing Majority Have a Standalone Budget for Content Marketing

Nearly 2/3 (63%) admit to having a standalone budget for content marketing. This figure creeps up each year and is up from 61% last year, 59% in 2021, and 55% in our 2020 survey. 

Yet, although these figures are over 50%, they are surprisingly low. For example, hubspot reports that 82% of their respondents used content marketing in 2021, up from 70% in 2020. hubspot also found that almost half (49%) of marketing teams allocate between 30% and 50% of their budget to content.

Firms Value Working with Influencers They Know

We asked our respondents whether they had worked with the same influencers across different campaigns. The majority, 61% (57% in 2021) said they had, versus 39% (43% in 2021) who claimed to use other influencers for their campaigns (or perhaps had only had one campaign so far). These figures are little changed from those reported in 2021.

The Main Purpose of AI/ML Will be for Influencer Identification

We asked those who said they would (or might) use AI/ML in their influencer marketing how they intended to use it. The most popular suggestion (64%) was using social media analytics to identify the most effective influencers for a particular brand or campaign. Although the respondents didn’t clarify this, they presumably intend to work with one of the influencer platforms offering influencer identification technology.

The Most Popular Use of Influencer Platforms is for Influencer Discovery and Communication

The figures in this section show a percentage of those who answered that they use a third-party platform, not the percentage of all survey respondents as a whole.

Influencer platforms initially focused on offering tools to help with influencer discovery. Therefore, it should be no surprise that that is still the most popular use of influencer platforms at 55% (although down slightly from last year's 58%).

Other popular uses of the influencer platforms include influencer payments (30%), campaign automation and reporting (30%), fraud and fake follower analysis (26%), conversion attribution (23%), and paid amplification (21%). An additional 26% of respondents use the platforms for some other type of service.


User Generated Content (UGC) is Now the Main Objective for Running an Influencer Campaign

The answers to this question this year are markedly different from those in 2022. At that stage 36.7% of our respondents claimed their influencer campaign aimed to increase sales, 35.7% focused on awareness, and 32.8% declared they engage in influencer marketing to build up a library of user-generated content.

This year, however, the wish for generating UGC jumped ahead as the main reason for influencer marketing campaigns (45%), with Sales (29%) and Awareness (26%) both noticeably reduced in importance.

Perhaps this is a sign of the increased importance of TikTok to influencer marketing – TikTok is now the natural home of UGC, with many brands engaging influencers to set up dance challenges and the like on their behalf.