What is Influencer Marketing? | Blog

Richard Wall
Printed on: 18 July 2025

In 1767, Queen Charlotte, spouse of Britain’s George III, gave Josiah Wedgewood permission to name his new design “Queen’s Ware” because it was primarily based off a set he had created particularly for her. The status of this meant that the set grew to become vastly well-liked throughout Europe, and thus was influencer advertising and marketing born. 

As of late members of the royal household don’t are usually influencers, however “influencer advertising and marketing” as an trade is price almost £1 billion within the UK alone. 

What’s influencer advertising and marketing? 

In brief, influencer advertising and marketing is the place firms pay people who’ve a big social media presence to endorse their merchandise. It’s just like utilizing testimonials, however with the attain extending past the model’s personal followers. 

Does it work?

YES.

CreatorIQ regarded on the Instagram and TikTok presence of the 100 greatest manufacturers in America, evaluating the impression of their very own content material to that of content material posted about them by creators.

Creator content material is streets forward on all 3 metrics; Impressions, Engagement and Quantity of Posts. It’s price noting that 32x extra posts solely earn 17x extra engagement, so there are clearly instances the place influencer posts aren’t hitting the mark. However I’ll ship you a £20 observe when you can title any advertising and marketing channel with a 100% success fee!

Are all influencers the identical?

At the start, influencer advertising and marketing was all concerning the huge names; Kardashians, Beckhams and the like. It’s now advanced into tiers; the mega-star names are nonetheless round, however there’s a complete ecosystem of different-sized influencers on the market.

In case you’re a model that desires to succeed in all people, like Amazon.com or Lidl, then working with the massive gamers is sensible. Nevertheless, when you’re in area of interest market, then partnering with a nano-influencer to succeed in the proper 2000 individuals will ship a lot greater ROI than reaching 600k individuals who aren’t your goal market.

How a lot does it price?

It is dependent upon a number of elements:

Influencer Following

Anticipate to pay extra for influencers with bigger audiences. Though micro-influencers who dominate their area of interest could also be costlier than a somebody with a much bigger following in a extra aggressive market.

Platform/Content material

A #sponsored picture put up on Instagram doesn’t take lengthy to ship. A 20-minute product evaluate on YouTube might simply take greater than an hour to supply correctly. Take into account how a lot time you’re asking for out of your influencer.

Construction

Probably the most used pricing constructions are Pay-per-Put up and Efficiency-Primarily based. Pay-per-Put up does precisely what it says on the tin, whether or not you get a viral second or an entire flop, the fee is locked in.

Efficiency-Primarily based pricing might be acquainted to you when you work with Paid Advertisements; you’ll agree a KPI, comparable to Impressions or Engagements, and pay for every one.

Exclusivity:

In case you’re Adidas, you in all probability don’t wish to see your influencer accomplice working with Puma throughout your advert marketing campaign!

Exclusivity can cowl particular manufacturers or a whole sector. Anticipate to pay extra for exclusivity, as you’re demanding that an influencer flip away different work.       

Conclusion

Influencer advertising and marketing has totally earned its place amongst advertising and marketing channels. In case you’re seeing success along with your social media (managed by way of Spotler Engage, naturally) however trying to hit a brand new stage or interact a brand new viewers, then it might be simply what you’re on the lookout for.

Searching for extra on how influencer advertising and marketing could be efficient? Watch our webinar with Avneet Kalsi, the place she explores how Dutch Barn Vodka received on once they used Ricky Gervais because the face of their social efforts.