Looking for actual, factual, we-worked-long-and-hard-to-compile-them benchmarks to help guide your micro-influencer campaign strategies? You’ve found the right blog post!

When we first set out to launch Infinity’s award-winning micro-influencer program a few years ago, we searched and searched (and searched) for industry articles that might provide concrete numbers and percentages to compare our own campaign results against. Honestly, we didn’t find much.

At that time, most of the blog posts and articles around the topic of influencer campaign measurement were more along the lines of “here are the KPIs you should be tracking” or “these are the top objectives of influencer marketing.” No real numbers aside from an occasional engagement rate tied to a mega influencer or a platform-wide average for combined content from all users. Nothing for the localized micro-influencers we focus so heavily on for our clients.

We don’t like dead ends around here, so we set out to create our own set of benchmarks for tracking micro-influencer campaigns. It took a few years, LOTS of projects for multiple clients across different industries, and some trial and error, but we did it! And now we get to share some of those benchmarks with you!

The Good Stuff

Before we get to the REALLY good stuff, we want to share some regular ol’ good stuff — some learnings from our own experience that we hope you’ll find helpful as you plan and manage your own micro-influencer campaigns:

Benchmarks are Guiderails, Not Gospel

Every project is different…with different goals, different budgets, different numbers of influencers. The list goes on. Even second flights of content from the same influencers can yield very different results within the same campaign!

The benchmarks we’re sharing in this post are the totals and averages of more than 25 micro-influencer campaigns Infinity has managed over the past two years. Multiple clients. Multiple markets. Different influencers. Look at them as a way to guide your campaign toward success, not as a “set in stone” standard.

Focus On Awareness

It’s easy to focus on driving conversions and lead generation when speaking of more traditional marketing tactics, but in our experience, micro-influencer campaigns are more successful when objectives focus on awareness (brand/product/opportunity), creating positive word of mouth, and inspiring website traffic to help users learn more about the brand, the product, or the opportunity.

Micro-influencer marketing is a conversational, peer-to-peer tactic, and authentic message delivery coupled with audience engagement is key to successfully generating that “buzz” everyone is seeking on social media.

Expect Higher CPMs

In our experience, CPMs for impressions and reach (when calculated the same way as traditional media tactics) are often MUCH higher for influencer marketing than for those other tactics. Expect them to be even higher for niche messaging targeted to limited/focused audiences.

Smaller Audience = Higher Engagement Rate

If you think about a micro-influencer with 1K followers vs. one with 10K followers, it’s not that hard to see that the larger audience influencer’s going to have more organic engagement. Having more followers provides more opportunities for organic likes, comments, or shares from the folks who already follow that influencer. But! When we give our lower follower count influencers the opportunity to increase their sponsored content reach beyond their limited audience with targeted post boosting, something magical happens (Harry Potter spell coming in 3, 2, 1…“expecto engagementus!”).

At Infinity, we calculate engagement rate as total engagements/total followers x 100. If we give both influencers in our scenario the same $50 to boost one post on Instagram, our lower-follower count influencer actually comes out much better BECAUSE their organic audience is limited. Let us explain:

• Micro-influencer with a 10K Instagram audience boosts one Instagram post for $50 and receives 150 likes:
  • 150/10,000 x 100 = 1.5% engagement rate
• Micro-influencer with a 1K Instagram audience boosts one Instagram post for $50 and receives 150 likes:
  • 150/1,000 x 100 = 15% engagement rate

Pretty cool, right? So, if you’re looking for a great overall influencer campaign engagement rate, make sure you include a few of those smaller audience folks and boost, boost, boost!

The REALLY Good Stuff

Now for the star of the show…below are five legitimate micro-influencer benchmarks (compiled from Infinity’s campaigns) to help you with your own campaigns. Formulas included, too!

*The above benchmark ranges are FULL CAMPAIGN ranges.

**The above formulas can be used to calculate/measure on a per-influencer, per-market, or per-campaign basis.

Some of those benchmark ranges might seem a bit broad but remember that every campaign is different, and benchmark ranges will help you work toward (and hopefully prove) success for your own campaigns more easily than a set single number or percentage.

Happy campaigning!

Interested in learning more about our micro-influencer program? Send us a message!