As influencer ROI continues to be a challenge for brands investing in the channel, a new study has found some plausible results among beauty brands and influencers within the beauty industry.
According to Marketing Week’s sister publication, Celebrity Intelligence, beauty brand marketers received an average ROI of £8.81 for every £1 spent on influencers within the beauty industry in 2017.
Based on a survey of 385 marketing specialists, including in-house brand marketers, agencies, consultants and media owners, the most popular source for proving influencer ROI among 77% of respondents was web analytics.
Meanwhile, 52% use platform-specific metrics, such as trackable links available through Shopping on Instagram, and 38% include trackable attribution links within the content influencers create.
Ongoing challenges
Measuring the ROI of influencers marketing campaigns continues to be a challenge for marketers with 46% of respondents agreeing with this.
However, surprising this wasn’t the most challenge issue with 53% said they had trouble identifying the right influencers to work with and 52% ensuring the collaboration with them is authentic.
Meanwhile, driving sales was not the main objective for influencer marketing with 33% of marketers stating that increasing brand awareness was the main purpose behind influencer marketing, compared to 12% who look to driving sales as a main objective.
When it comes to measuring success, 82% of beauty brand marketers rely on social media engagement, such as likes, shares and comments. This is followed by press coverage (50%), revenue generated (46%) and web traffic (45%).
Instagram most measurable platform
Out of the social media platforms used, Instagram was the platform of choice, with the majority (78%) agreeing it is the best platform for influencer marketing. This is followed by Facebook (9%), YouTube (7%), Twitter (3%) and Snapchat (1%).
In addition, more than half (57%) said influencers’ audiences are most engaged on Instagram, while 21% believe the platform is the best fit for their products and services.
However, despite this, just 5% said that Instagram delivers the best influencer ROI.
Investment in the channel
Despite the challenges of influencer ROI, the influencer marketing channel is set to grow further with mostly all beauty brand marketer to increase their budgets over the next 12 months – with 38% to increase budgets by 10% to 20% and another 27% expected to see a boost of more than 20%.
