ClanConnect survey reveals over 58 % of CMOs surveyed are putting aside influencer budgets

 20th April 2021    PR News 
 Paarul Chand

ClanConnect Influencer Marketing Survey 2021 

To find out how brands are using influencers ClanConnect.ai collated insights from CMOs of leading brands across the FMCG, infrastructure, fashion, textile, media and entertainment, BFSI, and pharmaceuticals space.

According to the data, 78% of marketing leaders leveraged influencer marketing in 2020, while a little over 13% of them initiated influencer activity for the first time in 2020. 

Interestingly, 52% of brands engaged more than 10 influencers in 2020, which coincides with the accelerated growth of the sector in the last year.

Speaking on the findings, Kunal Kishore Sinha, Co-founder and COO – ClanConnect.ai, said, “Influencer marketing is at the cusp of exponential growth. It is the future of marketing, a fact that is evident from the survey report. At ClanConnect.ai, we are excited and are geared up to gain further scale in the coming months.”

Greater spends on influencer marketing

In terms of marketing spends, ClanConnect.ai found that budgets allocated to influencer marketing grew significantly in 2020 as compared to 2019. 

In fact, 39.13% of the CMOs mentioned an increase in spends on influencer marketing. The other 60.87% saw no change in spends between 2019 and 2020. 

CMO budgets for Influencer marketing 

Now, as influencer marketing has assumed a mainstream stature, 58.70% of CMOs are allocating separate budgets for influencer activities in their 2021 marketing plans. 

Simultaneously, 52.17% have decided to increase spends in 2021 as compared to 2020. 

Moreover, over 50% of the respondents are interested in increasing budgets by up to 25% in 2021. 

Such targeted financial investment in influencer marketing will provide a fillip to this space, catalyzing its growth over the coming months.

Preferred platforms and influencers 

There is no dearth of social media channels that brands can leverage for their influencer campaigns today. While 50% of CMOs find Instagram to be the most effective platform for these campaigns, 23.91% prefer LinkedIn, and 15.22% identify YouTube as their go-to platform.

In another interesting finding, the survey revealed that almost 87% of CMOs prefer to conduct up to 25% of their influencer campaigns with micro-influencers. 

This proves that brands prefer to engage with influencers who have a dedicated, loyal following even if the number of followers does not go into the millions.

 However, 89.13% of CMOs are concerned about influencer fraud in the form of fake followers and engagement.