German companies pay up to 38,000 euros per influencer post

According to the study, micro-influencers pay companies up to 32,000 euros - not per post, however, but for an entire campaign.

The willingness to invest cannot be surprising, because German consumers place great trust in the purchase recommendations of influencers: 83 percent say they have already bought a product that was recommended by an influencer. However, it is not always possible for marketers to assess whether the high expenditure is appropriate in individual cases: 77 percent are unsure of the criteria that should be used to calculate the level of compensation, and 37 percent have no way of measuring the impact of individual influencer campaigns on their own sales.

Anthony Capano, Managing Director EMEA at Rakuten Marketing, comments: "Consumers want trusted product recommendations from influencers - which perhaps explains why more and more brands are turning to micro-influencers. They tend to maintain a more intimate relationship with their followers and treat them like friends. That's a lot of value for companies. To measure the impact of their influencer campaigns, new tools are now available to them. Therefore, companies can choose their influencers very selectively, rather than working exclusively with the biggest names and potentially not getting the same return on investment." 

Insufficient performance measurement

Overall, marketers maintain a positive relationship with the influencers they work with. 60 percent say they are open to new suggestions. 83 percent also believe that influencers are interested in how their posts affect companies' sales figures. However, making this connection measurable is a challenge: 57 percent of the marketers surveyed only measure the reach of their campaigns, while 55 percent also check the impact on brand awareness. Only a third (33 percent) record sales that result either directly or indirectly from influencer activities. Only 32 percent also measure the website traffic generated.

Marketers would invest even more budget in influencer marketing if more reliable statements could be made about the business impact. 32 percent say they would invest more if the impact of influencer campaigns on company sales were more transparent. There are already many good approaches and tools here, but if the hype around the topic of influencer marketing is to continue, progress is needed across the board.

Influencer preferences of the Germans

German consumers follow influencers not only for the entertainment factor (47 percent). Many followers also want to discover new brands and products (45 percent) and want explicit buying recommendations (44 percent).

The primary focus on the entertainment factor is reflected in the preferred topic areas: 45 percent follow influencers from the entertainment industry, for example actors and musicians, 42 percent follow fashion influencers and 40 percent follow gamers. Technology influencers, on the other hand, are followed by only 25 percent, DIY influencers by only 14 percent and finance influencers by only 13 percent. The most popular influencer platforms in this country are Instagram (69 percent), YouTube (67 percent) and Facebook (51 percent). Twitter (25 percent) and Snapchat (22 percent), on the other hand, play a minor role.