Brands working on influencer marketing campaigns in 2017 spent an average of £51,891 per campaign – a year-on-year increase of 38.6% – according to RhythmOne’s Influencer Marketing Benchmarks Report.

Analysing influencer marketing insights into the ROI and benchmarks based on 74 brand influencer marketing campaigns from last year, the report found that advertisers who ran campaigns received on average $12.21 in earned media value (EMV) for every $1 of spend – an increase of 4.4% over the 2016 EMV average of $11.69.

In addition, advertisers that ran campaigns for two weeks or more saw brand mentions increase by 14.78% on average, as well as increases in positive brand sentiment (8.73%).

Driving these increases across the board, the report identified upped engagement rates across all influencer marketing campaigns in 2017 by 8.2% on average – more than four times the engagement rate average of 2% in 2016. Meanwhile, the use of social platforms such as Instagram Stories and Snapchat have seen higher adoption, utilised by 19.2% of all campaigns last year.

“This year’s Benchmarks Report results serve to reinforce the power of Influencer Marketing as a critical component of our clients’ marketing plans,” said Katie Paulsen, VP of influencer marketing at RhythmOne.

Where measuring ROI of influencer marketing campaigns remained a key challenge for advertisers in 2018, these findings provide some good insight in determining ROI, indicating that the medium continues to gain momentum for advertisers to engage and target audiences at scale.

“The year-over-year increase in average campaign ROI not only validates the success of the campaigns we’ve run to date, but it’s fueling future investment and growth in Influencer Marketing as a core component of brands’ digital marketing strategies.” Paulsen concluded.