Brands' investment in influencer marketing has continued to increase since 2020, despite global economic downturns and challenges. The impressive growth of the influencer marketing industry is ongoing, and it is expected to reach an estimated $24 billion by the end of 2024.
In this context, each year more businesses are allocating a portion of their marketing budgets to influencer campaigns. One of the first and main questions a new business wishing to try influencer marketing might ask themselves is how to find influencers to partner with, or with whom they should partner.
There are many factors to keep in mind when searching for the right influencer to partner with your brand. This is a crucial step in creating a successful influencer marketing collaboration and it can be overwhelming as there are countless content creators out there to choose from. One of the key elements considered is the size of the influencers, meaning the amount of followers they have.
You may have probably heard the terms mega, macro, micro and nano influencers, along with several other categories or types of influencers. There are varied segmentations, making it hard to decide which influencers you should prioritize and partner with. However, there is no general rule for which influencers are best; it depends on several factors such as your campaign’s goals and KPIs, your target audience, budget, and the industry or product you want to promote.
In this article, we’ll help you understand the classifications of these categories and the main pros and cons of partnering with each of them, so you can make an informed decision!
Let’s first quickly look through the main types of influencers to understand how they are defined! If we wish to consider a more detailed segmentation, influencers can be classified into five main categories based on the size of their audiences:
In this article, however, we’ll group all the types above into two main categories. We will refer to “macro-influencers” for all large influencers with more than 100K followers, and to “micro-influencers” for all smaller accounts with fewer than 100K followers.
Macro-influencers are content creators who have built a significant audience, from above a hundred thousand to more than a million followers. They may also be recognized or public social media figures, such as celebrities.
These influencers typically partner with many brands to promote products or services, as they can help create brand awareness due to their large reach, allowing them to target massive and more diverse audiences. However, their rates can be higher for this reason, since they are quite popular.
Additionally, Instagram’s algorithm reduces content visibility if the audience engagement is low, reaching only a fraction of their total followers. This can also be influenced by a higher presence of fake followers, such as inactive accounts or bots, which do not engage with their content and may inflate their follower count.
With smaller audiences varying from 5,000 to 100,000 followers, micro-influencers are typically perceived as experts or key opinion leaders in a specific niche or industry. Therefore, while they don’t provide a massive reach as macro-influencers, they have a highly engaged community.
Brands are increasingly relying on these types of influencers for more authentic sponsorships every day. This trend is reflected in the 56% of marketers investing in influencer marketing who choose to collaborate with micro-influencers. They also present a great opportunity, especially for small businesses, to promote their products or services to loyal audiences at an affordable price.
We have already reviewed the main pros and cons of both micro and macro influencers. Let’s now compare them and summarize their main differences. Under which scenarios is each more effective and why?
For example, a skincare brand could partner with macro-influencers across different categories such as Beauty, Fashion, or Lifestyle. These influencers typically have more generic profiles, sharing content about their personal lives and covering diverse topics.
For example, a cryptocurrency company might find it effective to partner with micro-influencers who focus on crypto and foreign exchange information. Even though these accounts may have smaller audiences (e.g., around 25K followers), their followers are likely engaged and interested in the specific topic. Therefore, micro-influencers can provide significant value in terms of engagement and access to an audience directly related to the brand’s target market.
Micro-influencers typically show higher engagement rates due to their highly engaged communities. Their followers are more likely to interact with their content, partly because of the increased authenticity and their ability to connect with their audience in a more genuine way.
A recent research from AdWeek shows that smaller accounts had engagement rates that were 60% higher over time compared to larger, more popular accounts. Based on our experience, micro-influencers often have engagement rates between 5% and up to 20%, while macro-influencers with thousands or millions of followers usually average around 1% to 3%.
Therefore, if your primary goal is to engage with your audience and create content that highly resonates with them, micro-influencers would be the better option for your campaign.
Micro-influencers are often considered key opinion leaders within their niche, and as a result, their content is perceived as more authentic and credible. Their audiences tend to trust their recommendations, which can lead to better engagement and, in some cases, more successful conversions.
Credibility is another key factor when partnering with an influencer. It depends on the number of real followers versus fake followers, such as bots. Even if a macro-influencer has one million followers, it won't drive good results for a brand if their audience is not actively engaging with their content. While all influencers may have a percentage of fake followers (typically around 15% to 20%), macro-influencers are more likely to have a larger number of fake followers than micro-influencers due to their broader reach, which will result in lower engagement rate and credibility.
Micro-influencers are generally more cost-effective than macro-influencers, as they typically have lower rates. Additionally, they are often more open to accepting gifts and affiliate commissions instead of fixed payments. This makes them particularly beneficial for brands with lower budgets.
Based on our extensive experience working with over 20,000 influencers, a micro-influencer with approximately 50K followers usually charges between $300 and $500 per post. In contrast, macro-influencers with around 300K followers often charge between $1,000 and $5,000 per post.
Additionally, due to their lower costs and higher engagement rates, micro-influencers often deliver a higher ROI compared to macro-influencers, which is one of the most important KPIs for marketers.
Macro-influencers are often more complex to work with due to their talent agents or management agencies, who act as “gatekeepers” for their brand partnerships. This can involve more extensive negotiation, particularly for gifting and affiliate campaigns, since managers do not benefit directly from these collaborations.
However, macro-influencers are generally more professional following timelines and with overall campaign execution. They also typically work with professional teams, such as photographers and content producers, resulting in higher-quality content.
In contrast, managing campaigns with micro-influencers can require more effort since you may need to coordinate with several micro-influencers to achieve the same reach as a macro-influencer. This results in multiplied negotiations and communication management. In such cases, using an influencer marketing software can help streamline the process.
Our latest research on key metrics that impact ROI has shown that the audience size of influencers often has a positive correlation with conversion. This means that larger accounts frequently tend to deliver better results for sales.
However, the main question should be: which of the two types of influencers yields higher ROI? Maximizing your influencer ROI is probably the main goal of every brand, as this measure evaluates the profitability of your investment. This means that ROI helps you determine the financial return generated from the campaign relative to the costs involved.
Therefore, to calculate ROI, we need to take into consideration influencers' rates or costs. As previously mentioned, larger or macro influencers are usually more expensive to work with, while micro-influencers are cheaper as they have reduced rates and are even more open to accepting gifting or affiliate partnerships, significantly lowering your costs.
Therefore, micro-influencers can result in higher ROI if you are able to strike better deals. To achieve this, it is essential though to have efficient negotiation strategies.
Additionally, it is crucial to understand that in influencer marketing, the best approach is to first test influencers over some time, regardless of their size or type, until you can identify the ones who are good performers. Both micro and macro influencers may be general or high performers. We refer to high performers as influencers who can drive more than 8 to 10 sales per post. During this testing phase, we suggest trying to keep your costs as low as possible by running only gifting and affiliate campaigns.
Once you identify this small but powerful portion of performing creators- which can be around 10% of all the influencers you reached out to-, you may want to invest in building long-term relationships with them by inviting them to your seasonality campaigns and brand ambassador programs. Here, you can make them fixed payment offers or other compensation packages based on their previous performance. Therefore, this is when the real revenue will appear and compensate for most of your previous costs during the testing phase.
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As we have seen, both micro-influencers and macro-influencers offer unique benefits for successful collaborations. Therefore, selecting the right type of influencer for your campaign depends on other factors such as your campaign's goals, target audience, budget and type of product you wish to promote.
In general terms, micro-influencers can be a great option for your brand if you are promoting a very niche product and seek to target a specific community, while macro-influencers can be the best choice when seeking wider exposure or brand awareness, as they allow you to reach massive, though more diverse, audiences across different locations or interests. However, you should keep in mind that through micro-influencers, you may reach highly engaged audiences, resulting in increased engagement, while macro-influencers may have less engaged audiences but credible voices you can leverage.
It is also suggested, when possible and if your budget allows it, to try to partner with a combination of types of influencers to achieve various objectives.This approach allows you to work with micro-influencers to target specific niches and achieve higher engagement rates, while also collaborating with macro-influencers to increase your brand's overall awareness through broader reach.
For example, a brand selling a quite niche product, such as ski clothing, may wish to target specific communities, such as ski instructors, enthusiasts or professional skiers. Alternatively, they could target specific locations with cold weather and ski centers such as Colorado or Utah. Therefore, a good approach would be to partner with influencers who ski and communicate it on their social media, even though their audiences might be smaller. In addition, they could partner with a few larger accounts related to general content such as lifestyle to create awareness or exposure, as some celebrities might travel to ski centers every now and then.
Let’s review in detail the main factors to consider when choosing to work with micro or macro influencers:
Is it reach or engagement? Decide and always keep in mind what you primarily aim to achieve through your influencer marketing efforts. Then choose the approach that best aligns with your goals.
Do you want to prioritize reaching a wider audience for brand awareness or social media exposure, even if it may result in lower engagement? Or do you prefer targeting a specific but smaller audience aligned with your target market or niche, potentially achieving higher engagement?
It is crucial to choose influencers whose audiences match your target market. Analyze your customer persona, understand its interests and behaviors, and find influencers according to this.
Macro-influencers often have a wider but more diverse audience, while micro-influencers have a niche audience aligned with specific demographics or interests.
The selection of influencers will largely depend on your available budget for the campaign. Be strategic and make the most of it! It’s important to first understand how to calculate and plan your influencer marketing budget.
Keep in mind that macro-influencers usually demand higher rates for brand collaborations, while micro-influencers tend to be more cost-effective, often accepting smaller compensation packages and being open to gifting or affiliate partnerships, which can help keep your costs lower and lead to higher ROI.
While both micro and macro influencers can create valuable content, it is more likely that larger accounts will produce higher-quality content that you can reutilize for your social media marketing. This is because they often have professional teams assisting them, such as photographers and editors.
However, micro-influencers may produce more organic content, which can also be effective as it is perceived as more natural. Therefore, decide which approach aligns better with your brand’s intentions.
As previously mentioned, micro-influencers are recognized for establishing more genuine and intimate connections with their audience, and therefore, their content is perceived as more authentic. This can lead to better engagement. On the other hand, brands can leverage macro-influencers' reputation, which enhances their credibility.
Due to their more expensive costs, macro-influencers may be more suitable for one-time campaigns rather than permanent and long-term partnerships. Smaller accounts, on the other hand, may be more open to partnering with a brand on a long-term basis. Additionally, if you partner with a rising star who has not yet reached the peak of their work, you’re likely creating a strong bond that will bring significant profit in the future.
Both micro and macro influencers offer pros and cons for brand partnerships. However, determining which ones are best for your brand depends on key factors such as your campaign’s objectives, budget, target audience, and product category or industry.
All things considered, a brand may find it more efficient to partner with a macro-influencer, while another in a different industry may be better aligned with a micro or nano influencer. Additionally, brands may find it beneficial to partner with different types of influencers at different times. Therefore, there is no generic rule on what type of influencer is better to partner with. Instead, you should analyze all the factors described in this article to determine your best strategy.
Micro-influencers may be a great option for your brand if you are seeking to target a very specific niche with a highly engaged community, while macro-influencers can be the best alternative if you seek wider exposure or brand awareness, reaching massive and more diverse audiences from a recognized and credible voice, though it may result in lower engagement.
We believe that since both micro and macro influencers offer unique benefits for diverse purposes, a good approach is to always try to combine both types of partnerships. Partner with a few smaller and larger accounts, and you’ll accomplish different objectives.
Finally, remember that it is crucial, besides considering the influencer's size, to consider other key aspects such as their engagement rate, follower growth, authenticity, and general alignment with the brand and your values or messaging.
Finding the right influencer to work with requires a deep understanding and effort, so make a checklist of all the steps you need to take during that search to ensure a successful brand collaboration. Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered! You may find it helpful to read our complete guide on how to find influencers for your brand.
Additionally, if you wish to find influencers for a specific industry or niche, you can explore our Influencer Discovery Library with articles about how to find the right micro or macro influencers for specific industries such as gaming, sports or fitness, skincare, family, fashion and much more.
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