Social video ad spending is up rapidly, but there’s one particular category driving even more spend. The rise of the influencer boost budget has transformed how brands promote and evaluate creator content on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and beyond.
According to Digiday, paid media budgets are increasingly used by marketers for influencer boosting after a creator campaign goes live or, in some instances, to run influencer content as paid media ads. Such trends will help drive more spend in the space as brands seek more predictable results from their creator campaigns.
What are Influencer Boost Budgets?
The term influencer boost budgets refers to paid media ad budgets allocated for the promotion of creator content. Unlike organic promotion, influencer boost budgets can be invested in promoting creator content in various ways.
These include promoted/boosted posts, whitelisting of creator content, TikTok Spark Ads, dark posts, paid content usage, and creator content licensing. In essence, these types of ad budgets enable brands to treat influencer-created videos as performance media rather than purely organic content.
From the marketer’s perspective, there are two big differences between organic social reach and paid media. Paid media allows for better targeting, more precise scale, more predictable clicks, conversions, and sales.
The Rise of Social Video Ad Spend
Digital social video ad spend is one of the fastest-growing channels. As mentioned earlier in this article, Digiday cites research conducted by the IAB that suggests that social video ad spend is expected to grow 13% this year – outperforming connected TV ad growth.
Lowering video production costs and improved targeting capabilities are two of the main drivers of that growth.
Influencer content is a huge contributor to this trend since all modern creator campaigns revolve around short-form video content. Reels, TikToks, Shorts, and other vertical video formats have become the de facto language of social media marketing.
And as more brands spend on influencers, they invest even more in ensuring the reach of creator content is guaranteed.
Influencer Campaigns Are Becoming Paid Media
Until recently, influencer marketing has been treated as a completely independent advertising channel from paid social. A brand would pay a creator, and the creator would post a piece of content and generate results.
However, the way brands approach their influencer campaigns is evolving.
Increasingly more marketers include paid amplification of creator content into their influencer campaigns right from the start. Rather than thinking about paid media as an addition to creator campaigns, today’s marketers think about it upfront as part of the media strategy. Digiday notes that some amplification budgets could now range from $10K-$5 million, depending on a given influencer campaign.
The evolution of the creator economy is evident through such examples.
Influencer campaigns have always served many purposes beyond the awareness and brand trust-building ones. Increasingly more often, however, those campaigns are now being evaluated for their measurable business impact.
Why Do Marketers Pay to Boost Creator Content?
There are several reasons why marketers allocate more funds towards the paid distribution of influencer content.
First, social algorithms are unpredictable. Even the best pieces of influencer content won’t always achieve optimal performance via organic means. Boosting allows marketers to minimize such risks and guarantee that more people will see the content.
Second, paid amplification allows brands to optimize the performance metrics for their influencer content. It provides marketers more opportunities for targeting and measuring results, such as clicks, sales, traffic, or app installs, etc.
Third, influencer content often works great as an ad creative. Influencers’ videos sometimes perform better as ad creatives than the branded ones.
And finally, paid amplification gives brands the ability to leverage their creator partnerships even further by extending the lifecycle and use cases of such influencer content.
How Much Will Brand Spend on Creator Content vs. Creator Fees?
Another interesting trend is that the ratio of brand spending on paid distribution of influencer content is likely to increase even more. Digiday notes that according to the estimates provided by eMarketer, total spending on influencer boosting and creator production fees is expected to reach parity in 2027 – both categories estimated to be at around $14.2 billion. And in 2028, the boosting budget will surpass influencer production fees with $16.1 billion.
Thus, it is expected that within a few years, brands will be spending more money distributing influencer content than creating that content itself.
What does that imply? Platforms, creators, agencies, and advertisers should adapt to such developments in regards to content rights and licensing, content production fees, and paid campaign measurement.
Conclusion
With the rise of influencer boosting budgets, it is obvious that brands are looking for more than just top-of-the-funnel awareness via influencers. Now, influencers’ content is viewed as a full-funnel marketing tactic that can drive awareness, engagement, traffic, and sales.
Social media marketers take note – paid amplification of influencers is not going away anytime soon. It seems that future of influencer marketing will involve paid media, influencers’ content fees, licensing, and content optimization.
Social video is here to stay as one of the top-performing advertising channels. Influencer boosting budgets will remain one of the primary catalysts for social ad growth in years to come.