We have an influencer department working on creator partnerships across budget levels — from product-only micro arrangements to funded campaigns with larger accounts.
Influencer marketing works well for some businesses and is close to a waste of money for others, and which group you are in is fairly predictable in advance. This page sets out the distinction before anyone sells you a campaign.
When it works
- Visual or demonstrable products — food, beauty, fitness, fashion, home, anything better shown than described
- Impulse-friendly price points, where someone can act on a recommendation immediately
- Audiences that genuinely cluster around creators, which is most consumer categories and few B2B ones
- Businesses that can handle a sudden spike — a campaign that works and finds you out of stock is a campaign that damaged you
When it does not
- High-consideration purchases with long decision cycles, where a recommendation is not enough to move anyone
- Local service businesses with a small catchment — you pay for reach that is mostly outside your service area
- B2B outside a few specific niches
- Anyone hoping influencer content will substitute for having something worth recommending
Micro versus macro, honestly
| Micro creators | Large accounts | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Low, sometimes product-only | High, often with minimums |
| Engagement | Typically higher, more trusted | Lower rate, larger absolute reach |
| Audience fit | Often tighter and more specific | Broader, more waste |
| Effort to manage | Higher — many relationships | Lower — fewer, bigger deals |
| Best for | Most small businesses | Brands buying awareness at scale |
For most small businesses, several micro creators beats one large account, and the reason is not price. It is that a smaller creator’s recommendation still reads as a recommendation, where a large account’s reads as an advertisement — because it is.
The measurement problem
Influencer campaigns are harder to attribute than paid search and easier to report flatteringly. Reach and impressions are not results. Agree before the campaign what counts — codes, tracked links, a measurable lift in direct traffic or sales during a defined window — or you will receive a report full of numbers that cannot be connected to anything.
See our social media marketing services, and performance marketing if measurable return is the priority.