Evaluating the Effectiveness of Micro vs. Macro Influencers

B2B marketers, it's time we had an honest conversation about influencer marketing. While we've watched B2C brands leverage UGC and creator partnerships for years, most of us in B2B are still stuck in the "let's partner with the same 3-5 industry thought leaders everyone else is chasing" cycle. IYKYK. The data is clear: Macro-influencers typically see engagement rates around 5%, micro-influencers (those with smaller, more dedicated audiences) average double that - often reaching 7-20%. (Source: Trend) Micro-influencers represent the perfect mix of influencer and long lost friend–there's no better way to put it. Even more compelling for ROI-focused teams: micro-influencer content converts at rates 7% higher than the industry average for macro-influencers. I could go on and on... Want to build a strategic B2B influencer program for your org? Start like this: 1. Look beyond LinkedIn. Yes, even in B2B, your ICP is consuming content on YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok, too. The best B2B influencer partners may not even identify as "influencers" - they're often practitioners with passionate niche audiences. 2. Start small and focus on authenticity. Research shows 82% of consumers are more likely to follow recommendations from micro-influencers than from celebrities or macro-influencers. 3. Think ecosystem, not individuals. Map out the entire conversation space in your industry - who's talking to whom, who's respected by practitioners vs. executives. 4. Measure beyond impressions. Track qualified leads, pipeline influence, and content reuse/repurposing value. All these stats, and the fact that most marketing team's are spending a fifth of their marketing budget on influencers, is why Clay's new integrations with Upfluence and Modash are changing the game for demand gen teams. You can now: – Start with your "seed list" of known industry voices – Discover hundreds of similar but less obvious creator partners – Filter by engagement metrics that actually matter to you + your org – Source across platforms where your buyers actually spend time, instantly I've been testing this for clients, and the quality of creators discovered has been incredible - especially for more technical audiences where traditional outreach falls flat. I wouldn't sleep on this as 'just another marketing trend' - it's becoming table stakes for connecting with your audience authentically. #claypartner

What I learned after running 250+ influencer marketing campaigns & spending 7 figures+ to scale online brands... At Crowdcreate, we’ve worked on hundreds of influencer campaigns across different industries since 2015. An influencer can be any influential thought leader or person this could be a B2B LinkedIn influencer, VC/PE/Angel investor, or Gen Z rising star. We've paid top dollar to work with celebrities and their expensive lawyers to draft elaborate scope of work contracts, but also worked with micro influencers for free, where all they wanted was free product, and a handshake agreement. Here are a few lessons learned: 1. Quality (Micro Influencers) > Quantity (Mega Influencers) We found that micro-influencers (5k–50k followers with a solid 2.5%+ engagement rate) drove better ROI than big-name creators. Relevance and trust matter more than reach. These creators often have tighter-knit communities and higher purchase intent from their audience. 2. Test Small, Then Scale, but remember It's a Numbers Game. Start by identifying 15–30 micro-influencers who align with your brand. Send them your product, or offer free services. Don’t overcomplicate it—build genuine relationships. The early feedback helps you refine messaging and creative direction. You must work with a large enough sample set of influencers to understand what works and can actually drive conversions. Track everything on a spreadsheet. 3. Look at Who Your Fans Follow If you already have a social media presence, check out who your most loyal fans are following. You’ll usually find niche influencers with highly aligned audiences—that’s where you'll start for outreach. Even better if you jump on video calls to ask them face-to-face. 4. The Ask: Clear & Simple Once your product is in their hands, here’s what we found works well in an outreach DM: 1 static feed post 2–5 Instagram Stories/TikTok Videos A website review (only if they genuinely liked the product) A custom discount code + affiliate link to track conversions 5. Re-engage Top Performers If an influencer drives solid conversions, do it again and again until you notice a drop-off. We typically offer affiliate bonuses. 6. Build a lifelong affiliate relationship Make it a win-win for both the creator, and you the brand. Send them your latest products/services on a quarterly or yearly basis, and give them a unique referral code so not only does their following save money, but they make money as well and can keep creating content. In summary, create an influencer marketing relationship that compounds over time. The best-performing creators are usually the ones that become your long-term brand advocates. #influencermarketing

This is the difference between micro-influencers and well-known influencers with millions of followers. We helped a company beauty company with influencer marketing. They wanted to work with prominent influencers and not micro-influencers. We wanted to work with micro-influencers, so we settled on working with both and then comparing the data. Here are the results from working with big influencers (the post only stayed up for a day): Total followers: 119 million Total cost: $11,500 Number of influencers: 32 Impressions: 10.8 million Total likes: 114k Total comments: 1252 comments Total bio link clicks: 906 clicks Total trackable conversions: 21 The campaign wasn't profitable from a direct conversion standpoint, but we noticed conversions increase during those 24 hours when all the influencers posted during the same day. Even if you attribute double, triple, or even quadruple the amount of conversions, it still wasn't profitable. But there were branding benefits, and the CPM wasn't too bad... $1.06 Now, let's look at the micro-influencer data. Before I break down the micro-influencer stats, remember they are more flexible. We were able to get the majority of them to keep up the post. All of them were required to keep the post up for at least 2 days and keep the link up in their bio for 48 hours. It was substantially cheaper, but it involved way more work on our end, as we had to manage 137 influencers instead of 32. When you look at a CPA, micro-influencers cost $130.55 versus $547.62 From a direct ROI perspective, both created a loss, but micro-influencers lost us less money per sale. Large influencers are used to getting paid lots of money, and many of them are lazier than micro-influencers. Moral of the story, micro-influencers typically provide a better CPA, but it requires more work to manage them as you need a lot of them to move the needle.