Micro-influencer Marketing Is Not a Fad

It seems fees for micro-influencers (10k-100k followers range) have jumped 20-30% since late 2024.

One brand strategist I connect with shared they’re now paying $500 for a single post that cost $400 just last quarter: a clean 25% increase.

Why the surge? Demand. Brands are chasing high engagement rates. Micro-influencers are averaging 3-5% on Instagram and TikTok (Sprout Social’s 2024 data), compared to 1-2% for macro-influencers. I have seen an example of campaign analytics showing 4.8% engagement and 15% higher CVR at half the cost of a macro-led push.

Negotiation power is shifting too. Some micro-influencers say they’re delivering $5-$7 in value per $1 spent for brands, and are turning down offers that don’t align with this value prop.

The takeaway? Plan for a 20-30% buffer in your 2025 micro-influencer budget. This isn’t a fad, it’s more like a market correction, aligning fees with performance (see also data from InfluencerMarketingHub).

Writing
Why Smaller Brands Gain Ground in AI Responses
ByMatthias Stepancich 02/09/202513/09/2025
Reading Time: 2 minutesWhy Smaller Brands Gain Ground in AI Responses Across independent studies, LLMs show more citation depth and a stronger tilt toward relevance than pure authority signals. That shift opens real room for lower ranked but high quality pages to surface. Here’s what the research says (so far). Rankfuse reports a negative correlation between domain authority…
Read More Why Smaller Brands Gain Ground in AI Responses
Writing
Why CTV and Podcasts Are Your Next $40B Goldmine
ByMatthias Stepancich 05/09/202528/09/2025
Reading Time: 2 minutesWhy CTV and Podcasts Are Your Next $40B Goldmine U.S. CTV and OTT ad revenue will exceed $30B in 2025. Podcast ad spend is set to hit $4.46B this year. Marketers want scale with control, and these channels deliver.CTV adoption sits in 87% of U.S. homes, powered by AVOD and FAST. Expect CTV spend to…
Read More Why CTV and Podcasts Are Your Next $40B Goldmine
Writing
Value-Driven Dashboarding
ByMatthias Stepancich 18/02/202513/09/2025
Reading Time: < 1 minuteValue-Driven Dashboarding A former manager of mine was tasked with unifying our marketing data. At the time, we were jumping between scattered reports. Having our morning coffee while manually building on-the-fly reports in SA360 was a regular Monday. So, we built our first official dashboard: a flashy, visually pleasing setup. But there was one problem:…
Read More Value-Driven Dashboarding
Writing
Time to Abandon “Leadership Styles”
ByMatthias Stepancich 28/11/202413/09/2025
Reading Time: < 1 minuteA 2024 study exploring 12 dominant leadership styles (7 samples, 5 countries, multiple organizations, 4k participants) found out there’s massive redundancy and overlapping across them, and they might very well not exist.
Read More Time to Abandon “Leadership Styles”
Writing
The Robustness of GDP per Capita as a Metric
ByMatthias Stepancich 06/12/202413/09/2025
Reading Time: 12 minutesDespite ideological debates, GDP per capita remains a reliable and robust metric for evaluating a country’s human development. This article explores the correlation between GDP per capita and many measures, ranging from corruption and poverty to resources and education.
Read More The Robustness of GDP per Capita as a Metric
Writing
The Real Cost of Ignoring Incremental ROI
ByMatthias Stepancich 11/03/202513/09/2025
Reading Time: < 1 minuteThe Real Cost of Ignoring Incremental ROI Sometimes a campaign looks like it’s delivering incredible results… until you factor in the people who were already primed to purchase. If you only measure raw sales, you risk falling for a false positive. The real insight comes from pinpointing the net-new purchases that your campaign actually generates….
Read More The Real Cost of Ignoring Incremental ROI