INFLUENCER MARKETINGSTATISTICS & BENCHMARKS

SOUTH AFRICA 2019

HELLO &WELCOMEto the second edition of our influencer marketing statistics & benchmarks report for South Africa.

As you most likely already know, Influencer marketing is the fastest growing marketing practice and media channel worldwide, expected to become a $10bn market by next year. The benefits of influencer marketing over paid media are well documented. In the USA, businesses have been making on average $6.50 for each $1 spent on influencer marketing, with the top 13% earning $20 or more (source: Tomoson). The variance is however huge, with nearly half of all businesses engaging in influencer marketing unable to see any ROI whatsoever. It’s one of the reasons that we’ve made it our mission at Humanz to uncover, through statistical analysis of complete sets of quantitative data, the factors that are likely to make influencer marketing generate ROI for specific advertisers or not.

This second edition of the report provides updated data on engagement rates, follower-impression ratios and suspicious followers, categorised by topic and account size. We’re also showing you comparisons to global averages, something that many of you specifically requested. Finally, we’re including a special spotlight on #ad, a hot topic amongst many marketers in South Africa right now.

SOME OF OUR FAVOURITE INSIGHTS FROM THIS REPORT:

+ Engagement rate is almost universally inversely proportional to account size. Nano and micro-influencers get much higher genuine engagement rates.

+ The average engagement rate of micro-influencers in SA is slightly higher than the global average, but much lower for celebrities.

+ Fraud in SA is still below global averages as influencer marketing is still relatively underdeveloped. It is, however, increasing.

+ SA celebrities are better behaved than some of their global counterparts, with a much lower suspicious follower ratio.

+ Fitness, lifestyle and fashion are the most popular topics for influencers in South Africa. However, Sports and Vegetarian content provide the highest engagement rates.

+ The travel and photography influencer categories are the ones that suffer the most from fraud.

+ While most celebrities and mega-influencers have at some point worked with South African advertisers, less than 10% of all potential micro-influencers have worked with brands.

+ The use of #ad is still not widely adopted with a lot of advertiser/influencer collaborations still not featuring the required disclosure hashtags.

+ Engagement rate of posts featuring #ad is slightly lower for celebrities and mega-influencers, but remains virtually the same for micro and nano influencers. 

WITH LOVE,THE HUMANZ TEAM

1601

9458

045

1456

9

1367

221

79

9219

949

203

53

Music

Nightlife

Fitness

Health

Motherhood

Family

Fashion

Lifestyle

Beauty

Photography

Bloggers

Finance

Art

Food

Sports

Travel

Pets

Vegetarian

43351653

3534632

93441078

2572279

2144406

2065528

7598606

8016871

3950163

2897273

1862707

2010616

1436204

3511362

1600517

2561459

34363

11032

NUMBER OFINFLUENCERS*IN SOUTH AFRICA

*For simplicity, we define a potential influencer as someone with over 1000 genuine online followers.

FOLLOWERS

OVER1M

Superstar

Micro-influencer5,000 - 49,999

B-lister50,000 - 249,999

A-lister250,000 - 1M

Nano-influencer1,000-4,999

5K-50K OVER 1M250K-1M50-250K1K-5K

A

B

All data and statistics included in this report were collected from the Humanz platform on 29 August 2019.

176430 68479TOTAL

INFLUENCERSAMOUNT

ENGAGEMENTRATES

Music

Nightlife

Fitness

Health

Motherhood

Family

Fashion

Lifestyle

Beauty

Photography

Bloggers

Finance

Art

Food

Sports

Travel

Pets

Vegetarian

4,73%1,01%

3,94%0,48%

6,21%1,14%

5,22%0,69%

4,74%0,78%

4,29%0,51%

5,54%1,09%

4,97%1,26%

4,91%1,73%

5,57%0,84%

4,78%0,92%

5,27%0,59%

5,24%1,13%

4,43%1,85%

6,71%1,08%

5,18%1,44%

5,53%0,24%

6,47%0,16%

6,43% 1,31%TOTAL AVERAGE

10,5

6%

5,19

%

2,75

%

2,01

%

1,87

%

6,88

%

10,5

1%6,

11%

1,65

%

4,69

%2,

25%

0,68

%

3,08

%0,

61%

0,12

%

2,76

%0,

27%

0,10

%

2,94

%0,

16%

FOLLOWERS5K-50K

(SOUTHAFRICA)

5K-50K(GLOBAL)

OVER 1M(SOUTHAFRICA)

OVER 1M(GLOBAL)

250K-1M(SOUTHAFRICA)

250K-1M(GLOBAL)

50-250K(SOUTHAFRICA)

50-250K(GLOBAL)

1K-5K(SOUTHAFRICA)

1K-5K(GLOBAL)

85% of marketers say engagement is their primary KPI for influencer

marketing.

Influencers with smaller followings have higher engagement ratios.

All data and statistics included in this report were collected from the Humanz platform on 29 August 2019.

ENGAGEMENT RATEPERCENTAGE GLOBAL

7,90% 1,17%TOTAL AVERAGE

ENGAGEMENT RATEPERCENTAGE SOUTH AFRICA

The average engagement rate of micro-influencers in SA is slightly

higher than the global average, but much lower for celebrities.

platform algorithms, inactive followers, people who follow too many people, fake followers and bots skew

the results. It’s the reason why we created the

Influencers with bigger followings have higher impression ratios. However, there is also huge variance within

categories.

In South Africa, only 1 in 2 followers on average is likely to see a post.

IMPRESSIONSVS FOLLOWERS

Music

Nightlife

Fitness

Health

Motherhood

Family

Fashion

Lifestyle

Beauty

Photography

Bloggers

Finance

Art

Food

Sports

Travel

Pets

Vegetarian

An influencer’s follower count does not equate to the number of human

eyeballs that will see a post:

Humanz-impression-score© 

+500

All data and statistics included in this report were collected from the Humanz platform on 29 August 2019.

0,710,34

0,460,39

0,540,32

0,410,33

0,440,33

0450,33

0,590,34

0,570,32

0,730,35

0,780,27

1,090,30

0,420,32

0,420,29

0,430,32

1,200,34

0,390,29

0,430,32

0,420,23

0,38 0,31

0,41

0,29

0,35

0,3

0,4

0,4

0,49

0,46

0,58

0,53

FOLLOWERS5K-50K

(SOUTHAFRICA)

5K-50K(GLOBAL)

OVER 1M(SOUTHAFRICA)

OVER 1M(GLOBAL)

250K-1M(SOUTHAFRICA)

250K-1M(GLOBAL)

50-250K(SOUTHAFRICA)

50-250K(GLOBAL)

1K-5K(SOUTHAFRICA)

1K-5K(GLOBAL)

TOTAL AVERAGE RATIO GLOBAL

0,42 0,32

TOTAL AVERAGE RATIO SOUTH AFRICA

0,42

0,26

0,41

0,33

0,48

0,46

0,59

0,50

0,67

0,56

SUSPICIOUSFOLLOWERS

Music

Nightlife

Fitness

Health

Motherhood

Family

Fashion

Lifestyle

Beauty

Photography

Bloggers

Finance

Art

Food

Sports

Travel

Pets

Vegetarian

19,11%24,56%

17,42%16,48%

21,63%23,92%

22,55%20,61%

18,79%23,03%

18,89%23,60%

21,40%19,00%

21,66%19,69%

22,30%16,46%

23,50%26,03%

22,57%23,56%

20,68%21,93%

20,12%28,88%

18,76%18,41%

22,22%22,88%

23,17%20,56%

18,89%20,59%

19,47%30,39%

Beware of accounts with scores much higher than these

benchmarks.

Even influencers who have never bought followers will have bots and

suspicious accounts following them.

Humanz analyses every single follower account to detect

suspicious behaviour.

Marketers and agencies must typically conduct manual verification on tiny samples, or rely on proxy data

to try assess how many fake followers an account has.

All data and statistics included in this report were collected from the Humanz platform on 29 August 2019.

25,23% 23,04%TOTAL AVERAGE

20,8

6%29

,70%

28,5

4%22

,28%

24,9

2%11

,39% 15

,99%

6,26

%

22,9

4%11

,41%

FOLLOWERS5K-50K

(SOUTHAFRICA)

5K-50K(GLOBAL)

OVER 1M(SOUTHAFRICA)

OVER 1M(GLOBAL)

250K-1M(SOUTHAFRICA)

250K-1M(GLOBAL)

50-250K(SOUTHAFRICA)

50-250K(GLOBAL)

1K-5K(SOUTHAFRICA)

1K-5K(GLOBAL)

SUSPICIOUS FOLLOWERSPERCENTAGE GLOBAL

20,12% 23,40%TOTAL AVERAGE

SUSPICIOUS FOLLOWERSPERCENTAGE SOUTH AFRICA

19,2

9%32

,89%

21,7

7%19

,62%

16,6

4%7,

30%

8,73

%4,

68% 10

,35%

7,44

%

SPONSORED &ADVERTISING POSTS

Music

Nightlife

Fitness

Health

Motherhood

Family

Fashion

Lifestyle

Beauty

Photography

Bloggers

Finance

Art

Food

Sports

Travel

Pets

Vegetarian

Percentage of influencers withat least one #ad post.

Engagement index for posts featuring #ad vs. regular posts.

All data and statistics included in this report were collected from the Humanz platform on 29 August 2019.

0,964,2% 2,4%TOTAL AVERAGE

FOLLOWERS

#ADBY ACCOUNT SIZE

2%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

1,04

3%

Percentage of posts featuring #ad

5K-50K OVER 1M250K-1M50-250K1K-5K

7%0,

972%

18%

0,90

3%

25%

O,78

4%

42%

0,81

1%

6%

10%

10%

10%

10%

11%

12%

13%

8%

18%

8%

9%

6%

12%

7%

13%

6%

9%

2%

2%

2%

3%

2%

2%

2%

2%

2%

3%

2%

1%

2%

3%

2%

3%

1%

2%

1

0,94

0,99

0,97

0,95

0,96

0,97

0,94

0,98

1,04

0,86

1,11

0,92

1,04

0,91

1

0,98

0,98

1

2

3

1 2 3

Humanz is a disruptive social data verification and enhancement business. Unlike other social data businesses, Humanz does not rely on the limited and possibly skewed information provided by Google, Facebook, etc… Using artificial intelligence, machine learning, image recognition and natural language processing, Humanz analyses publicly available information, the same way humans would, to provide an alternative, more accurate version of the truth found inside social data.

Humanz's first commercial application is an influencer marketing platform which allows advertisers to search for potential influencers, manage collaborations with content creators, forecast their performance and audit the results, while tying them back to actual ROI and sales. Humanz products are also evolving to offer additional business intelligence solutions and greater tie-ins to other media budgets beyond influencer marketing.

With over 240 competitors, many older and more established, all claiming to offer the “leading” technology solution, Humanz acts as a challenger: disruptive, brazen and unapologetic. Humanz's success to date has been found by focusing on providing clear and demonstrable value to both advertisers and content creators through access to cutting-edge yet simple-to-use technology, transparency and local on-the-ground support. 

Having found success through pilot launches in both Israel and South Africa, Humanz is now scaling up for growth, on the back of requests from some of its large international customers, and will also be available in Australia, Turkey and India before the end of 2019.

HUMANZ CORE FEATURES:

SEARCH & PLAN

+ Search for and connect with every single potential influencer in your market.+ Verify influencer true reach, engagement and audience data.+ Review combined unduplicated reach, past collaborations with competitors and other brand safety risks.+ Forecast performance and assess fair-market value.

BRIEF & MANAGE

+ Create detailed influencer briefs.+ Run campaigns and invite influencers or accept bids.+ Review content and provide feedback before publication. + Contract and pay influencers.+ Re-target engaged influencer audiences and look-alike via paid media.

TRACK & LEARN+ Discover most influential followers, content opportunities & growth stats about your brand or your competitors.+ Review live campaign progress and performance all the way to click or sales conversion via the Humanz ROI dashboard. + Track performance over time of brand ambassadors and always-on campaigns.+ Retarget audiences via customised creative on paid channels.+ Review suggestions for look-alike influencers.

ABOUTHUMANZ

For more information on this reportor the Humanz platform, find us on

www.humanz.ai

SIGN UP FOR A FREE HUMANZ ACCOUNT TODAY ON WWW.HUMANZ.AI