What Is an Influencer Marketing Agency?

With the market more than tripling from 2019 to 2024, influencer marketing has become key to many businesses’ marketing strategies. 

This type of content marketing requires specialized expertise in developing, coordinating, and executing influencer marketing strategies and campaigns. If you don’t have an in-house team specializing in influencer marketing, then hiring an agency is an excellent choice.

Read on to discover what an influencer marketing agency is, what it does, and the benefits of hiring one for your business.

Key Takeaways (TL;DR)

• An influencer is someone who impacts audience opinions, behaviors, and purchasing decisions, often through social media.
• Influencer marketing agencies connect brands with the best influencers to market their products and services.
• An influencer marketing platform is software that mainly helps businesses find influencers but can also help organize campaigns.
• Full-service influencer marketing agencies help brands find influencers, create and manage campaigns, and track results.
• The benefits of hiring these agencies include connecting with the best influencers, keeping on top of the latest trends, and optimizing resources like budget and time.

What Is an Influencer?

An influencer is an individual who can affect their audience’s opinions, behaviors, and buying decisions. You can typically find them creating content for and engaging with their followers on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, X, and TikTok.

Although many celebrities may fit this definition, the average social media influencer doesn’t necessarily get their start in TV, movies, or music. They build their audience by maintaining an active social media presence, often posting about their knowledge of or interest in a particular topic.

Almost 30% of social media users in the U.S. claim that influencers impact their purchasing decisions, so it's no wonder why businesses are taking notice.

What Is an Influencer Marketing Agency?

An influencer marketing agency is a company that helps brands connect and work with the right influencers to market their products and services to their followers.

Their exact list of services can vary, but a full-service agency often handles every aspect of these influencer marketing campaigns from start to finish, from negotiating the partnership to managing the campaigns to tracking their performance.

Influencer marketing agency vs influencer marketing platform

One thing that an influencer marketing agency is not is an influencer marketing platform. An influencer marketing platform is a type of software that helps businesses manage influencer marketing campaigns themselves.

The main goal of these platforms is often to help businesses find influencers, but some offer additional features to streamline your campaigns. For example, you can find platforms that enable you to manage communication with influencers, organize and track campaigns, and monitor analytics to measure their effectiveness.

What Does an Influencer Marketing Agency Do?

Although you can find some that specialize in a specific stage of an influencer campaign, full-service influencer marketing agencies typically offer a similar list of services:

• Identify the right influencer(s) for your brand. They ensure that chosen influencers align with your brand voice, style, and audience.
• Plan, manage, and execute marketing campaigns. Whether product placements, contests, giveaways, or hashtag campaigns, agencies work with influencers to find and create campaigns to meet a brand’s marketing goals.
• Create a content calendar. Agencies ensure content is posted at the best times to maximize reach and engagement.
• Review content quality. Influencers should only post content that meets brand standards. For example, if a brand doesn’t approve of AI-generated content, an agency may scan posts with an AI detector to ensure they’re original before they go live.
• Track analytics and report results. Agencies identify, track, and report the most relevant metrics for your goals to measure the effectiveness of influencer marketing campaigns.

By managing campaigns from start to finish, these marketing agencies help businesses get the most out of their influencer marketing efforts.

Why Hire an Influencer Marketing Agency? The Benefits

The typical user spends about 2.5 hours a day on social media. With so much time spent on social media, having a strong social media presence is an excellent way to get your business in front of consumers, which is where influencers and influencer marketing agencies can help. 

Some of the top benefits of hiring an influencer agency include:

Connect with the best, most relevant influencers for your brand

Sorting through the millions of people on social media to find the right influencers to represent your brand can be challenging, and even then, they can be hard to get ahold of with their busy schedules. Influencer marketing agencies often have an existing network of influencers that they can tap into and quickly find the best fit for your brand.

Keep on top of the latest trends

A marketing agency specializing in influencer campaigns knows when to leverage the latest trends to help your brand.

Take artificial intelligence (AI), for example. Influencer marketing agencies may use AI to help streamline processes, such as:

• Identifying influencers
• Optimizing campaigns
• Tracking performance

However, a marketing agency that’s informed about AI will also be familiar with the Google penalties associated with mass-produced AI content and AI hallucinations. 

For example, 76% of consumers are concerned about receiving misinformation from AI tools. Working with an agency can help you find the best ways to leverage AI influencer trends for your brand on social media while also helping with content reviews to avoid potential issues with AI. 

Save time, money, and resources

Creating, running, and implementing a successful influencer marketing campaign can take considerable time and resources. However, when you partner with an influencer marketing agency, you can leverage their equipment and expertise to optimize your marketing efforts.

From their access to the latest AI content detection in marketing technology to the tips and tricks they’ve learned to connect with influencers and streamline campaigns, you can let an agency take influencer marketing off your plate as you focus on what you do best: running your business.

Make the Most of Your Influencer Marketing Campaigns With an Influencer Marketing Agency

With spending growing steadily since 2019, influencer marketing has become essential to businesses’ marketing strategies. By partnering with an influencer marketing agency, businesses can leverage their expertise and resources to optimize their influencer marketing efforts and get results.

Looking for more insight into marketing agencies? Read our top resources:

• What Does a Social Media Marketing Agency Do?
• 13 Types of Marketing Agencies to Know
• What Is a B2B Marketing Agency?