The rise of Influencer marketing is not going to stop over the next years. This is predicted by analysts and statistics prove them right, on google the term influencer marketing was googled 19 x times more than three years ago. Time to look at some of the Influencer Marketing Platforms out there.

But let us make a summary and see what we can learn out of it. First, we need to understand that digital marketing and influencer marketing go hand in hand. 2018 will be the year for influencer marketing. On one hand side, we see the full ecosystem of influencers while on the other side the advertiser looks for them. The statistics show that 40% of people asked confirmed to listen to Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook to see what other people purchased. Consumers (in particular Millennials and Generation Z) are getting better at tuning out advertisements to their personal favorite. Teens are emotionally attached to their stars on YouTube 7 times higher than traditional celebrities.

74% of all marketers have understood this message and mention to allocate budget for influencer marketing.

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The Rise of the Influencer Marketing Platforms

While marketing with influencers can be successful for brands and companies, it is also hard to do. Targeting a campaign with a hand full or hundreds of influencers takes a hell load of work, and traditional metrics like ROI and EMV (earned media value) are hard to come by. Influencers are most of the time very emotional people which makes it hard and challenging to work with them.

They are nearly like celebrities with many diverging personalities, preferences, and business priorities involved with the numerous influencers a brand needs to work in parallel.

To overcome all this challenges marketers and brands have to go through, the cottage industry of influencer marketing platforms has been born and is now thriving. Over the last years, the number of startups in this space was exploding, with 36 mature and viable platforms competing in this market segment based on our latest count.

The homework now for many brands is in deciding which influencer marketing platform is right for their needs. To help clarify this dynamic and evolving space, Dealspotr did a deep-dive and explored this 36 influencer marketing platforms and put their findings in a good report and made an easy to read infographic which you can find below.

Just to summarize this report and infographic let’s look into the aspects of platforms. There are currently four types of platforms existing.

– Single-platform marketplaces focus on single sites like youtube

– Discovery tools help you find influencers

– Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) tools focus on providing feature-rich software

– Full-service influencer marketing platforms help with the entire process

The report looks into the 28 mature platforms out there, let’s have a quick look at the list

Platform-specific influencer marketplaces

• Famebit – Leading YouTube marketplace (now owned by Google!)
• Octoly – Similar to Famebit, focuses on non-paid reviews only. Handles shipping of product samples for brands.
• Shoutcart – Simple place to buy Instagram shout outs
• Influenster – Hands-off marketplace for health & beauty brands to send product out for review
• Tribe Group – Influencers bring completed content to marketers running campaigns
• Influenz – Links marketers and Instagram influencers in many different verticals for product placement

Influencer discovery platforms

• Klear – 500 million searchable social profiles, starting at $250/mo
• NeoReach – 3 million searchable social profiles, much deeper data analytics, targeting large enterprise customers
• HYPR – 10 million searchable social profiles, targeting small to medium businesses
• BuzzSumo – Search over 1 million pieces of content to find relevant influencers, and find Twitter influencers by niche
• Ninja Outreach – 8 million searchable social profiles and bloggers, quick & easy outreach features

Full-service influencer marketing platforms

• IZEA – 250,000 opt-in creators, lots of features to help brands with many types of influencer marketing campaigns
• Dealspotr – 2,500 opt-in creators. A lower-cost platform that focuses on conversion tracking and ROI.
• Tomoson – 50,000 opt-in influencers, full-service platform which caters to smaller clients
• BrandBacker – 20,000 opt-in influencers, full-service influencer marketing platform with lots of live support to help brands manage their campaigns
• Linqia – 100,000 opt-in influencers, specializing in small to mid-size influencers
• TapInfluence – 50,000 opt-in creators, one of the most established and full-featured influencer marketing platforms
• Scrunch – One of the largest influencer databases, with more than 20 million active profiles of all sizes in almost 25 topic areas
• Grapevine Logic – 130,000 YouTube and Instagram influencers specializing in 5 big niches, end-to-end platform with robust analytics
• Intellifluence – Browse through over 15,000 micro-influencers, ideal for small businesses just getting started with influencer marketing
• Webfluential – 15,000 opt-in influencers reviewed by the platform’s staff, AI matches up brands with influencers
• Popular Pays – Hyper-curated database of 8,000 Instagram micro-influencers, popular with big name brands
• Influicity – Plan & manage campaigns with over 10 million opt-in influencers, offers free version for newbies

Influencer marketing SaaS platforms

• Traackr – Huge searchable database of social profiles with deep data analytics, plus rich CRM features. Targets larger enterprise customers.
• Revfluence – 500,000 searchable profiles, plus they make contact information available. Targets mid-size business.
• Upfluence – Search engine with access to over 1 million international influencers, great for list building
• BuzzStream – Search influencer profiles by keyword & get stats on each profile, good for any size business as a discovery tool
• PitchBox – Automates outreach and CRM with bloggers pulled from the web, well-rounded app that excels at email management
• GroupHigh – Data-centric platform with over 16 million influencers and bloggers, targets companies with large budgets

Let’s have a quick look at a review. 28 of the most established platforms could be evaluated in details which you can see in the infographic below. Let us know your thoughts, maybe you can share your experience with one of them.