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By James Blacker, Benzinga

The market for influencer marketing has grown exponentially since its emergence in the mid-2000s and shows no signs of slowing down. A report published by Allied Market Research last year puts the market size at $16.5 billion in 2022. It projects that this will grow to $199.6 billion by 2032 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 28.6% from 2023 to 2032.

According to the report, key factors propelling this explosive growth include authentic engagement, as conventional advertising often fails to engage todays cynical consumers. Furthermore, traditional advertising techniques such as print and television have lost some of their effectiveness as consumers spend more time online.

It notes, however, that this growth could continue to be constrained by regulatory and compliance barriers, as well as concerns over authenticity and saturation.

The report identifies several key players in the industry, including public company IZEA Worldwide (NASDAQ: IZEA), as well as private firms Klear, HireInfluence Inc., NeoReach, Mavrck, Traackr, Inc., Aspire, Hypetap, Upfluence and SocialEdge.

Potentially positioned to capitalize on the burgeoning influencer marketing scene is industry trailblazer IZEA Worldwide, which announced on Apr. 4 that its Q1 managed services bookings grew 53% year-over-year to $9.3 million.

According to IZEA founder and CEO Ted Murphy, this growth was driven by a strong sales pipeline from the fourth quarter of 2023 and a record-setting pipeline in the first quarter of 2024.

More than 90% of the bookings this quarter have been organic, meaning they were not derived from acquisitions but rather from our own internal growth efforts, Murphy said.

The organic growth of the Q1 pipeline is significant not only in monetary value but also in the sheer increase in the number of opportunities, which aligns with our strategy for diversifying revenue streams, he added.

The company also saw its first-quarter SaaS business exhibit continued recovery following a low point in the third quarter of 2023. At the end of last year, IZEA recorded its highest-ever number of active SaaS customers. This trend continued into 2024, with the highest count of SaaS customers ever.

IZEA also reported several interesting updates during the fourth quarter of 2023. In November, IZEA.com reached the 1 million registered user milestone after seeing a sharp increase in signups, which the company attributed largely to the release of FormAI, the companys suite of AI tools for creators and marketers. Also in November, IZEA announced the launch of the FormAI community showcase, a new module inside of FormAI that serves as a central location to highlight some of the best generative AI artwork produced by IZEAs community of marketers and creators.

In December, the company announced it had acquired advocate marketing platform Zuberance, adding user-generated content and performance-based creator compensation to its suite of software solutions. In the same month, IZEA announced its acquisition of Hoozu, a leading Australian influencer marketing company headquartered in Sydney.

The company has implemented a host of new features into its IZEA Flex platform, as well as launching GPT-4 and AI Video Generation Tool in FormAI in IZEAs Creator Marketplace.

We are excited and optimistic about the years ahead, and believe that IZEA is well positioned to capitalize on global opportunities in the creator economy, Murphy said.

Featured photo by George Milton on Pexels.

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