New research from influencer marketing platform Traackr reveals that creators with smaller audiences consistently generate higher engagement rates across beauty and fashion categories in the United States, United Kingdom, and France.

Based on data from 2,518 beauty brands and 342 fashion brands across three markets, the analysis shows nano influencers (1,000+ followers) and micro influencers (10,000+ followers) achieve the highest average engagement rates in most categories.

In the beauty sector, nano influencers in the U.S. achieve engagement rates of up to 6.49% for fragrance content, while micro influencers maintain rates between 3-4% across makeup, skincare, and fragrance categories. This compares to engagement rates below 1% for VIP influencers (5M+ followers) across all beauty categories.

Source: Traackr

The fashion industry shows similar patterns. In France, which leads global fashion engagement with a 2.65% average rate, nano creators achieve 4.16% engagement while micro creators reach 2.83%. The U.S. fashion market sees nano influencers achieving 5.50% engagement rates, compared to 1.16% for VIP influencers.

Source: Traackr

Organic content generally outperforms sponsored posts across both industries. In the U.S. beauty market, organic content achieves consistently higher engagement rates than sponsored content across all categories except fragrance. The gap is most pronounced among smaller creators, with nano influencers showing a 1.12% higher engagement rate for organic versus sponsored content.

The French market demonstrates unique characteristics in both sectors. It maintains the highest overall fashion engagement rate at 2.65% while being the only market to see growth in VIP influencer engagement, with a 0.75% year-over-year increase. In beauty, French creators achieve the highest organic engagement rates, with some categories showing more than double the engagement of sponsored content.

Source: Traackr

Year-over-year trends indicate a general plateau in engagement rates. Only nano creators saw engagement growth in the U.S. beauty market, while most other tiers experienced declines. The fashion sector shows similar patterns, with France being the only market to achieve overall growth at 0.24%.

The data spans January through November 2024 and includes organic and sponsored content analysis. Sponsored content is defined as posts correctly labeled as sponsored or paid by the creator.

Both the Fashion and Beauty reports are available at Traackr.