Sprout Social has unveiled a new influencer marketing platform, featuring a refreshed design and new AI-driven capabilities. The update marks the first revision since the platform rebranded from Tagger earlier this year.

Rising Costs Drive Shift to Influencer Marketing

The launch comes as marketing executives face increasing costs in traditional advertising channels. According to data cited during Sprout’s press briefing, paid search CPCs increased by 15% from 2022 to 2023, with an additional 3% increase in 2024.

“This means our marketing budgets are being stretched thinner, requiring more investment to achieve exactly the same results we previously attained,” said Brittany Hennessy, Sprout’s VP of Outbound Product Management.

Research from Sprout Social indicates 49% of consumers report making purchases based on influencer content daily, weekly, or monthly. The company’s Q1 pulse survey further shows that 92% of marketers report that sponsored influencer content outperforms their organic posts in reach, with 90% seeing superior engagement and 83% experiencing improved conversion rates.

Key Platform Updates

The redesigned platform addresses several challenges in influencer marketing, including increased competition and evolving consumer expectations.

“Marketers are now having to prioritize topical alignment by focusing on the type of content the creator makes and the topics they discuss,” said Tim Clarke, Sprout’s VP of Product Marketing.

Key updates include:

• AI-Powered Natural Language Discovery: Enables marketers to search for creators by topic rather than traditional metrics like follower count.
  
  
  
• Brand Fit Score: Provides instant assessment of how well a creator’s content aligns with a brand’s social presence.
  
  
  
• Brand Safety Reporting: Customizable system that flags content containing user-defined sensitive topics.
  
  
  
• Creator Suggestions: AI-powered recommendations for similar creators based on existing selections.

Changing Discovery Patterns

The platform updates reflect shifts in how content is discovered and consumed.

“Platform algorithm-driven feeds like TikTok’s For You Page now dominate consumption,” Hennessy noted during the briefing. “Users are continuously spending more time with algorithmically created content than with accounts they explicitly follow.”

The platform’s new semantic search capabilities allow marketers to identify creators whose content matches specific topics or campaign goals, aligning with how social networks now serve content to users.

According to EMARKETER forecasts, U.S. marketers will invest nearly $10 billion in creator content in 2025, reflecting confidence in the creator economy’s ability to deliver returns on investment.

All images are credited to Sprout Social