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Beauty influencer marketing benchmarks help brands determine whether campaign performance is strong, average, or underperforming. As budgets increase and performance scrutiny intensifies, reliable benchmarks have become essential for evaluating engagement rate, EMV, and creator strategy across platforms.
Published On: January 16, 2026
How influencer marketing managers can benchmark performance today and future‑proof strategy for tomorrow.
Beauty remains one of the most competitive, and data‑driven, categories in influencer marketing. With creator fees rising, platforms in constant flux, and leadership teams demanding clearer proof of return, influencer marketing managers are under increasing pressure to demonstrate performance and ROI with confidence.
In this environment, benchmarking engagement rate and earned media value (EMV) is no longer a nice‑to‑have. It is essential. Without clear category benchmarks, it is impossible to understand whether performance is genuinely strong, simply average, or underperforming within the beauty landscape.
Using WeArisma’s 2025 US Beauty benchmarks, this guide defines what good looks like today, and how beauty teams can use benchmarks not just to report on performance, but to future‑proof influencer strategy for 2026 and beyond.
The following benchmarks are based on WeArisma platform data across US beauty brands in 2025. They show how performance varies by creator tier, revealing where the balance between scale, efficiency and impact truly sits in today’s beauty market.
Crucially, these benchmarks move beyond a single industry average. Instead, they enable more accurate comparisons, smarter optimisation, and better‑informed strategic decisions across creator mix, spend and platform focus.
Engagement rate remains one of the most searched, and most misunderstood, KPIs in beauty influencer marketing. Engagement naturally declines as follower count increases, which makes follower‑tier benchmarking essential.
Below are WeArisma’s 2025 US Beauty engagement rate benchmarks by follower tier:
Engagement Rate Benchmarks (US Beauty, 2025)
These benchmarks reinforce a truth for influencer marketing managers: a 2% engagement rate can be exceptional, or underperforming, depending on the creator tier and platform.
Key takeaway:
High engagement does not automatically equal high impact. Engagement benchmarks must be assessed alongside reach, content quality, creator credibility and commercial objectives. Comparing TikTok macro creators to Instagram micro creators will almost always result in flawed performance assessments.
Earned Media Value (EMV) is a core KPI in beauty influencer marketing, used by brands to measure the true value of influencer content. EMV combines audience size with real engagement to calculate the estimated monetary value of social media performance, making influencer impact easier to benchmark, compare, and communicate to senior stakeholders.
Below are WeArisma’s 2025 US Beauty earned media value benchmarks by influencer tier:
EMV Benchmarks by Influencer Tier (US Beauty, 2025)
While mega and top‑tier creators deliver scale, mid and macro creators consistently outperform on EMV efficiency, delivering strong value at a lower cost base and higher perceived authenticity.
Leading brands increasingly move beyond standard EMV by adopting custom metrics aligned to brand‑specific KPIs, and reporting on interactions/KPIs that matter most to their company.
Custom metrics define what “good” looks like for your brand.
In beauty influencer marketing, performance is not one-size-fits-all. A brand focused on dermatologist credibility, ingredient education, or retail conversion should not be measured in the same way as a brand optimising for reach or cultural impact.
WeArisma enables beauty brands to define, maintain, and evolve their own performance benchmarks, aligned to the KPIs that matter most to their business.
This includes the ability to:
By moving beyond generic engagement and EMV benchmarks, beauty teams can build a measurement framework that reflects their strategy today, and adapt as objectives, platforms, and leadership expectations evolve.
Want to define what “good” looks like for your beauty brand?
👉 Speak to WeArisma about custom influencer marketing metrics, built around your KPIs, book a call here.
What is a good engagement rate for beauty influencers?
It depends on follower tier. In the US beauty category, nano influencers average 6.64% engagement, while mega influencers average 1.88%.
What is Earned Media Value (EMV) in influencer marketing?
EMV estimates the value of social media exposure by combining audience size and engagement, translating influence into a monetary figure.
Which influencer tier offers the best ROI in beauty marketing?
Mid and macro creators often deliver the strongest EMV efficiency, balancing scale, engagement and authenticity at a lower cost base.
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