'India’s influencer marketing industry crosses ₹10,000-crore mark'

India’s influencer marketing industry has surpassed ₹10,000 crore in real deployment, reveals a KlugKlug industry analysis.

As per the report, the figure stands in sharp contrast to the popularly quoted estimates of ₹3,000–4,000 crores.

According to the report, only one-quarter of India’s influencer marketing spend moves through visible, organised channels, while the remaining 75% occurs directly between brands and creators.

Talking about the market growth, Kalyan Kumar, Co-Founder & CEO, KlugKlug commented, “Influencer Marketing has fundamentally changed in the era of AI, automation, and precision targeting. What we are witnessing now is not just growth but a structural shift in how commerce, content, and consumer intent converge. Agile brave young brands are taking away market share across consumer categories within months of launch and there's a ton of e-commerce correlated data that underscores the data scienced power of Influencer and Content Marketing. With intelligent influencer marketing platforms, and KlugKlug leading that story, brands finally have visibility into what truly works across the creator landscape. This is a turning point for the industry and it's much larger already ”

Commenting on this, Vaibhav Gupta, Co-Founder & Chief Product Officer, Klug Tech Private Limited, said, “The gap in India’s influencer marketing numbers has existed largely because the industry relied on limited, agency-visible datasets that never reflected the full picture. With this new analysis, we tried to bring much-needed clarity to the industry. This data is not just a correction but the beginning of a transformation in how influencer marketing is measured, understood, and valued in India. Our goal is to enable a more transparent, data-driven foundation for the ecosystem moving forward.”

The report’s findings highlight that thousands of micro and nano creators have become the backbone of digital commerce, and how D2C brands increasingly rely on internal influencer engines deploying upwards of ₹20 crore annually.