TL;DR
Influencer marketing has achieved mainstream adoption, with 86% of brands integrating it into paid media strategy and 82% planning budget increases in 2026.
The measurement gap is the primary barrier to even larger investments, with 57% of marketers struggling to accurately track ROI and half of Western European marketers citing measurement as their greatest challenge.
Solving attribution challenges will unlock massive growth potential as the US creator economy races toward $40 billion in 2026, nearly doubling from $20.64 billion in 2025.
Brands investing in sophisticated measurement infrastructure now will gain competitive advantages in campaign optimization, executive buy-in, and partnership selection.
Table of Contents
After years of proving its value as an awareness channel, influencer marketing has secured mainstream status with budgets, executive support, and strategic integration that rival traditional media channels. The US creator economy is projected to nearly double from $12.33 billion in 2023 to $20.64 billion in 2025 to over $40 billion in 2026, with some estimates putting the global creator economy exceeding $230 billion in 2026.
Read our full list of 2026 predictions.
This explosive growth comes with a significant caveat. While 82% of brands plan to increase their influencer marketing budgets in 2026, 57% of marketers still struggle to measure ROI accurately. This represents the single biggest barrier standing between the industry's current success and its next phase of exponential growth.
The opportunity is clear: solve measurement, unlock budgets, accelerate growth. Here's how the industry is getting there.
The mainstream moment has arrived
Let's acknowledge what's already been achieved. Influencer marketing is no longer experimental. It's essential.
Today, 86% of brands have integrated influencer marketing into their paid media strategy. This represents a fundamental shift in how marketing leaders view creator partnerships. Marketing leaders now view creator partnerships as core components of full-funnel marketing strategies, sitting alongside search, social ads, and programmatic display with equal strategic weight.
The budget trajectory tells the same story. In 2024, 33% of US marketers increased their influencer budgets by 25-50%, while 28% increased them by over 50%. Globally, 59% of marketers plan to boost influencer spending, while only 9% intend to reduce it. Even as growth rates moderate to a still-healthy 14.2% in 2025 (down from 17 to 18% in 2023), the trend is unmistakable: influencer marketing has graduated from emerging channel to established discipline.
CMOs are voting with their wallets. US CMOs expect digital marketing budgets to increase by 7.3% in 2025, while traditional advertising faces a 0.3% decline. Globally, 50% of brand leaders plan to cut investments in linear TV, and 60% plan to reduce print advertising in 2025. That capital isn't disappearing. It's being reallocated to digital, creator-driven, and AI-powered formats that deliver measurable engagement and conversion.
The shift is already visible in how brands structure their investments. In 2024, 41% of CMOs invested in branded content, 37% in influencer partnerships, and 33% in user-generated content campaigns. These represent strategic priorities backed by real budget dollars and executive mandate.
Learn more about where creator marketing budgets are moving in 2026.
The measurement gap is holding back even bigger growth
This creates a fundamental tension in how brands approach influencer marketing. They believe in it enough to allocate significant budgets, but not enough to go all-in, primarily because they can't consistently prove what's working.
Half of brand marketers in Western Europe identified accurate measurement of ROI and return on ad spend (ROA) as the greatest challenge in influencer marketing. This reflects a widespread industry reality that extends far beyond Western Europe. Brands are investing based on instinct, peer pressure, and anecdotal success stories rather than hard performance data.
The problem compounds itself. Without reliable attribution, brands struggle to optimize campaigns in real time. They can't confidently identify which creators, content formats, or platforms drive the strongest results. They can't make data-driven decisions about budget allocation across their creator portfolio. Most critically, they can't walk into boardroom budget meetings with the kind of performance metrics that CFOs demand.
This measurement gap creates a ceiling on investment. Marketing leaders know influencer campaigns are working at some level (the engagement metrics and brand lift studies prove it), but they can't quantify performance with the precision required to justify doubling or tripling budgets. The result is conservative growth rather than the explosive expansion the channel deserves based on its effectiveness.
Consider what's at stake. The creator economy is racing toward $40 billion in the US alone by 2026, with global projections exceeding $230 billion. That growth is happening despite measurement limitations, not because they've been solved. Imagine what's possible when brands gain the attribution confidence to fully commit.
Better measurement infrastructure creates a virtuous growth cycle
The encouraging reality is that solving measurement requires adoption, integration, and standardization of technology and best practices that already exist, rather than waiting for breakthrough innovations that have yet to be developed.
Brands that invest in sophisticated measurement infrastructure today will capture disproportionate value tomorrow. Advanced analytics tools enable real-time campaign optimization, helping marketing teams identify top performers quickly and reallocate budget toward what's working. They provide the performance data necessary to secure executive buy-in and unlock larger budgets. They create competitive advantages in partnership selection by revealing which creator attributes (audience demographics, engagement patterns, content styles) correlate with business outcomes.
The impact extends beyond individual campaigns. Better measurement transforms influencer marketing from an art into a science. It enables predictive modeling that helps brands forecast campaign performance before launch. It powers portfolio optimization that balances reach, engagement, and conversion across creator tiers and platforms. It generates the longitudinal data needed to understand how creator partnerships contribute to customer lifetime value, not just immediate conversions.
This creates a virtuous cycle of growth and professionalization. Improved measurement justifies larger budgets, which flow to creator earnings. Higher earnings attract more talent to the industry, expanding creative innovation and campaign possibilities. Innovation drives better performance, which reinforces measurement confidence, accelerating the entire cycle of investment and returns.
Early movers are already seeing results. Brands with robust attribution frameworks report higher confidence in their influencer investments, leading to more aggressive budget expansion and stronger creator relationships. They're using data to move beyond vanity metrics (likes, comments, follower counts) toward business metrics (customer acquisition costs, conversion rates, revenue attribution) that speak the language of executive decision-making.
See what separates influencer marketing leaders from everyone else.
The path forward is clear
The professionalization of influencer marketing hinges on measurement maturity. Brands that treat attribution as a strategic priority rather than a nice-to-have feature will separate themselves from competitors still relying on gut instinct and surface-level metrics.
This means investing in platforms that offer comprehensive tracking across the customer journey. It means establishing clear KPIs that align influencer campaigns with broader business objectives. It means building internal expertise in creator analytics and performance modeling. It means demanding transparency from creator partners and platform providers about what's being measured and how.
The industry has already proven its value. Now it's time to quantify that value with the rigor and precision that unlocks its full potential. As the creator economy accelerates toward $40 billion and beyond, measurement infrastructure serves as the foundation for the next era of growth.
Ready to move beyond guesswork and prove the ROI of your influencer campaigns? Book a call today and discover how Later can help you measure what matters and unlock the full potential of influencer marketing.
Methodology
This article draws from Later's proprietary 2026 Creator Economy Trends Report, based on internal research including surveys of 609 creators and 862 brands (525 qualified), along with supplementary third-party industry data from sources including eMarketer and Statista. Survey data has a margin of error of approximately ±4% for creators and ±4.3% for brands.
