Key Takeaways
- Circana’s research shows influencer marketing can be measured against other media channels using sales impact and incrementality, not just engagement metrics.
- The report also found that 75% of brands still have room to scale influencer investment and unlock additional growth.
Small and mid-sized brands often see stronger returns from creator campaigns, according a recent report from Circana LLC.
The Value of Influence report provides a market-backed view of how influencer marketing drives measurable business outcomes and responds to the growing demand from brands, retailers, and media partners for more accountable measurement of influencer activity beyond standard engagement metrics.
Key findings from the report include benchmark influencer return on investment directly against other media channels, highlight distinct category-level strengths, with influencer marketing delivering exceptionally strong performance in the beauty and specialty retail sectors. Most notably, the data reveals that 75% of brands still possess significant headroom to increase their influencer investment and drive additional growth.
Why There is Room to Grow in Influencer Marketing
Brands are investing heavily in influencer marketing, but many still lack a clear understanding of its true business impact, said Yeimy Garcia-Smith, senior vice president of Global Measurement Strategy at Circana.
“Our new research brings a much-needed level of accountability to the space,” said Garcia-Smith. “By connecting creator activity to measurable sales impact across the full market, we are helping clients move beyond engagement metrics to make confident decisions and optimize their media investments.”
What the Report Offers
The report analyzes influencer performance using advanced marketing mix modeling and proprietary retail data, allowing Circana to quantify both the short-term sales impact and the long-term brand contribution of influencer campaigns. By connecting creator activity directly to measurable sales outcomes and full-market performance, Circana enables brands to move beyond engagement metrics and make decisions based on incremental sales and business impact.
These new insights offer significant benefits for marketers seeking to optimize their media allocation. Brands can now measure the incremental sales lift driven by influencer activity and compare that performance directly against traditional media channels.
This capability helps retailers and brands identify where influencer investment is underutilized or over-indexing, allowing them to build more effective creator strategies based on proven business outcomes rather than reach alone.
