Sprout Social’s 2026 influencer marketing report found that 66% of consumers made a purchase in the past year directly because of an influencer’s recommendation, and 29% did it ten times or more. Ask the marketers running those campaigns why they invest in influencer marketing, though, and only 24% point to direct sales or conversion; half still call it a brand-awareness play. That’s a real gap between what the channel is proven to do and how it gets funded and measured.
The Next Wave of Influence: AI Influencers, Employee Advocates and the Post-follower Era, Sprout Social, 2026 · n = 2,250 consumers (US/UK/AU, surveyed May 2026); n = 296 marketers (US/UK, surveyed March–April 2026)
What it means
The purchase number breaks down further: 38% of consumers bought something based on an influencer recommendation between one and nine times in the past year, and 29% did it ten or more times; only 33% bought nothing on an influencer’s say-so. Among Gen Z specifically, 81% made at least one such purchase, making influencer content a genuine bottom-of-funnel decision driver for the most-online generation.
Marketers, meanwhile, are still funding and briefing the channel like it’s early-funnel. Half list brand awareness as a top-three reason for running influencer campaigns, 46% list brand trust, and content creation and community engagement each land at 30%. Direct sales/conversion sits near the bottom at 24%, just above product education (24%) and social search (19%).
That gap traces back to how the channel got adopted. Influencer marketing grew up as a reach and brand-lift tactic, and a lot of measurement setups, including vanity metrics and reach or impressions reporting, never caught up to how consumers are actually using it now. Marketers surveyed for the same report say proving ROI is one of their top challenges, and 33% say clear evidence of ROI is the one thing most likely to unlock a bigger budget. That points to the measurement gap, rather than the channel itself, as the real bottleneck.
Why it matters for B2B marketers
If your influencer reporting stops at reach and engagement, you’re under-selling the channel to your own leadership, and likely under-investing in the tracking that would prove otherwise. Put promo codes, UTM-tagged links or post-purchase attribution on influencer campaigns before the next budget cycle, and reframe the pitch around the 66% purchase-influence number instead of impressions. Brands that can show conversion are the ones positioned to capture the next round of budget growth.