Influencer marketing has become a central part of modern brand growth. What began as a consumer-driven trend has matured into a professional practice, one that spans sectors, budgets and audiences.
In 2025, the global influencer marketing industry is valued at around US $33 billion, continuing double-digit annual growth (Influencer Marketing Hub, 2025). Almost three-quarters of marketers worldwide plan to increase their influencer spend this year (HubSpot, 2025). And it is no longer just B2C: over 40% of European B2B marketers now include creator partnerships in their campaigns (Statista, 2025).
When Avery Schrader, founder of Modash, joined the Winning Friends podcast, he described what happens when brands and creators get it right and what still goes wrong.
For a broader overview of how social media marketing supports global business growth, read Tips on social media marketing for businesses on the e-Residency blog.
“Creators are not Kim Kardashians,” Avery said. “They’re a few hundred million people doing something they really love and finding a way to make a living from it.”
That authenticity is the reason influencer marketing works. When a creator genuinely uses a product or supports a mission, their endorsement feels earned rather than purchased.
For B2B brands, that credibility is particularly valuable. A software founder might follow a developer influencer whose videos explain complex tools in plain language. The endorsement feels like advice from a peer, not an advert.
Trust is becoming the rarest currency in digital marketing, and the one creators trade best.
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Influencer marketing today is less about volume and more about relevance. Micro- and nano-influencers, often with under 10,000 followers, outperform bigger names because they speak their audience’s language and share its references.
Avery noted, “Some of the most effective campaigns I’ve seen come from people you’ve never heard of. They’ve built deep trust in very specific circles.”
That precision is what traditional advertising struggles to replicate. Instead of asking “Who can we reach?”, brands now ask “Who already cares?”. That shift has made influencer marketing one of the few channels where smaller can mean stronger.
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Creators are not simply distribution channels; they are creative partners. They bring humour, formats and storytelling instincts that make content feel alive.
“Every creator has a workflow,” Avery said. “If you understand that and make space for it, you get ideas that wouldn’t survive a corporate brief.”
Creative freedom tends to bring out better work. Trying to control every detail turns them into spokespeople, and audiences notice. The best collaborations leave space for a bit of unpredictability and that’s what keeps the work alive.
Even with modern dashboards, many marketers still struggle to connect influencer activity to business outcomes. “Every consumer brand on Earth wants to do more with creators,” Avery said, “but when it comes to deploy cash, they can’t figure out how to do it effectively.”
The emotional power of creator content rarely fits into conversion metrics. Yet without numbers, even strong campaigns can be dismissed internally.
The best teams now use layered metrics: combining engagement quality and sentiment with trackable conversions, click-throughs and retention. Measurement has improved, but not all industries have caught up.
As a result, the focus is shifting from vanity metrics to meaningful influencer marketing ROI – one of the key trends shaping 2025.
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Follower counts remain the most visible metric, but not the most telling. Inflated or purchased audiences distort results – a problem Avery calls “the illusion of influence.”
“Marketers are bad at spending money on creators,” he said. “Not because they don’t care, but because they don’t have visibility. They don’t know who’s real.”
Brands that judge success by reach alone risk paying for numbers that mean little. Real influence comes from engaged communities and steady interaction, not inflated follower counts.
Platforms change constantly, and a tweak in the feed or a shift in recommendation logic can erase reach overnight.
Brands that depend on one platform risk losing visibility. A better approach is to reuse creator content across websites, newsletters and paid media so it keeps working even when algorithms change.
Disclosure rules across the EU are tightening. All paid collaborations must now be clearly labelled to protect consumers and preserve trust.
For founders marketing across countries, it’s important to understand local advertising rules. These apply to everything from Instagram reels to podcasts and affiliate links, and breaking them can result in fines or loss of trust. Staying transparent keeps you on the right side of the law and shows respect for your audience.
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Avery often comes back to a simple idea: numbers are useful, but they shouldn’t run the show. The best results, he says, come when data and instinct work together.
The next phase of influencer marketing will be about balance: showing results while keeping the work genuine. The strongest brands will treat creators as long-term collaborators, building programmes rather than one-off posts and setting clear expectations for both performance and creative freedom.
“Influencer marketing works best when both sides respect the exchange,” Avery said. “You can’t automate trust.”
The creator economy has never really been about going viral – it’s about building steady, genuine connections between people and brands.
Listen to Avery Schrader on the Winning Friends podcast, where he shares more stories about what makes creator partnerships succeed, how brands can measure impact without losing authenticity, and why the future of influencer marketing depends as much on people as on data.
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