How Influencers Reshape What People Buy — and the Rules Catching Up to Them

A decade ago, brands spent most of their advertising budgets on television and search ads. Today, a growing share goes to people who post on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. The global influencer marketing industry was worth an estimated $32.55 billion in 2025, up from $16.4 billion in 2022, according to Influencer Marketing Hub's benchmark report. In the United States alone, creator-focused ad spend rose from $29.5 billion in 2024 to roughly $37 billion in 2025 — a 26% year-over-year increase, nearly four times the growth rate of the broader media industry — and is forecast to climb further to $44 billion in 2026, the same report states.

Why consumers keep buying what influencers recommend

The purchasing effect is measurable. In a 2025 survey of more than 3,700 U.S. consumers conducted by BBB National Programs with The Benchmarking Company, 58% said they had made a purchase because of an influencer's endorsement, and 35% reported making between four and six such purchases. Yet full confidence in that content remains limited: only 74% of respondents said they trust or somewhat trust influencer content, compared with 87% for general advertising, and just 5% said they trust influencer content completely.

The same report found that transparency, not polish, is what keeps that trust from collapsing further. Seventy percent of respondents said they feel deceived when they discover an undisclosed brand partnership, and 72% said both brands and influencers should be held accountable for advertising transparency. Consumers ranked authentic reviews — including negative ones — and clear disclosure of brand relationships as the strongest trust signals, ahead of production quality or follower counts.

Regulators are no longer just writing guidelines

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission requires influencers to disclose financial, employment, personal or family relationships with a brand, including free or discounted products, according to the agency's official guidance. Disclosures must be placed prominently alongside the endorsement itself, not buried in bios, video descriptions, or behind a 'more' button, and must use plain terms such as ad or sponsored rather than vague abbreviations like sp.

That guidance has moved from paper to enforcement. The FTC obtained a $10 million settlement in July 2024 from CarShield over endorsers who allegedly posed as genuine customers, sued telehealth company NextMed in July 2025 over alleged fake and manipulated reviews, and secured a $1.5 million settlement from Publishing.com in April 2026 after alleging the company failed to disclose incentivized and employee-written testimonials, according to a law firm analysis by Morgan Lewis. In December 2025, FTC staff separately sent warning letters to ten companies over possible violations of the Consumer Review Rule, which the agency said carries civil penalties of up to $53,088 per violation.

Enforcement has also moved into private litigation. Morgan Lewis's analysis notes that an initial 2025 wave of consumer class actions against Celsius, Shein, Revolve, Alo Yoga and Beach Bunny alleged influencers failed to disclose sponsored relationships, arguing consumers paid inflated prices as a result; those cases collectively sought more than $1 billion in combined damages. A separate class action making similar allegations against Gymshark was filed in mid-2026, the analysis notes, without a specified damages amount.

A growing, shifting creator workforce

Behind the spending sits a labor force that keeps expanding. Goldman Sachs research, reported by industry outlet Net Influencer, estimated roughly 67 million content creators worldwide in 2025, projected to grow to 107 million by 2030 — a 10% compound annual growth rate. The research also found that the share of creators working professionally, rather than as amateurs or part-timers, is expected to shrink slightly, from 3.0% in 2025 to 2.5% in 2030, even as the total pool grows, because amateur and part-time creators are driving most of the expansion.

Goldman Sachs' analysis, per the same report, put U.S. influencer marketing spend at about $26 billion in 2023 — roughly one-third of total social digital ad spend at the time — and pointed to platforms shifting away from fixed creator funds toward blended models combining revenue sharing, subscriptions and tipping as a key driver of future growth.

What this means for brands and audiences

The data suggests two trends running in parallel: spending on influencer marketing keeps accelerating faster than digital advertising overall, while consumer trust in that content stays well below trust in traditional ads. The BBB survey found this gap is bridgeable mainly through disclosure — respondents said knowing a post is sponsored does not by itself make them trust an influencer less, but discovering a hidden relationship does lasting damage to credibility.

For regulators, the direction is toward tighter enforcement rather than new voluntary guidance: the FTC's 2023 revision of its Endorsement Guides extended disclosure rules to virtual and AI-generated influencers, and the agency's recent warning letters and settlements show it is treating undisclosed endorsements as an enforceable violation rather than a best-practice suggestion.