Influencer marketing has reached a critical juncture in 2025, with measurement challenges now representing the primary threat to continued budget growth, according to a new report from EMARKETER. As U.S. brands are expected to spend $10.52 billion on sponsored content this year, marketers face increasing pressure to demonstrate measurable business outcomes from their creator partnerships.
As the analysts note, the days when marketers struggled to secure an adequate budget for influencer marketing are over. Instead, the focus has shifted to proving return on investment, with 32% of brand marketers worldwide citing “measuring creator performance” as their top roadblock to program success, according to October 2024 data from CreatorIQ.
“Measuring ROI more effectively” topped the list of influencer marketing priorities among U.S. marketers in EMARKETER’s January 2025 survey with Spotter, cited by 31.7% of respondents. This shift reflects both C-suite expectations and economic pressures.
“The C-Suite now holds influencer marketing to the same standards as performance media,” the report states. “As spending has increased, CFOs are demanding more clarity over how their influencer investments are performing, especially when compared with paid search, social, programmatic, and other channels.”
Multiple Metrics Create Measurement Complexity
Brands face significant challenges in establishing consistent measurement frameworks due to the versatility of influencer marketing across the marketing funnel.
According to Q1 2025 data from Sprout Social, 66% of marketers in Australia, the UK, and the US use influencer marketing to drive brand awareness. However, over half also leverage creators to generate audience engagement (59%), build credibility and trust (55%), and drive revenue growth (55%).
This multi-purpose approach creates two core measurement issues. First, there is no single metric that captures the full impact of influencer marketing. U.S. enterprise marketers report using reach (50%), engagement rate (48%), and conversions (46%) as their top three success measures, according to September 2024 data from Linqia.
Second, metrics used to measure success don’t always align with advertisers’ desired outcomes. This misalignment is especially problematic as sales have become the primary goal of influencer marketing campaigns, cited by 35.6% of marketers worldwide in the Influencer Marketing Hub survey.
Cross-Platform Inconsistency
The prevalence of multi-platform campaigns further complicates measurement efforts. While Instagram remains the leading platform (used by 84.5% of U.S. companies for influencer marketing in 2025), significant portions of marketers also activate on TikTok (61.2%), Facebook (59.9%), and YouTube (50.2%).
This creates additional measurement hurdles, as metrics aren’t standardized across platforms. For example, YouTube recently updated its Shorts view count methodology to align with Meta’s Reels, but TikTok maintains a different approach by excluding replays from view counts.
The report also notes that “platforms can overreport or overstate metrics,” citing both intentional inflation and vague definitions that artificially boost figures. Similarly, agencies and tech providers often introduce bespoke metrics that lack transparency or comparability.
Limited First-Party Data Access
Despite 74% of U.S. enterprise marketers working with influencers on sponsored content, brands typically lack direct access to back-end metrics unless creators grant specific permissions. This data gap is exacerbated by poor communication, with 85% of U.S. creators reporting they never receive feedback from brands about how their content is evaluated.
Even more concerning, 89% of creators say they possess audience insights that brands fail to leverage, suggesting missed opportunities for optimization and targeting.
Framework for Effective Measurement
To establish a roadmap for brands navigating influencer measurement challenges, EMARKETER consulted with 10 marketing experts from agencies, brands, and trade organizations.
“Influencer marketing strategies must start—and end—with measurement,” the report states. “There’s no silver bullet for measuring influencer marketing, but there are best practices brands can implement to ensure they’re effectively measuring ROI.”
The framework begins with goal-setting as the foundation. “Start with business objectives,” advises one expert interviewed for the report. “Brands must begin by establishing what they want to achieve. This means deciding if they’re looking for upper-, mid-, or lower-funnel objectives (or a mix of all three).”
These initial objectives should directly inform which creators brands select and how campaigns are structured. As one example cited in the report, “a studio dropping a trailer for an upcoming thriller movie might choose to work with younger creators with big audiences on an awareness-driving campaign, hoping they can stir up conversation and excitement about the film. But when the movie comes out, the studio may decide to work with a different set of creators who can help drive ticket sales.”
The experts emphasize that metrics must align with these business objectives rather than defaulting to standard engagement metrics. “A brand launching a product will take a different creator strategy than one looking to align with a cultural moment like Pride,” the report notes, adding that “the approach will vary depending on the objectives, as will measurement tactics.”
For the second pillar of the framework, the experts advocate for a holistic measurement approach that combines diverse metrics. “A healthy measurement strategy involves several metrics,” one expert explained. “Aligning objectives with a variety of quantitative metrics (such as impressions) and more qualitative ones (like brand lift) will help marketers paint a data-driven picture of what’s working.”
This approach requires internal standardization to ensure consistent measurement across teams, agencies, and vendors. “If a brand’s internal teams—as well as external agencies and vendors—aren’t following the same set of metrics and standards, it will be even more difficult to get an accurate read on ROI,” the report cautions. “This is especially true for more subjective metrics like brand sentiment, which are often tallied differently across companies.”
The final component involves bringing creators into the measurement conversation. The experts recommend standardizing creator rates “to make apples-to-apples comparisons over time” and conducting broader analysis of creator partnerships to identify patterns of success.
“Brands should consult creators when establishing their measurement frameworks and measuring campaigns,” states the report. “Their perspective is frequently left out, meaning brands are leaving valuable input on the table about what success looks like and how it should be calculated.”
This collaborative approach can reveal insights that brands might otherwise miss. As one expert concluded, “Keep an open dialogue with influencers and creators. Their perspective is frequently left out, meaning brands are leaving valuable input on the table about what success looks like and how it should be calculated.”
As influencer marketing grows, the report suggests that brands taking a hands-on, strategic approach to measurement will be better positioned to secure additional budget and demonstrate the channel’s full value across the marketing funnel.
The findings come as social commerce is expected to approach $100 billion in U.S. sales by 2026, underscoring the growing importance of creators as conversion engines rather than just awareness drivers.
All images are credited to EMARKETER. The full report is available here.
Influencer marketing has reached a critical juncture in 2025, with measurement challenges now representing the primary threat to continued budget growth, according to a new report from EMARKETER. As U.S. brands are expected to spend $10.52 billion on sponsored content this year, marketers face increasing pressure to demonstrate measurable business outcomes from their creator partnerships.
As the analysts note, the days when marketers struggled to secure an adequate budget for influencer marketing are over. Instead, the focus has shifted to proving return on investment, with 32% of brand marketers worldwide citing “measuring creator performance” as their top roadblock to program success, according to October 2024 data from CreatorIQ.
“Measuring ROI more effectively” topped the list of influencer marketing priorities among U.S. marketers in EMARKETER’s January 2025 survey with Spotter, cited by 31.7% of respondents. This shift reflects both C-suite expectations and economic pressures.
“The C-Suite now holds influencer marketing to the same standards as performance media,” the report states. “As spending has increased, CFOs are demanding more clarity over how their influencer investments are performing, especially when compared with paid search, social, programmatic, and other channels.”
Multiple Metrics Create Measurement Complexity
Brands face significant challenges in establishing consistent measurement frameworks due to the versatility of influencer marketing across the marketing funnel.
According to Q1 2025 data from Sprout Social, 66% of marketers in Australia, the UK, and the US use influencer marketing to drive brand awareness. However, over half also leverage creators to generate audience engagement (59%), build credibility and trust (55%), and drive revenue growth (55%).
This multi-purpose approach creates two core measurement issues. First, there is no single metric that captures the full impact of influencer marketing. U.S. enterprise marketers report using reach (50%), engagement rate (48%), and conversions (46%) as their top three success measures, according to September 2024 data from Linqia.
Second, metrics used to measure success don’t always align with advertisers’ desired outcomes. This misalignment is especially problematic as sales have become the primary goal of influencer marketing campaigns, cited by 35.6% of marketers worldwide in the Influencer Marketing Hub survey.
Cross-Platform Inconsistency
The prevalence of multi-platform campaigns further complicates measurement efforts. While Instagram remains the leading platform (used by 84.5% of U.S. companies for influencer marketing in 2025), significant portions of marketers also activate on TikTok (61.2%), Facebook (59.9%), and YouTube (50.2%).
This creates additional measurement hurdles, as metrics aren’t standardized across platforms. For example, YouTube recently updated its Shorts view count methodology to align with Meta’s Reels, but TikTok maintains a different approach by excluding replays from view counts.
The report also notes that “platforms can overreport or overstate metrics,” citing both intentional inflation and vague definitions that artificially boost figures. Similarly, agencies and tech providers often introduce bespoke metrics that lack transparency or comparability.
Limited First-Party Data Access
Despite 74% of U.S. enterprise marketers working with influencers on sponsored content, brands typically lack direct access to back-end metrics unless creators grant specific permissions. This data gap is exacerbated by poor communication, with 85% of U.S. creators reporting they never receive feedback from brands about how their content is evaluated.
Even more concerning, 89% of creators say they possess audience insights that brands fail to leverage, suggesting missed opportunities for optimization and targeting.
Framework for Effective Measurement
To establish a roadmap for brands navigating influencer measurement challenges, EMARKETER consulted with 10 marketing experts from agencies, brands, and trade organizations.
“Influencer marketing strategies must start—and end—with measurement,” the report states. “There’s no silver bullet for measuring influencer marketing, but there are best practices brands can implement to ensure they’re effectively measuring ROI.”
The framework begins with goal-setting as the foundation. “Start with business objectives,” advises one expert interviewed for the report. “Brands must begin by establishing what they want to achieve. This means deciding if they’re looking for upper-, mid-, or lower-funnel objectives (or a mix of all three).”
These initial objectives should directly inform which creators brands select and how campaigns are structured. As one example cited in the report, “a studio dropping a trailer for an upcoming thriller movie might choose to work with younger creators with big audiences on an awareness-driving campaign, hoping they can stir up conversation and excitement about the film. But when the movie comes out, the studio may decide to work with a different set of creators who can help drive ticket sales.”
The experts emphasize that metrics must align with these business objectives rather than defaulting to standard engagement metrics. “A brand launching a product will take a different creator strategy than one looking to align with a cultural moment like Pride,” the report notes, adding that “the approach will vary depending on the objectives, as will measurement tactics.”
For the second pillar of the framework, the experts advocate for a holistic measurement approach that combines diverse metrics. “A healthy measurement strategy involves several metrics,” one expert explained. “Aligning objectives with a variety of quantitative metrics (such as impressions) and more qualitative ones (like brand lift) will help marketers paint a data-driven picture of what’s working.”
This approach requires internal standardization to ensure consistent measurement across teams, agencies, and vendors. “If a brand’s internal teams—as well as external agencies and vendors—aren’t following the same set of metrics and standards, it will be even more difficult to get an accurate read on ROI,” the report cautions. “This is especially true for more subjective metrics like brand sentiment, which are often tallied differently across companies.”
The final component involves bringing creators into the measurement conversation. The experts recommend standardizing creator rates “to make apples-to-apples comparisons over time” and conducting broader analysis of creator partnerships to identify patterns of success.
“Brands should consult creators when establishing their measurement frameworks and measuring campaigns,” states the report. “Their perspective is frequently left out, meaning brands are leaving valuable input on the table about what success looks like and how it should be calculated.”
This collaborative approach can reveal insights that brands might otherwise miss. As one expert concluded, “Keep an open dialogue with influencers and creators. Their perspective is frequently left out, meaning brands are leaving valuable input on the table about what success looks like and how it should be calculated.”
As influencer marketing grows, the report suggests that brands taking a hands-on, strategic approach to measurement will be better positioned to secure additional budget and demonstrate the channel’s full value across the marketing funnel.
The findings come as social commerce is expected to approach $100 billion in U.S. sales by 2026, underscoring the growing importance of creators as conversion engines rather than just awareness drivers.
All images are credited to EMARKETER.
The full report is available here.