Glossary
Influencer marketing
Paying or partnering with individuals who have an engaged social media following to promote a product to their audience.
Influencer marketing is the practice of paying, gifting, or otherwise partnering with individuals who have built a following on social platforms so they promote a product or message to that audience.
Campaigns range from a single sponsored post by a creator with a small, niche following to multi-year deals with widely followed accounts, and are typically evaluated using engagement rate, the follower growth rate driven by the campaign, and Earned Media Value as a proxy for what the exposure would have cost as paid media. This differs from traditional celebrity endorsement in that influencers are chosen for topical relevance and audience trust as much as for broad fame.
Marketers use influencer marketing to reach audiences that ad blockers and skepticism toward brand advertising make harder to reach directly, and it is a major revenue channel within the creator economy. Common pitfalls include paying for reach inflated by bought or bot followers, failing to disclose paid partnerships as required by advertising regulators, and measuring only vanity metrics like follower count instead of actual conversions or share of voice gains.
Last reviewed September 22, 2026