Key trends to shape your brand’s Influencer Marketing strategy
With rapidly changing PESTEL factors, Marketing teams have to be prepared to not only survive, but leverage environmental factors and trends. Highly driven by consumer behaviour and technological & socio-cultural trends, Influencer Marketing strategies are no different. Teams need to stay ahead of the curve and adapt to their approaches and tools to stay ahead of the competition and drive real business impact with their campaigns.
In this article, we’re breaking down some of the key influencer marketing trends for 2025 that brands need to be aware of.
1. Podcasts take centre stage
2024 has been a year of massive growth for Podcast influencer marketing, with a 33% YOY increase as of Q3 and 1,438 new brands advertising on the platform for the first time in Q3 alone.1
And this growth is driven by solid reason – reports suggest that Podcasts are amongst the mediums where consumers are not only more accepting of ads, but also more receptive to them.2
Naturally, this is also driven by key consumer behaviours and Podcasts are increasingly gaining more popularity.
Even major media platforms like YouTube and Spotify are pivoting their core updates to encourage more podcast content creation and growth.34
On the brand side, Podcasts as a platform not only allow for comprehensive click free tracking and attribution, but also have niche and engaged audiences who are typically older than consumers on platforms like Instagram and TikTok, implying greater disposable incomes and purchasing potential.
With marketing budgets getting tighter, where marketers spend their money is becoming more crucial than ever, and Podcasts present a prime opportunity for Branding and Performance impact.
2. Community is King
Consumer-centricity is now at the heart of brand loyalty.
In an age where consumers are becoming more aware of the inner workings of Influencer Marketing and the creator economy, strategies like Influencer retreats and gifting do not carry as much of a positive impact from a perspective of building a strong brand image.
Whilst whisking influencers off to a fancy retreat and having them record and share this with their followers may have been a good strategy for brand awareness in the past. But today, the idea of ‘gifting’ products and experiences to those who can afford it anyway, i.e, influencers, can have a negative impact on the brand and isolate customers.
Rather, giveaways and experiences gifted to ordinary people make a far greater impact, conveying the brand’s care for its customers and dedication to elevating their lives. Particularly when these experiences or products allow consumers to feel a part of a community, the impact on loyalty and even revenue can be profound.
In fact, 88% consumers are more motivated when a brand makes them feel involved.5
Additionally, 73.6% of consumers are more likely to purchase more frequently because of a brand community!6
So where do Influencers fit into the community-centric approach?
From rallying their followers to partake in these community experiences to serving as brand ambassadors pulling together and anchoring these community experiences and events, creators are still a key part of the puzzle.
Consumers are willing to share their data with brands in exchange for unique experiences and offers, but are often skeptical or disappointed.7
Owing to their status as trustworthy opinion leaders amongst their followers, influencers can help reduce this skepticism by playing the role of a spokespersons for these brands’ community activations. Brands can not only leverage these influencers’ unique content styles to understand consumers better, but also collaborate with them to craft those personalised experiences their audiences crave.
With influencers at the helm of community activations, Audiences have a bigger incentive to participate, trust the offerings, and are more open to sharing their data with the brand too. This ultimately helps build a positive brand image and reputation, all of which helps establish long-term loyalty and sales impact.
As brands look to build more long-term loyalty and stability, this influencer-led community building will be a key trend to watch in 2025.
3. Performance over pure branding
With consistent changes in political, social, economic, technological, and cultural spheres, the pressure for delivering ROI is increasing.
42% of marketers plan to increase their share of performance marketing in 2025,8 indicating a shifting emphasis on performance marketing over pure branding, meaning more budget will be funneled into channels and strategies that can actually drive these types of results.
Whilst many teams view influencer marketing as a pure brand building tool, it can drive powerful performance results when backed by a data-led methodology and tactics like giveaways, contests, and custom assets.
The shift to a greater performance focus also means that budget allocations will get more scrutiny, not only across channels, but also across platforms in Influencer Marketing.
In fact, data suggests current investments in marketing channels are misaligned with consumer preferences,9 and whilst Instagram and TikTok draw majority investments10, YouTube and Podcasts actually hold more potential for performance outcomes, with the latter also being where consumers happen to be most receptive to ads.
Platforms are already evolving to allow more robust tracking and attribution – as we’ve seen with Instagram’s recent introduction of clickable links in reels. But in general, this shift means teams that can master strategic platform and creator selection and demonstrate comprehensive campaign analysis & measurement capabilities, as well as reliable attribution models will have an upper hand.
4. Creative integrations win
‘Authenticity’ has long been a defining factor of the best influencer integrations.
But today, brand-Influencer partnerships are easily distinguishable, with most consumers aware of the paid partnerships underlying influencer brand recommendations.
And while consumers are aware their favourite creators need to earn a living to be able to continue producing the content they enjoy, consumer ad fatigue is a massive risk in today’s ad-saturated environment. Even if tolerance wavers, seeing peaks and dips with changing content types, generations, and consumption costs, consumer trust is at an all time low.11 This means that the standard for influencer-brand collaborations has evolved and elevated – there are multiple hurdles marketers need to overcome and drive attention, trust, AND action.
To begin with, there needs to be a good influencer-brand fit. Brands, products and services promoted by influencers to their audiences need to be relevant not only to their interests, but also to their values.
But simply finding the right influencers and ensuring the influencer-brand fit is not enough. What’s also key is the WAY in which the brand is introduced by the influencer to the audience.
This needs to be entertaining and engaging – a boring integration offers no real value to the audience or the brand, while a ‘believable’ narrative is not enough to display authenticity or make a memorable impact.
The audience needs to be given a strong reason to first and foremost, not skip past the influencer ad and actually pay attention. Second, they need a strong incentive to actually take action.
We’re now seeing changing receptiveness because of the ad saturation, not only in digital mediums, but within influencer channels as well. And while influencer marketing will remain a powerful channel and critical to building and sustaining loyal customers, it’s clear that influencer integrations that can actually entertain audiences and are a seamless fit with the typical themes & style of the creator’s unsponsored content will be the ones that will create the most significant impact.
What do these key influencer marketing trends mean for marketers?
From a bigger role for podcasts and community to a greater focus on data-led strategy and impactful creatives, the Influencer Marketing trends for 2025 suggest there are several steps marketers can take to level up their influencer marketing strategies for 2025.
- Integrate more data-rich influencer marketing tools to the portfolio to ensure a strategic approach
- Invest in growing performance-friendly platforms like Podcasts and Simulcasts
- Integrate tactics like gift codes, coupons, giveaways, contests, custom assets, etc. as additional purchase incentives to scale performance impact
- Focus on strong creator-brand alignments and collaborative ideation with creators to ensure seamless, impactful and entertaining integrations
- Form strategic partnerships with Agencies with rich databases & tools and comprehensive tracking & attribution knowledge to inform your strategy & approach
- Focus on comprehensive data-gathering & analysis to build reliable, scalable influencer programs
Ultimately, Influencer Marketing still holds massive potential for brands to drive both awareness and performance impact and brands that adapt to these trends will be the ones that can tap into the true potential of the medium.
Looking for that data-led partner to help you stay on top of these influencer marketing trends? Book a discovery call with our team today to discover how a partnership can level-up your influencer strategy!
- Quarterly benchmark report | Magellan AI — Podcast advertising analytics ↩︎
- The Ad Bargain – Sounds Profitable ↩︎
- 2024 end of year trends on YouTube ↩︎
- Our Wrapped for Creators Experience Toasts 2024 Podcast Listening — Spotify ↩︎
- Combat Consumer Trade Downs And Dupes: How To Use Brand Community ↩︎
- Big List of Community Powered Marketing Stats – TINT ↩︎
- https://www.tintup.com/blog/big-list-of-community-powered-marketing-stats/#:~:text=91.3%25%20of%20consumers,anything%20with%20it. ↩︎
- https://ebiquity.com/news-insights/research/2025-media-budgets-survey/ ↩︎
- https://www.kantar.com/north-america/campaigns/media-reactions-us#download ↩︎
- U.S. influencer marketing spend by platform 2023-2024 | Statista ↩︎
- Forrester: Online ad tolerance rises while trust remains low | Marketing Dive ↩︎