Vendor reportCreatorIQ, 2025

Measurement is brands’ biggest creator marketing roadblock

Performance measurement

Roadblock	Brands (%)
Difficulty measuring influencer performance	26%
Expectation to produce content faster	21%
Navigating AI generated content and/or creators	20%
Difficulty navigating creator vetting, brand fit, or risk mitigation	20%

Top Roadblocks for Brands in Influencer Marketing, Ranked by Share Citing Each

Reader Note:: This table lists the top roadblocks for brands in influencer marketing. “Difficulty measuring influencer performance” ranks first at 26%, followed by expectation to produce content faster at 21%, navigating AI generated content and or creators at 20%, and difficulty navigating creator vetting, brand fit, or risk mitigation at 20%. The figure is about brand-reported roadblocks, not measured operational bottlenecks. The exact brand base is not stated.
Evidence:: Self-reported behaviour
Vendor interest:: High — This comes from a company with a commercial interest in this market, so it is not a neutral source.
Sample:: Survey of 1,723 respondents: 747 brands, 676 agencies, and 300 creators across 17+ industries and 9+ regions, conducted by Sapio Research in July 2025, with additional CreatorIQ research in August 2025.

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A rough sense of size and direction, and deciding what to look at first.

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Exact numbers, or saying that one thing caused another.
This comes from a company with a commercial interest in this market, so it is not a neutral source.
The source says how much it looked at, but not how any of it was chosen.

Platform engagement and real effectiveness only line up in about one out of three creator ads, so most engaging content isn’t what will grow your brand

Most marketers are making or planning changes to performance measurement for the AI web, mainly tracking brand visibility and citations in AI tools

AI's impact on planning and measurement approaches: current/planned changes to performance measurement for the AI web
Change	Share of respondents (%)
Measuring brand visibility/citations in AI tools	48%
Using branded search/direct traffic as proxies	44%
Using 3P AI-driven discovery analysis tools	40%
Monitoring AI platform interactions/referrals	31%
Increasing use of incrementality tests	30%
Using modeled measurement (probabilistic)	30%
Refining fraud detection for legitimate agents	28%
Placing less weight on website traffic	26%
Establishing direct AI-platform partnerships	23%
Using consumer surveys or self-reported data	21%

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Buyers often use Google Search or visit a cited website directly after seeing a brand mentioned in an AI answer

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Fixing your influencer marketing campaign: How to get into the top 10% of advertisers

151

is the long-term ROI index for influencer campaigns in the UK, contributing 6.2% of total sales (excluding campaigns that produced no result)

Marketers are much more likely to track engagement rate than efficiency metrics, with engagement monitored by 91% but EMV per working spend tracked by only 9%

Share of marketers tracking each influencer campaign KPI (%)
KPI	Tracked by (%)
Engagement rate (likes, comments, shares) — How many people interacted	91%
Impressions / reach (How many people saw it)	84%
Click-through rate (How many people clicked)	78%
Sales / revenue attribution (Whether people bought)	72%
Customer acquisition cost (CAC) — What each customer cost	72%

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71% of marketers say proving ROI is their biggest influencer challenge

Top challenges marketers face with influencer marketing (% citing each)
Challenge	Share of marketers citing this challenge (%)
Determining the ROI	71%
The time it takes to run programs	50%
Content quality	48%
Selecting the right creators	46%
Working with less budget	46%
Consistency in influencer rates	35%
Scaling my influencer program	35%
Internal hurdles (leadership support, legal and regulatory)	25%
Brand safety	10%
Choosing the right agencies	8%

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Measurement is brands’ biggest creator marketing roadblock

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