Industry surveyIPA, Oct 2025
Paid social campaigns deliver more volume but have a lower ROI index than influencer campaigns in the short term, according to matched UK results
Channel mix & planning
- Reader Note:
- ROI index benchmark is 100, the all-channel average. UK-only, and the two channels come from two different databanks matched together rather than from one study.
- Evidence:
- Observed behaviour
- Vendor interest:
- Moderate — This comes from a company with a commercial interest in this market, so it is not a neutral source.
- Sample:
- 220 paid influencer campaigns from 144 brands across 36 sectors and 28 markets, covering £133m in spend; sample generally consists of larger brands using marketing mix modelling, and all campaigns had at least some positive influencer result — campaigns where influencer spend produced no result at all are excluded from the databank, so IPA itself says the bottom of its ROI range is significantly under-reported and every ROI index in the report is therefore read as an upper estimate.
Good for
Comparing yourself against a similar segment, and choosing what to test next.
Not for
- Saying that one thing caused another, or predicting what you would get.
- This was measured in one market. It may not hold where you are.
- This is an aggregated or average number that covers very different cases. Real results in a particular segment may differ.
- The source never says when this data was collected. It could be considerably older than the publication date suggests.
- This comes from a company with a commercial interest in this market, so it is not a neutral source.




