Influencer Marketing Spend Nears $12.2B in US as Budgets Climb

The Headline Numbers

Influencer marketing now has a firm place in the advertising budget. It is no longer a side experiment, and the latest round of 2026 data shows that it keeps growing. What the data does not settle is how large the market really is. That depends on who is counting and on what they count.

The most widely cited baseline comes from EMARKETER. It puts US influencer marketing spend at $10.52 billion in 2025, up 15.0% from the year before, following a 23.7% jump in 2024.2 The firm expects growth to edge up to 15.7% in 2026, which works out to roughly $12.17 billion in US spend this year.2 EMARKETER's January outlook carries the same path further, projecting $13.7 billion by 2027.1 Several trackers reproduce this series almost unchanged, so it has become the closest thing the industry has to a reference figure.710

The fresh round of compilations also points to a structural change in how this money is managed. Influencer Marketing Hub data shows 66.3% of brands now run their influencer programs entirely in-house, and only 21.42% use agencies in full or in part.2 That helps explain why the software layer is drawing so much attention.

Budgets Are Rising, at Least in Surveys

Brand surveys point clearly upward. Influencer Marketing Hub's 2026 benchmark found that 87.49% of brands expect their influencer budgets to grow. Within that, 72.22% expect increases of 50% or more, and only 5.55% expect a cut.1415 The same research reports that 85.8% of brands now have a dedicated influencer budget, up from 37% in 2017.2

These figures need context. A projected 15.7% rise in actual US spend2 does not fit neatly beside nearly three-quarters of brands planning increases of 50% or more. The likeliest explanation is that respondents to a benchmark survey lean toward brands already committed to the channel. Survey intent also tends to run ahead of what finance teams approve. The outside forecast deserves more weight than the stated intentions.

The World Federation of Advertisers and Ebiquity offer a more sober view. In their survey of global marketers, a net 58% planned to raise influencer budgets for 2026. That puts influencer marketing behind connected TV at 82%, retail media at 78% and digital video at 68%, but just ahead of paid social at 56%.22 Influencer marketing is a priority, but it is not the top one.

A Measurement Problem

The biggest divergence across the 2026 coverage is in market sizing. For the global influencer marketing market, Influencer Marketing Hub estimates $32.55 billion in 2025. Mordor Intelligence models $31.07 billion for 2025, rising to $40.51 billion in 2026.11 Other compilations put the 2026 range as high as $47.8 billion.12 One analysis even sizes the market at about $24.1 billion for 2026.20

The split is sharper still for the "platform" segment, meaning the software used for creator discovery, campaign management and analytics. HypeAuditor puts that layer at $26.5 billion in 2026 and growing near 20% a year.11 MarketsandMarkets sizes it at just $1.15 billion in 2026, rising to $2.03 billion by 2031 at a 12% compound rate.17 Grand View Research and Fortune Business Insights fall in between, at $34.25 billion and $27.54 billion.15 An estimate that differs by a factor of more than 20 is not really a forecast. It shows that the firms define the category in incompatible ways.

One consultancy draws a useful line here. Influencer Marketing Hub's figure covers platforms, agencies, tools and creator fees together. EMARKETER and Statista track narrower measures of spend.5 Comparing the two directly treats different yardsticks as competing answers. Even the US spend series is not universal. One compiler cites a lower EMARKETER figure of $9.29 billion for 202616, and another claims growth has jumped back to 22.4%9. Neither figure appears in EMARKETER's own published outlook.1

The sensible approach is to rely on EMARKETER's narrow series for year-over-year trends. Mordor- and HypeAuditor-style totals should be read as rough indicators of the wider ecosystem, not as precise figures.

The Wider Creator Economy Is Much Larger

Influencer spend in the narrow sense is the smallest of several connected measures. EMARKETER's broader definition of creator marketing reaches $21.10 billion in US revenue in 2026. Its February 2026 revision cited brands moving creator budgets into retail media and connected TV.2 Another account says the same revision also counted podcasts.3

The Interactive Advertising Bureau goes further. It projects US creator ad spend at $44 billion in 2026, up from $37 billion in 2025, which was itself a 26% increase on 2024.6 The IAB says creator spend is growing about four times faster than the overall US media industry.6 At the top end, Goldman Sachs has projected the creator economy, including platform payouts and other creator income, could reach $480 billion by 2027, up from $250 billion in 2023.11

The gap between $12 billion and $44 billion reflects a change in how the business works. Back in January 2025, EMARKETER noted that its influencer forecast left out paid media, affiliate marketing and channels outside social. It also said brands were increasingly paying to boost creator content, so social ad budgets were likely absorbing influencer money.8 CreatorIQ data backs this up, showing paid amplification of creator content growing 56% year over year to $11.1 billion in 2026.4 More and more, influencer marketing is a type of creative that runs through paid media rather than a separate line item.

The forecasts have also moved. In that same January 2025 analysis, EMARKETER expected 2026 influencer spend growth to slow to 8.4%.8 Its current outlook calls for 15.7%.1 Doubling an outlook within about a year is a strong signal that the channel did better than expected.

How It Fits Into the Social and Digital Ad Market

All of this sits inside a much larger social advertising market, and forecasts there also vary. Statista's Digital Market Outlook projects worldwide social media ad spend of $338.75 billion in 2026, an 18.4% increase. It puts US social ad spend at $126 billion.21 A separate Statista series puts the 2026 figure nearer $317 billion.26 WARC's third-quarter forecast is the most bullish, with social spending up 21.3% to $394.6 billion this year and passing $500 billion by 2028.

Headline forecasts for the overall ad market differ as well. Dentsu expects global advertising to reach about $1.03 trillion in 2026, growing 5.1%, with social growing 11.4%, second only to retail media's 14.1%.24 WARC sees total global ad spend rising 11.9% to $1.34 trillion. It credits digital channels and AI investment, along with the Olympics, the FIFA World Cup and the US midterms. These forecasters measure different things, but they agree on the direction: social is among the fastest-growing channels in every model.

In that context, influencer marketing is fast-growing but still small. One analysis notes it takes just 1.98% of global ad spend.15 EMARKETER's 15.7% growth forecast for US influencer spend is presented as outpacing broader social and digital ad growth.4 That gap matters less now that some trackers put global social ad growth above 18%.21

Platforms and Risks

The platform picture depends on which measure you use. TikTok was the most-chosen platform in brand plans, and it took 66.17% of social-commerce selections through TikTok Shop.14 Yet in dollar terms, Instagram and YouTube each draw over $1 billion more in influencer spend than TikTok.2 EMARKETER reports that YouTube overtook Instagram as the top US influencer-spend platform in 2025, with $3.45 billion forecast for 2026.4

EMARKETER's US outlook also assumes TikTok keeps operating in the US without major disruption, which it has flagged as an explicit caveat.5 Trust is another problem. A Kantar and IZEA study found brand concern about fake influencers rose to 76%, as AI-generated synthetic profiles surged 91% year over year.3

The Takeaway

The data supports a clear conclusion. Influencer marketing in the narrow sense is a maturing channel, growing in the mid-teens. It is no longer the breakout category it was in 2024, when growth topped 23%.2 The more important story is that creator content is moving into paid social, retail media and connected TV, where it is counted as something else. Brands that focus only on the $12 billion figure will underestimate how much of their budget creators already influence. Brands that rely on the largest estimates will overstate it.