Influencer Marketing: Spending, Budgets, Measurement and FTC Disclosure Rules

This report covers brand spending on paid partnerships with social media creators, how marketers plan and measure it, and US disclosure rules. Spending and survey data come from Influencer Marketing Hub, an industry publisher whose annual benchmark survey is free. Policy content comes from the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

Influencer Marketing Hub values the influencer marketing industry at over $32.55 billion globally [1]. A blog summarising Influencer Marketing Hub data puts the figure at $24 billion in 2024 and $1.4 billion in 2014 [5]. That implies growth of about 35.6% from $24 billion to $32.55 billion (freereports.online calculation).

In the 2026 Influencer Marketing Benchmark Report, 87.49% of marketers expect their influencer budgets to increase, and only 5.55% expect a decrease [1]. Of respondents, 72.22% plan increases of more than 50% [3].

Social commerce ranked as the second priority, chosen by 19.33% of respondents [2]. Influencer Marketing Hub reports that 63.8% of brands now partner with creators [4].

Marketers mostly use simple tracking. In the 2026 survey, 45.9% use promo or discount codes, 26% use affiliate links and 25% use native shopping features [1].

Rising creator costs are the top challenge, cited by 35.4% of respondents [2]. Combined with budget constraints (5.28%), economic pressure accounts for 40.68% of reported challenges [2]. Influencer Marketing Hub concludes that pricing, not execution capacity, is the main constraint [2].

In the US, the FTC's Endorsement Guides apply to influencers [6]. Its staff guidance sets out these rules [6]:

• Disclose any financial, employment, personal or family relationship with a brand. Free or discounted products count as financial relationships.
• Place the disclosure with the endorsement so it is hard to miss, not only in a profile, at the end of a post, or behind a 'more' link.
• In videos, put the disclosure in the video itself; in live streams, repeat it periodically.
• Use clear terms such as 'advertisement', 'ad' or 'sponsored'. Avoid vague terms such as 'sp', 'spon' or 'collab'.
• US law applies to posts made from abroad if it is reasonably foreseeable that they will affect US consumers.
• Influencers cannot talk about products they have not tried or make claims the advertiser cannot prove.

The FTC states that making these disclosures is the influencer's own responsibility [6].

Industry size is Influencer Marketing Hub's estimate of global influencer marketing spend in US dollars [1]. The historical values ($1.4 billion in 2014 and $24 billion in 2024) are taken from a third-party blog that cites Influencer Marketing Hub [5]. Secondary sources differ on whether $32.55 billion refers to 2025 or 2026; this report treats it as the value in Influencer Marketing Hub's 2026 report. Survey shares come from Influencer Marketing Hub's 2026 benchmark survey of marketing professionals and reflect stated intentions, not actual spend [2].

The 35.6% growth figure is a freereports.online calculation: $32.55 billion / $24 billion - 1. IAB data on creator ad spend was not reviewed for this edition.