Tom Goodwin: I was wrong about influencers. Here’s what I’ve learned about working with them.

It’s actually significantly easier to say what’s going to happen than when, and we routinely think everything changes far, far, far faster than it really does.

It’s human nature: we’re wired to obsess over anything that moves, because what moves can kill us.

I thought self-checkout was absurd. I thought everyone would’ve given up on Facebook by now. I thought people would use the internet to become less ignorant. But more boringly, I thought influencer marketing was a road to nowhere.

It always seemed obvious to me that the moment it became clear you’d paid someone to promote something, the whole genre of cheaply made, badly framed “content” shared with a plethora of largely fake bot-farm clickers would seem expensive.

Well, it turns out I was wrong – for a few reasons.

First, ads don’t have to look nice. What I may call shit, others call authentic.

Second, it works. Audiences really love this stuff – or they know it’s all pay-to-play and don’t care, or they’ve been tricked. Either way, in many (but by no means all) categories, especially visual and trivial ones, influencer marketing really works.

Third, and most telling: clients are lost on where to spend money.

Your average client today faces something like Brewster’s Millions, where the goal is desperately trying to spend the media budget, knowing it’s not that easy. TV and radio are dead, digital is fraud or feeding a duopoly, print is more dead, outdoor has no reach. Where else is the money going to go if not to influencers and their halo LED lights? The money has to go somewhere.

So much so that I make a slightly embarrassing amount of money being an influencer myself, cranking out cringeworthy promo material that surely seems sarcastic if not under duress.

Now that I’ve spent about 12 years on both sides of the transaction, I thought I’d offer some tips.

It all seems a bit mysterious, but clients are actually buying one of three things. Which one they buy should drastically impact how they measure success, how they choose the person, and how they build the strategy.

I like to think of it in terms of the three C’s:

Content. Some people think they’re buying content. They see the influencer as a cheap way to produce effective advertising or marketing. The value is in what the person makes – either because they’re proficient or wildly creative and deliver standout work. Content is the most commoditized, easiest to fake, and often measured poorly. It’s the lowest-value play long-term. 

Community. Others think they’re buying access to an audience. It’s advertising as a media play, not as content. The hope is that the person has enough real distribution that anything they post reaches a lot of genuine people at a sensible price – and those people are a good target. Community adds targeting and loyalty, therefore better for mid-funnel or retention. Fake engagement, bots, or mismatched audiences waste spend.

Credibility. For me, the value has always been about credibility. It’s the idea that the person is effectively endorsing what you make. The campaign’s worth doesn’t come from distribution or creation, but from the signaling that this person was willing to work with you. That signaling can take forms:

• They’re a tastemaker with authority, and people believe they only get behind stuff they deem good.
• They’re clearly famous (and expensive), so associating with them signals you have money to burn, social proof, and confidence in your future. Credibility is the highest-leverage play (signaling, trust transfer, halo effect). It’s the hardest to earn but compounds over time via repeat partnerships. But there's risk of misalignment (scandals, over-endorsing), dilution if they partner with everyone, or perceived inauthenticity if it’s too transactional.

Increasingly, there is a fourth C: Commerce.

Slowly but surely — and far more slowly than most predicted—social media is becoming social selling. Many brands in 2026 are increasingly buying direct performance, especially through affiliate links, shoppable posts, TikTok Shop integrations, or trackable sales.

So next time you’re allocating influencer budget, ask yourself one question first: Are we buying junk content, rented reach, borrowed trust… or actual revenue? The honest answer changes everything.

You can read more from The Drum's Predictions event here.