How Influencer Marketing Is Shifting From Reach to Trust

Inside the strategy, mistakes, and mindset shifts reshaping influencer marketing – a conversation with Marianna Grollo, Influencer Marketing Manager at Almedia in an interview by Zorka.Agency.

Influencer marketing has outgrown its reputation as a scroll-and-post side hustle. What began as an experimental line item on the marketing budget is now a market worth somewhere between $32 and $40 billion globally in 2026, depending on whose numbers you trust – up from just $1.7 billion in 2015.

Brands report an average return of roughly $5.78 for every dollar spent, and 86% of U.S. marketers now say influencer partnerships are part of their plan for the year. The channel has, in other words, grown up.

But growth has brought new problems. Follower counts have become easy to buy and easy to fake – industry estimates put the cost of influencer fraud at close to $4.8 billion in wasted marketing spend annually. Audiences, meanwhile, have grown warier of anything that looks like an ad, even as trust in individual creators keeps climbing: recent consumer research puts trust in influencer recommendations at around 67%, and among Gen Z that figure jumps to roughly 94% saying they trust a creator's opinion over a traditional advertisement.

That paradox – rising skepticism of the industry alongside rising trust in individual creators – is exactly the terrain Marianna Grollo has spent her career learning to navigate.

Having worked across health and fitness, beauty, and gaming, Marianna has watched influencer marketing mature from an experimental channel into a strategic growth engine. In this interview, she talks about the lessons that shaped her career, why creator trust matters more than any single metric, and how marketers can thrive as AI reshapes the day-to-day of the job.

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Starting Without Having All the Answers

Marianna's path into influencer marketing began during her master's degree in marketing, when she moved to Berlin for an internship.

"I got my first internship as a Content and Performance Marketing Intern, which was basically influencer marketing. At the same time, I was writing my master's thesis about brand perception and influencer-sponsored content, so it felt like the perfect opportunity to merge theory with actual work experience."

A few months in, her manager left the company, and Marianna unexpectedly stepped into the role.

"I had no idea what I was doing. But honestly, that experience taught me the most. I was trying to figure everything out with the little knowledge I had, and that forced me to learn very quickly."

Since then, she has worked across three very different industries – health and fitness, beauty and cosmetics, and gaming – each with its own pace, structure, and understanding of creator partnerships.

"Beauty and wellness are naturally closer to my personal interests, but gaming challenged me in the best way possible. I'm not a gamer myself, but working in a completely different environment pushed me to grow professionally and think outside my own perspective."

Why the Industry Still Doesn't Get Enough Credit

"I've heard so many times: 'So your job is basically watching YouTube and scrolling Instagram all day?' People don't realize how much strategy, negotiation, creativity, audience psychology, and long-term brand building is involved."

That perception gap is closing, though – and the numbers back her up. The number of specialized influencer marketing agencies and platforms has grown from roughly 190 in 2015 to more than 7,000 today, a sign that what used to be handled by a single social media coordinator now supports an entire services industry. Brands are also increasingly building the function in-house rather than treating it as a bolt-on.

"The industry is becoming much more mature. Companies now understand that influencer marketing can drive both revenue and brand awareness in ways traditional channels sometimes cannot."

As more brands measure creator campaigns against revenue rather than reach alone, influencer marketing teams are gaining visibility at the executive level.

"When you can clearly show the impact on revenue, perception, and growth, people start recognizing that this isn't just social media management – it's a strategic business function."

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AI Won't Replace Influencer Marketers – But It Will Change the Job

Like many marketers today, Marianna sees AI as a tool rather than a threat. Industry surveys suggest her view is now the majority one: roughly six in ten marketers say they're actively using AI for creator identification and campaign optimization, and a similar share report that it has measurably improved campaign outcomes.

She quotes a colleague on the point:

"AI won't replace people, but people who don't use AI will eventually be replaced."

For Marianna, the biggest opportunity is automation of the unglamorous parts of the job.

"There are so many repetitive tasks in marketing – uploading insights, organizing reports, copy-pasting data. AI can save enormous amounts of time there."

But she doesn't believe technology can replace the human side of the work – a view that puts her at odds with the fastest-growing corner of the industry: AI-generated virtual influencers, who now account for a meaningful share of brand spending precisely because they carry zero controversy risk and never have an off day.

"At the end of the day, this is a relationship-based industry. You're working with people, personalities, emotions, trust, timing, communities. That part cannot be automated."

The Biggest Mistake Brands Make

Marianna believes one of the most common mistakes brands make is scaling too aggressively after a successful campaign.

"Companies often think: 'This worked incredibly well – let's scale it everywhere immediately.' And of course scaling matters, but overexposure creates fatigue very quickly."

As audiences are served more and more sponsored content, trust becomes harder to hold onto – which is part of why smaller creators consistently outperform bigger ones on engagement. Nano-influencers now make up the large majority of Instagram's creator base and post engagement rates well above those of macro- and celebrity-tier accounts, largely because their audiences still feel like a genuine community rather than a distribution list.

"The risk of becoming 'just another influencer brand' is very real. That's why long-term creator relationships matter so much."

Instead of relying purely on high-volume partnerships, Marianna believes brands should build around a small group of trusted ambassadors, supported by additional creators for reach. And above everything else, she believes the product itself has to lead the strategy.

"The product has to be genuinely good. If creators truly like something, they'll naturally keep using it even outside paid campaigns. That's the best form of advertising possible."

She points to beauty products as an example:

"If a sunscreen or serum is genuinely great, creators will keep showing it in their everyday content long after the campaign ends. That kind of authentic endorsement is impossible to fake."

The Campaign That Taught Her Creativity Beats Budget

One of Marianna's proudest campaigns happened early in her career. She was working with a creator who consistently delivered strong revenue results – but the creator was already fully booked.

"Everyone wanted her during Black Friday week, so her schedule was completely full."

Instead of giving up on the slot, Marianna proposed launching the campaign a day early.

"We gave her a very strong discount code, but we never framed it as a 'Black Friday campaign.' It looked like a regular promotion."

The result was the creator's highest-revenue campaign of the year.

"Sometimes creativity and timing matter more than simply having the biggest budget."

Why Follower Count Doesn't Guarantee Performance

Not every campaign became a success story. Marianna shared one of her biggest lessons, learned after working with a high-profile creator expected to generate exceptional results.

"Our forecast predicted around 700 sales. The campaign generated seven."

The issue wasn't content quality or audience size – the creator had recently become involved in public online drama that damaged how their audience perceived them.

"That experience taught me how important it is to research not only analytics, but also community sentiment and public perception before investing heavily in a partnership."

It's a mistake the data supports taking seriously: brands that verify audiences with layered fraud checks rather than trusting follower counts alone report dramatically lower exposure to fake engagement, and nearly half of U.S. marketers now say they prioritize authenticity over raw follower numbers when choosing partners.

"People who are new to influencer marketing often chase vanity metrics. They see a huge follower count and immediately assume it guarantees success. But understanding the creator's relationship with their audience is much more important."

Advice for New Influencer Marketers

After 4 years in the industry, Marianna believes success comes down to adaptability and curiosity.

1. Stay curious

"There's always something new to learn – new platforms, trends, creator behavior, audience expectations."

2. Be adaptable

"The industry changes constantly. What worked six months ago may not work today."

3. Don't overanalyze everything

"I remember spending hours trying to find patterns in content performance that ultimately meant nothing. Sometimes you need to step back and focus on what actually matters."

4. Put creators first

"The creator understands their audience better than the brand does. Give them direction, not a script."

Marianna believes overly restrictive briefs often damage campaign performance – a view echoed by creators themselves in industry surveys, where the large majority say product relevance to their audience is the single biggest factor in choosing a brand partner, and most say being treated as a professional creative partner matters as much as pay.

"Explain the product clearly, make sure they understand the key message, and then let them communicate it in their own voice."

5. Know exactly who you are advertising to

"Understanding the audience is the most important part of this industry."

What Success Really Means

For Marianna, success has little to do with titles.

"If I'm miserable every morning, I don't care about the title or the salary."

Instead, she defines it through growth, fulfillment, and trust.

"The biggest definition of success for me is when people come to me asking for my opinion because they genuinely value it."

Being surrounded by motivated, capable people plays a major role too.

"I love environments where everyone pushes each other to grow. That's what makes work exciting."

The Real Power of Influencer Marketing

"It's the channel that combines creativity, data, human connection, and scalable distribution better than any other."

For Marianna, the true strength of the industry lies in trust.

"The fact that people can trust recommendations from someone they've never met is incredibly powerful. Influencer marketing can shape audience perception, behavior, and purchasing decisions through authentic connection."

As the industry matures – and as fraud, fatigue, and AI-generated content all raise the stakes for what counts as "real" – that authenticity is exactly what's becoming harder to fake, and more valuable to earn.

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The Industry, By the Numbers (2026)

$32–40B estimated global influencer marketing market size, up from $1.7B in 2015

$5.78 average revenue generated per $1 spent on influencer campaigns

67% of consumers say they trust influencer recommendations; ~94% of Gen Z trust creators over traditional ads

$4.8B estimated annual marketing spend lost to influencer fraud and fake engagement

86% of U.S. marketers plan to partner with influencers this year

ABOUT THIS INTERVIEW

Interview by Vladimir Petrov, Influencer Marketing Director at Zorka.Agency, with Marianna Grollo, Influencer Marketing Manager at Almedia.

About the Author

Vova Petrov

Writer

Vova Petrov is an Influencer Marketing Director at Zorka.Agency with nearly a decade of experience in digital marketing. With a background in analytics, he specializes in data-driven, performance-oriented influencer campaigns across multiple platforms and verticals.

Advice for New Influencer Marketers

5. Know exactly who you are advertising to

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