How Influential Are the Influencers? It’s Complicated

The influence of influencers when it comes to commerce may be a bit overstated.

In fact, as PYMNTS Intelligence found in a report on the ways social media impacts commerce, though a significant percentage of consumers make some purchasing decisions based on the recommendations, remarks or links provided by influencers, the profile drops markedly when it comes to regularity. Only 1 in 8 consumers listen to these online experts when it comes to being incentivized to make frequent purchases.

And clicking through to the buy button hardly occurs in a vacuum. The data show that 95% of consumers do some other form of research — leading to product reviews and platforms — in tandem with taking the influencers’ opinions into account.

The “Generational Pulse: Just How Influential Are Influencers?” report mined the opinions and shopping habits of roughly 3,200 consumers surveyed at the beginning of 2025. Drilling down a bit, though 56% of consumers make an influencer-recommended purchase at least once, a sliver — at 12% — do so more than six times annually.

Only a minority of consumers indicated that they’d be moved by influencers to purchase goods or services for the first time — only 23% of consumers who made an influencer-recommended purchase in the last year say they are open to doing so based on their first encounter with that influencer. Another 29% say they might purchase after following for less than a month.

So: It takes time to get the trust in place to take those commerce recommendations to heart.  The data show that, relatively to those 23% of consumers mentioned in the paragraph above, older consumers are the most likely to impulsively buy based on first-time encounters. Three in 10 baby boomers say they are open to doing so, trailed only slightly by Gen X, at 27%. The younger generations are seemingly a bit more wary; 20% of younger consumers have stated similar dispositions toward impulse buying based on limited interactions with influencers.

“Influencers appear to have significant sway in averting returns,” as the levels of relative satisfaction with influencer-influenced purchases are notable. We found that 44% of consumers say they return influencer-recommended purchases less often than when other resources have helped determine the transaction.

The more often people turn to influencers the more likely they are to turn to several influencers. PYMNTS Intelligence found that among frequent purchasers, 61% are more likely than occasional ones to rely on multiple influencers as their top source of research. Frequent buyers are also twice as likely to say that consulting family or friends is their most used research method. Call it a form of crowdsourcing, a way to get consensus in the digital age.

One category looms above all others when it comes to an outsized impact from social media and other channels where influences peddle their expertise and opinions. The food and cooking sites and accounts are go-to conduits for knowledge, and ultimately, purchases by consumers.  Among shoppers who have made at least one purchase based on an influencer, 47% trust food and cooking influencers for product recommendations. Moreover, 19% most often make purchases based on these influencers, as they’re inspired and willing to try their own hand at making dinner or drinks or tinkering with recipes.

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