The validity of influencer marketing as a loyalty driver is frequently questioned, as the rise of AI and paid promotions has placed credible reviews under increasing pressure.
Consumers are becoming more aware of sponsored recommendations, while AI-generated content risks making authentic opinions harder to identify at scale.
CX leaders should assess whether their marketing partnerships are driving only discovery or also building the transparent, meaningful relationships that encourage customers to return.
In conversation with CX Today, James Moir, CEO of easyfundraising, explained why brands need to look beyond paid endorsements for lasting customer loyalty.
“You can buy clicks, you can buy traffic, but trust has to be earned,” he said.
“As sponsored recommendations proliferate and AI accelerates the volume of marketing content online, attention is becoming easier to purchase while genuine credibility becomes harder to establish.”
The Credibility Squeeze
Influencer, creator and affiliate marketing have remained important tools for helping brands reach new audiences and drive product discovery after the rise of social media.
In fact, Northwestern University’s Medill Spiegel Research Center found that 91% of brands running creator marketing now have an always-on element, while 80% are increasing their creator budgets in 2026.
However, as creator marketing becomes more embedded in the marketing mix, customers are now becoming more aware of paid promotions, meaning brands may need to think more carefully about what these partnerships are delivering.
The research center also found that creators were most associated with brand sentiment and awareness, while brands rated conversion and loyalty as the areas where creator recommendations had the greatest influence.
This reveals a gap for brands using creators to generate visibility and relying on them to build lasting customer relationships.
“I’m not sure I would say it’s the end yet, but I certainly think that we’re experiencing an evolution of the role,” notes Moir.
That evolution is partly being driven by greater scrutiny of sponsored content from real customer reviewers.
As they become more familiar, audiences have more reason to consider whether a recommendation reflects a creator’s genuine opinion or a commercial agreement.
Moir acknowledged:
“Influencer and creative content have played a really important role for brands in terms of discoverability, in terms of reach.”
However, reach does not automatically translate into trust.
As commercial marketing becomes the content majority, individual recommendations can become harder to distinguish.
The credibility challenge is further threatened as AI makes it easier to produce marketing material at scale.
“Oversaturation is absolutely a factor as well. With oversaturation also breeds skepticism,” he said.
For brands, traditional influencer methods aren’t over yet, but longer-term trust depends on whether customers see genuine value in that content.
Where Brand Participation Pays Off
When creator marketing becomes too crowded for customers, communities offer a different way for brands to build credibility around shared interests.
Their influence stems from existing connections, both offline and online, making recommendations feel more relevant than messages delivered through a paid promotion.
Brands need to approach these communities carefully, as treating them as another audience or channel to target can appear manipulative to potential customers, creating unintended distrust.
Creating a relationship in which the community receives something meaningful in return can foster long-term customer trust.
“Word of mouth has always been one of the most powerful forms of marketing, and that absolutely remains the case today,” he explained.
“If it’s purely about this is just another audience, this is just another channel that I’m going to buy access to, and I’m going to push a message to, you immediately start to raise skepticism.”
When customers shop with participating retailers, easyfundraising’s method of generating a donation for a charity or local cause can give participants a chance to actively participate in their neighborhood whilst shopping can drastically improve a brand’s perception.
The commercial activity therefore created a benefit that extended beyond the individual customer, giving people another reason to participate and return.
As AI increases the volume of content available to consumers, Gartner says that brands are entering an era of “trust scarcity,” with community advocacy becoming more important credibility signals.
In fact, its research found that only 60% of UK consumers trusted big brands in 2025, down from 70% in 2021.
“The trusted human element, the trusted human connection, the trusted human recommendation [is what] AI is not going to be able to produce,” he concluded.
For brands, community commerce offers a cheaper route to repeat behavior; however, the challenge is to contribute something that the community genuinely values.
Watch the full interview above with James Moir on how to build long-lasting loyalty.
