Why influencer marketing remains a challenge despite rising brand investments
As influencer marketing evolves, brands are moving beyond creator discovery to identify what drives meaningful consumer engagement and actions
India’s influencer marketing industry has become one of the fastest-growing segments of digital advertising, with brands allocating larger shares of their marketing budgets to creators than ever before. Yet bigger budgets have not necessarily translated into better outcomes.
Industry experts say many marketers continue to approach influencer campaigns with an outdated advertising mindset, chasing views, follower counts and creator volumes instead of trust, relevance and long-term influence. As influencer marketing matures, the challenge is no longer finding creators but understanding what actually drives consumer action.
One recent example was Flipkart’s Glam Up Fest 2026. While the event successfully brought together thousands of creators under one roof, online conversations quickly shifted away from beauty products and brand discovery towards overcrowding, long queues and event logistics. For many marketers, it became a reminder that scale alone does not guarantee a positive creator or consumer experience.
Influencer marketing is everywhere. But how much are brands really spending?
Bigger budgets do not guarantee better outcomes
While influencer marketing is commonly described as a ₹3,000 crore industry, Kalyan Kumar, Co-Founder and CEO, KlugKlug, believes the actual market is significantly larger. “The industry has been calling this a ₹3,000 crore market, but the reality is closer to ₹10,000 crore, with most of it flowing completely outside organised structures.”
According to KlugKlug’s research, nearly 75 per cent of D2C brands bypass agencies altogether, building creator partnerships directly through Instagram DMs and comments. Several D2C brands now spend over ₹6 crore annually on influencer marketing, while some have crossed ₹20 crore.
Despite these investments, Kumar believes marketers continue optimising campaigns using incomplete audience data. “When intermediaries stack up, only 30 to 50 per cent of budgets actually reach creators.”
KlugKlug’s research further suggests that only 14 per cent of female beauty influencers actually have a majority female audience, exposing a major gap between perceived audience relevance and actual audience composition. Traditional attribution methods, including swipe-ups and link-in-bio clicks, also capture only a fraction of real consumer influence, leaving much of influencer marketing’s impact unmeasured.
Kumar also highlighted the growing importance of credibility, particularly in healthcare and wellness.
“What started as long-form, serious medical conversations on YouTube has quickly moved into short-form, high-frequency content.”
According to KlugKlug, more than 70,000 Instagram creators in India identify themselves as doctors. Including fitness creators pushes that figure beyond 90,000.
“Doctor creators operate at a different standard than typical influencers, and that is precisely what makes their endorsement worth something.”