Welcome to 2026, the year of the horse, the World Cup, and Reputation (Taylor’s Version). That last one might just be my delusion.

Before we really dig into the new year, I think we need an “establishing moment”.

I picked up that phrase from an American tourist in London last year. Her family had just exited the Natural History Museum. One kid crying, one hanging off her shoulder, one yapping about dinosaurs. 

She calmly put the one child down and said, “Okay. We need to have an establishing moment.”

I haven’t stopped thinking about it since. 

From what I could tell, an establishing moment is a pause. A look around. A shared understanding of where the f*ck you are before deciding what to do next.

Consider this our establishing moment for influencer marketing as we head into 2026. 

We are here #1: Influencer marketing is huge now

The first major sign that influencer marketing shows no signs of slowing down was when incoming CEO Fernando Fernandez announced he was increasing Unilever’s investment in influencer marketing from approximately 30% to 50% of the company’s total ad spend.

Is that just one loud lone wolf? 

Nope. The global influencer marketing market has more than tripled since 2020, according to Statista. We’re talking roughly $33 billion worldwide. That doesn’t happen to things marketers are casually testing.

In the U.S., the size of influencer marketing is even more apparent. The Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) reported that creator ad spend is growing about 4 times faster than the rest of the media industry. 

Almost half of brands now see creator marketing as a must-have, right up there with social and paid search when budgets get decided.

I don’t want to toot your own horn. But you’re in the right business. 

We are here #2: Influencer marketing salaries are a black box

The budgets might be getting bigger, but does it feel like your role is streeetching? 

Influencer marketers are now responsible for strategy, execution, creative direction, measurement, cross-team coordination, and often social or community management, in addition to these responsibilities. 

And yet, it’s unclear whether compensation has caught up. 

Most people I speak to are unsure whether they're paid fairly. They’re unsure what peers in similar roles earn. They don't know how title, scope, company size, or team structure should affect salary.

That's why we're running the first State of Influencer Marketing Careers Survey. We're asking about pay, workload, team size, reporting lines, benefits, and whether compensation actually reflects responsibility. 

👉 Take the survey now 

The survey closes January 31, 2026. Five minutes now = answers you've been wondering about for years!

We are here #3: The way we run influencer marketing is still messy

Let’s take a hard left from money and look at the day-to-day work of influencer marketing. Data from CreatorIQ and the IAB shows that the main challenges brands face now are executional.

The marketers we meet at Modash tell us the same thing.

• Finding the right creators is consistently ranked as one of the biggest pain points.

• Vetting those creators takes time. Making sure they’re a good brand fit, have a real audience, and won’t cause problems later isn’t simple, especially when you’re working across dozens or hundreds of creators.

• Scaling makes everything harder. Managing relationships. Contracts. Approvals. Invoices. Back and forth. Tools that don’t quite talk to each other.

• And measurement rarely helps. Performance data lives across platforms, formats, and dashboards, which means a lot of manual work just to understand what happened, let alone compare campaigns or report with confidence.

While influencer marketing has grown in size and importance, its operational side remains a mess.

This is why Modash exists.

The goal has always been to make the operational side of influencer marketing easier. Creator discovery, vetting, relationship management, and the day-to-day work that tends to break first when programs start to scale.

We’ve already solved parts of this, and we’re making it even better in 2026.

We are here #4: Creators are brand builders

Research is finally catching up with what many of us have suspected for a while. Creator campaigns deliver some of the strongest long-term results of any marketing channel.

Creators don’t just drive immediate sales. Over time, they shape brand awareness, preference, and memory. The kind of effects that stick around long after a campaign ends.

But we’re still judging creator success through a short-term lens. How many sales did this creator drive? Which code performed best?

The problem is that those metrics only tell part of the story. When we only optimise for short-term performance, we miss the longer-term payoff. The one that shows up later, when people already recognise your brand, trust it, and convert more easily across other channels.

Creators do that kind of work well. They help build familiarity and meaning at scale.

Influencer marketing works best when it’s allowed to do both jobs: contribute to sales in the short term and build brand strength over time.

See you in the next issue!
Eleni Zoe xx
Brand @ Modash

P.S. Don’t forget to take our survey and share it with your influencer marketer friends. The more data we collect, the better we’ll understand what your work is actually worth.

📌A NOTE ABOUT WHAT YOU JUST READ

The tips in this newsletter might not be right for your specific case. Use good judgment when deciding whether to take advice from the internet—even mine. My team and I survey & interview influencer marketers whose advice and observations come from their direct experience. ROI is designed to help you connect the dots and be inspired or challenged to think about your influencer marketing in a new way.