Do people trust a nano-influencer more than an advertisement?

By Tom Bogaert · Reviewed on
Part of: Creator marketing
92% of consumers trust a nano-influencer more than traditional advertising archive.com, sectoranalyse nano-influencer performance, 2025

Yes, and by a wide margin: 92% of consumers trust a nano-influencer's recommendation more than traditional advertising, according to a 2025 sector analysis by archive.com. The figure is less useful than it looks, though, because it isn't a property you can buy.

The trust sits in the person, not in the format. Someone with two thousand followers built that credit by posting ordinary things for years, for people who know them from the club or the start line. The moment that same person promotes something they don't use, the very thing you approached them for disappears. Trust isn't a channel you rent, it's a balance that's gone the moment you draw on it.

What it doesn't mean is that you should hide the commercial arrangement. A properly labelled collaboration doesn't damage that trust; pretending there is no arrangement does. Barter content should be labelled just as clearly, and it costs no credibility.

In practice this mostly steers our selection. We'd rather ask someone who already uses the brand whether it fits than someone who is big enough and willing to say so.

Sources

  1. archive.com, sectoranalyse nano-influencer performance

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