A study conducted by Youpix, in partnership with Nielsen, reinforced the importance of influencers in the current landscape of the influence marketing market. According to the survey, 43% of consumers remember content creators more than the brand itself in partnerships, whether paid or organic.

The study also highlights how the influence of creators impacts the decision-making process when choosing a product and making a purchase. 52% of consumers feel confident using brands endorsed by influencers. Furthermore, the research "The Effect of Influence on Consumption" shows that 54% of users love to know the products and brands that influencers use.

According to Fabio Gonçalves, director of international talents at Viral Nation and an expert in the influencer marketing industry, consumer trust in influencers comes from the proximity and authenticity that these creators build over time.

"Unlike brands, which often communicate in an institutional manner, influencers speak like friends, sharing real experiences and building genuine connections with their followers. Consumers see influencers as ordinary people who test, approve, and recommend products transparently. This relationship creates identification and credibility, making the creator's recommendation more impactful than traditional advertising," explains.

The professional also says that influencer marketing is not just about product exposure, but about building engaging narratives: "When an influencer integrates a brand into their daily life in a natural and coherent way with their lifestyle, followers perceive this recommendation as trustworthy and relevant to them."

But, ultimately, how can brands ensure that the influencer is trustworthy enough to promote their product? In Fabio's opinion, choosing the right influencer goes far beyond the number of followers. For him, brands need to analyze the creator's genuine engagement, the consistency of their content with the company's values, and, most importantly, the authenticity of their relationship with the audience: "A trustworthy influencer is one who has built a loyal audience based on transparency and the consistency of their recommendations."

Given the influencer's partnership history and data analysis tools are considered essential in the filtering process to choose the ideal content creator: "In our agency, for example, we developed Viral Nation Secure, a tool that analyzes metrics of authenticity, engagement, and brand safety security. With it, brands can identify whether a creator has real followers, whether the audience interacts genuinely, and if there is any reputational risk associated with their image. This type of analysis ensures that campaigns are carried out with influencers who truly have impact and credibility with the audience."

METHODOLOGY

The study was conducted between September 30 and October 7, 2024, with 1,000 respondents from different demographic profiles. Among the participants, 65% are women and 29% men. The complete research is available athttps://www.youpix.com.br/pesquisa-shopper-2025-download.

The exchange of messages between companies and consumers has evolved with the arrival of RCS, which allows more multimedia features that are not supported by SMS, so that these brands can engage more and attract more consumers. This is working in Brazil, according to the report.Messaging Trends 2025carried out annually by Infobip, a global cloud communications platform, which recorded a 371% growth in this technology just last year. Between RCS and other tools such as WhatsApp, Chatbots, SMS, and emails, for example, Media and Entertainment companies increased their use of these resources by 14 times, whether to display advertisements for their brands or to sell a campaign to the client.

The study, which was based on over 530 billion mobile channel interactions on the Infobip platform worldwide, indicated that Brazil is among the countries with the highest growth in message exchanges across all types of platforms in Latin America — with RCS showing the greatest increase. The use of digital channels for customer communication was driven by sectors such as Media and Entertainment, which increased by 14 times, Finance and Fintechs, which grew by 22%, and Telecommunications, with a 76% increase.

Worldwide, the increase in RCS mainly occurred after September 2024, when Apple began supporting the tool with the release of iOS 18. This was a global trend, and thanks to Apple's adoption, there was a 500% increase in global traffic. The tool has proven to be promising for various types of companies, as it is a reliable platform for communication between business and customer, offering multimedia features such as photos and videos, in addition to displaying authenticity to the brand, which makes the consumer more confident in the information they are receiving, explains Caio Borges, Country Manager of Infobip. In Brazil, the RCS for Apple devices is expected to be made available later this year, which should contribute to an even more significant increase in the tool that already experienced a boom in 2024.

Many brands are going beyond simply experimenting with RCS as an additional channel for customers to receive messages or make contact. Now, the tool is being fully integrated into companies' communication strategies. "Finance departments, for example, are seeing the success of making collections through this channel, as the return is more effective and the debt details are better explored with more visual and reliable resources. Media and Entertainment can attract more audiences to platforms by displaying details and images that engage better, just as telecommunications companies sell more, charge better, or interact more effectively," explains Caio.

WhatsApp is also a tool that is only growing in Brazil as a channel for message exchange between customers and companies. Vai de Bus, which sells transportation top-ups in various cities, has created a PIX payment experience via WhatsApp. With this new feature, 98% of passengers chose this payment method, with a 85% conversion rate for payments made through the app.

In addition to the famous messaging app, another emerging technology has been prominent in recent years within conversational commerce: Artificial Intelligence. "Thanks to the improvement of this technology, the challenge is no longer to use it, since many companies have adopted chatbots, for example, but rather to apply it in an integrated way across various communication channels to create a cohesive shopping journey," explains Caio.

With the popularization of RCS, and features of chatbots, AI, and messaging apps like WhatsApp, there is a steady growth in the conversational experiences market. Technology applications are becoming increasingly sophisticated, with companies seeking to incorporate them into all their channels of use. "Having multiple channels available to the customer is already a reality among many brands, but those that stand out the most are precisely the ones that have these channels strategically synchronized to provide continuous, consistent, and high-quality experiences," he concludes.