The Convergence of Retail Media and Influencer Marketing
Retail media and influencer marketing are colliding, and the money behind both is what makes the convergence matter. In this Influencer Strategists session, host Gordon Glenister sits down with Pierre Cassuto, Global CMO of Humanz, Pieter Groenewald, co-founder of Adlynx, and influencer marketing expert Daria Belova to map where the two disciplines meet. Retail data tells brands who the customer is and what they buy; creators supply the trust and content that turn that data into action. The panel digs into closed-loop measurement and its limits, why campaign thinking breaks in an always-on world, the value of everyday shoppers as authentic voices, and how to feed creator content into paid and retail media. The figures below frame the scale of the opportunity.
Key highlights
Global retail media spend stands at 183.2 billion dollars, with 45 billion dollars in the UK in digital alone, setting the scale of the market influencer marketing is converging with.
86% of marketers plan to partner with influencers in 2026, 38% of Americans have made a purchase based on influencer content in the past year, and creator spend is expected to reach 33 billion dollars.
The 95/5 principle reframes measurement: only about 5% of consumers are in-market and ready to buy now, so a campaign should expect to see roughly 5% of its results immediately and engage the other 95% for future buying cycles.
Pierre Cassuto warns that most brands have an operating system problem, not a creator problem, running campaign to campaign instead of an always-on growth engine, since results today often come from content posted six months or even two years ago.
A DTC beauty brand, First Aid Beauty, saw a flat, break-even ROAS on its TikTok shop, but the data missed that consumers discovered the product on TikTok, then closed the app and bought it via their Amazon Prime account.
Zara's 2018 South Africa e-commerce launch skipped the celebrity playbook and invited very small, nano and micro creators to a VIP online experience, sparking a wider conversation about why a major brand chose smaller voices.
Pieter Groenewald's customer-influencer model activates hundreds to thousands of real shoppers to buy a product in-store and post about it, cutting out sampling and mystery-shopper budgets while delivering 100% authenticity at scale.
Retail media networks are hungry for content and now deploy creator assets across three layers: as a first distribution channel, through retargeting, and on e-commerce product pages where shoppers see the creator explain the product before adding to cart.
Swapping brand assets for creator content in paid media typically lowers cost per acquisition and lifts conversion, and Pierre advises throwing as much approved content as possible at the ads manager and letting the AI optimize rather than pre-picking winners.
Daria Belova cites a YouTube finding that the majority of Gen Z identify as creators, making the ultimate brand goal getting mentioned, shown, and shared within that shopper-generated content.