Even though almost half of Canadians follow at least one influencer, and many more have bought a product based on an endorsement, they feel like they don’t know much about them or who is paying for content.

This is one of several key findings in Ad Standards’ second survey on the public’s attitude and opinions about influencer marketing, specifically when it comes to trust and brand disclosures, having drafted the guidelines around responsible influencer marketing. It was conducted with insights firm Caddle and polled more than 3,348 Canadians across the country.

The survey found influencers are well-known among the population, with 92% of Canadian having heard of them and 45% following at least one on social media. But while 65% of Canadians find comfort in the fact that influencers must disclose their connections to brands or companies, just over one-third trust that influencers are aware of this requirement.

Awareness among the general public of disclosure guidelines are also low. Roughly 40% know “a fair amount” about the difference between sponsored and non-sponsored content. This is despite the belief held by almost half of Canadians that more than 50% of influencers’ posts are paid or sponsored content.

As has been seen in other surveys, trust is low among Canadians when it comes to influencer recommendations. Though more than half of Canadians say they’re at least somewhat trusting of influencer recommendations, only 13% trust them a lot or completely – a figure that has declined by five points since 2021.

In spite of that shaky trust, almost three quarters (73%) of Canadians who learn about new products from influencers have purchased one based on a recommendation, and conversion rates are comparable among the Gen Z, Millennial and Gen X cohorts. Further, more than a third (35.7%) of Canadians are influenced to buy a recommended product at least once per month, with Instagram leading all platforms as the most effective at driving that conversion, as almost two thirds (59.9%) of Canadians said they saw the post that drove them to buy a product on that platform.

The Millennial and Gen Z cohorts, who have grown up with social media platforms playing a considerable role in their lives, are more likely to consume influencer content. Gen Z consumers in particular are almost twice as likely as Gen X users to follow an influencer (73% versus 43%), and they are the most likely among Canadian generations to join live events hosted by influencers on social media.

Further, one half of Gen Z and Millennial Canadians are interested in learning about new products from influencers – a statistically significant difference over Canadians as a whole, one third of whom said they were interested.