The Trust Dividend: Brand Safety as a Performance Strategy for Influencer Marketing in 2026
Brands that treat brand safety as a strategic decision, not a box to check, get better results. This report makes the case with data, European benchmarks, and real-world input from practitioners across the industry.
Only 11% of US influencer marketers rank brand safety as a top success metric. This report explains what the other 89% are missing.
Why download this report?
In the US, 60% of people who follow influencers say they're more likely to remember a brand recommendation from a creator than from a traditional ad. That's a significant opportunity. It also means a significant amount of brand equity sits in someone else's hands.
Yet only 11% of US influencer marketers rank brand safety compliance as their top success metric, and 80% of US consumers say influencers who aren't genuine or transparent destroy trust. Teams are spending an average of 30 minutes vetting a creator before a partnership, covering just 0.01% of their content history.
This report documents what the data shows about the relationship between brand safety, transparency, and campaign performance, and why teams that build these considerations into the selection stage consistently outperform those that address them after the fact.
What you'll find in this report
The data that reframes the stakes The $250 million impact of the Adidas/Ye fallout. The 55% of 18-34 year olds who have stopped buying from a brand over a values clash. The 80% of US consumers who say non-transparent influencers destroy trust. This report connects those numbers to what actually happens inside campaigns.
European compliance and performance benchmarks Kolsquare analyzed thousands of sponsored posts across France, Germany, Spain, Italy, and the UK. The findings challenge a persistent assumption: transparency does not hurt engagement. In several markets, it improves it. In France and Spain, compliant posts lead on both engagement rate and EMV at every creator tier.
A practical framework built around your program's maturity Whether your program manages 10 or 500 creators, the report includes a concrete brand safety checklist and clear benchmarks for moving from risk management to a real competitive advantage.
Practitioner perspectives Integral Ad Science, Surfrider Foundation Europe, World Animal Protection, Marie Jo, Amplify:Good, Intarget: practitioners who navigate these questions daily share their approaches.
approaches.
Download the report to access the full analysis, market-by-market benchmarks, and practical recommendations.
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