Micro-Influencers vs Celebrities: What the Research Says

Nano, Micro, Macro: What the Labels Mean

Creators are usually grouped by how many followers they have. The cut-offs vary from one source to the next. These are the groups used in iQfluence's 2026 benchmarks:

Each study below uses its own groups, so we give the follower numbers each one used.

Engagement: Smaller Accounts Get More

A creator's engagement rate is how many likes and comments their posts get, as a share of their followers. It tends to fall as accounts grow. Across 141.7 million active accounts, iQfluence found these median rates in September 2026:

That's more than three times the median engagement rate on every platform. iQfluence sells influencer analytics, and companies measure engagement in different ways, so only compare figures from the same source.

Sales: More Back for Every Pound

The most detailed evidence on sales we found comes from a 2024 study in the Journal of Marketing. Researchers tracked 1.9 million products sold with the discount codes of 1,698 Instagram creators, who posted for one of Europe's leading direct-to-consumer fashion brands between 2018 and 2021.

These are averages per post. The biggest creators did sell more with each post, about six times as much, but they cost about 18 times as much. The brand's payments weren't in the data, so the researchers estimated creators' fees from industry rates.

Three field tests by the same researchers found the same pattern, including one with UK creators for a beauty brand in 2021, though sales for each follower were much lower in those tests, which used lesser-known brands. They found closeness explains part of the gap: smaller creators’ followers like and comment more, and smaller creators reply more for their size and write more like their followers.

Views: A Bigger Following Buys Less Reach Than You Think

A 2024 study in the Journal of Marketing Research used over 500,000 TikTok videos to work out what extra followers are worth. On average, a creator with 1% more followers got only about 0.1% more views.

There's one exception worth knowing. In challenges where people copy a template video, extra followers kept adding views at the same rate from small accounts to huge ones, so big names were worth paying for there (Wharton summary, 2024).

Trust: Why Smaller Creators Persuade

In experiments with over 700 social media users, published in the Journal of Advertising in 2021, creators with 10,000 to 100,000 followers were as persuasive as accounts with over a million followers, or more so, in every test. They were more persuasive for treats and fun products, and just as persuasive for practical ones, such as kitchen appliances (University of Auckland summary).

Smaller creators tend to know their followers, reply to them and sound like them, so even a labelled ad can feel like a tip from a friend.

Campaigns That Used Everyday Creators

These campaigns* were run by other brands, and their case studies come from the agencies and platforms involved, so they tell the success stories. Treat them as examples rather than proof.

1. 01

   Lucozade: Tradespeople as Sporting Heroes (UK, 2025)

   Lucozade skipped celebrity endorsements. Its "Tradie All Stars" trading cards turned real tradespeople into sporting heroes, and everyone featured was a creator with their own community following. The campaign earned 127 million impressions, 11.2 million video views and a 13.7% rise in brand searches (We Are Social case study), and won silver for micro-influencer campaign at The Drum Awards for Social Media 2025 (The Drum's list of winners).

2. 02

   Holland & Barrett: 100 Micro-Creators for a Launch (UK)

   To launch a Manuka honey range, Holland & Barrett worked with 100 micro-influencers, posting in three bursts around the launch, and reused their posts in paid social ads. The posts reached 950,162 people with 3.2% engagement. Over the four weeks around the launch, Manuka honey sales rose 90% on the year before, as part of a wider launch campaign (Takumi case study).

3. 03

   Pringles: One Open Brief on TikTok (UK, France, Spain and Italy, 2024)

   Pringles invited creators to make their own videos to one brief, and paid to show the best ones as ads. Submissions came in 16.5% above TikTok's benchmark for this kind of campaign, the boosted videos earned 50 million impressions, and ad recall rose 7.2% (TikTok case study, archived copy).

4. 04

   Café Royal: 3,000 Coffee Drinkers (France)

   Café Royal worked with 3,000 unpaid nano and micro influencers, all coffee drinkers already, for two months of tastings at home. Retail data from IRI across 10 retailers showed sales up 3.7% by volume during the campaign, and, by the case study’s own measure, a short-term return of €5.44 for every €1 spent (Territory Influence case study).

When Bigger Names Make Sense

Big accounts still have their place, and not every study agrees with the ones above. A 2022 study in the Journal of Marketing found that, in its data, influencers with more followers were better at turning spending into engagement. A bigger name can be the right call when:

• You need as many people as possible to see one post, fast, such as on a launch day.
• You're running a challenge where people copy a template video, where bigger followings keep paying off in views.
• You want one well-known face to stand for your brand over a long time.

You can mix the two: a few bigger names for reach, and many smaller creators for trust, engagement and sales.

Getting the Most from Smaller Creators

• Work with many at once. One small creator reaches a small audience, but a hundred posting in the same week add up.
• Choose for fit, not follower count: creators whose followers care about what you sell.
• Check that views and followers are real. Small accounts can be padded with fake engagement too.
• Give a clear brief, then let creators say it their way. Their own voice is why people listen.
• Agree the rights to reuse the best videos in your own ads.
• Measure what matters to you, such as sales through discount codes or links, not just likes.

Brief72 is built for this: one brief, and many everyday UK creators posting on TikTok, Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts at the same time. You pay for verified views, you approve every video before it goes live, and once your campaign is paid in full the approved videos are yours to reuse (check that any music in them is cleared for wherever you reuse them). See how Brief72 works for brands.