Influencer Marketing was simple – a far stretch from a fully established marketing channel that is set to reach $600 billion in value by 2030. 

A brand would send a product, a creator would post a photo, a few figures would land in the creator's bank account (ideally), and the collaboration would end there.

But everything changed when the pandemic hit in 2020. 

The pandemic accelerated a major shift to digital channels and online shopping, making influencers a crucial tool for connecting with consumers when traditional marketing was disrupted. Social media became the new entertainment space, news outlet, and storefront, and creators became the bridge between brands and homebound audiences. 

The 2020 pandemic also saw TikTok become the new go-to creator platform. During this year, TikTok launched a $200 million Creator Fund to encourage new talent. From that point onwards, there was a content creator for every brand, no matter how niche. 

Fast forward to 2025, and the landscape looks completely different. For creators, posting online is more than a hobby, and for brands, it’s certainly more than a test and learn exercise. Campaigns are tracked like performance marketing, creators negotiate long-term contracts, and AI tools predict which influencer will generate the highest ROI before the first post goes live.

Yet despite all this progress, many brands are still facing familiar frustrations.

What’s holding brands back? 

According to CreatorIQ’s State of Influence 2026 report, the biggest challenges for brands today include:

1. Difficulty measuring influencer performance (26%)
2. Pressure to produce content faster (21%)
3. Navigating AI-generated content and creators (20%)
4. Vetting creators for brand fit and risk (20%)

These are problems that creativity alone can’t solve; they require technology.

Influencer Marketing's tech transformation 

Technology isn’t replacing the creativity that makes Influencer Marketing so personal. Robust influencer tech tools make manual, repetitive, and time-consuming tasks less of a heavy lift so that your brand and your agency team can put human resources into onboarding calls with creators, hosting and attending experiential events, and developing strategies based on lived experiences. 

Influencer tech tools can support with… 

• Social listening: Social listening helps brands cut through the noise to understand what audiences truly think, feel, and care about. Our consumer insights tool Chime turns those conversations into cultural intelligence, revealing real-time emotions, trends, and opportunities that help brands stay ahead.
• Campaign management: gone are the days of managing data in messy spreadsheets and executing content production via endless emails. Marketers require tech advancements that make campaign management seamless. Our campaign management platform, Chord, enables clients to provide rapid feedback, approvals, and amendments for shortlists, concept and content. This is coupled with real-time notifications so that our campaign teams can react and progress to the next step quickly. Clients get full end-to-end visibility of the progress of the campaign, from initial setup to shortlisting, content production, going live, and reporting – all in one place.
• Applied machine learning: our models forecast campaign outcomes, helping brands allocate budgets to creators most likely to deliver conversions. Our internal strategy tool Composer helps us estimate and benchmark campaign performance within seconds.

How technology improves tracking and measurement in Influencer Marketing

Technology has transformed the way brands understand the impact of influencer activity. Instead of relying on manual reporting or surface-level metrics, advanced tracking tools make measurement far more accurate, timely, and actionable. Automated link tracking, accessible daily analytics dashboards, and platform integrations consolidate data from multiple social channels into one clear view, eliminating inconsistencies and human error.

Machine learning and attribution models go even further, helping brands understand which creators, content styles, and audience segments drive meaningful actions throughout the funnel – not just impressions or likes. Benchmarks and performance forecasting also give marketers a data-backed framework for decision-making, allowing them to monitor campaigns in-flight and optimise quickly.

Ultimately, technology ensures that every piece of influencer content is measured reliably, enabling brands to prove ROI, identify opportunities, and continuously improve the effectiveness of their creator partnerships.

Why brands can’t do it alone

The best influencer campaigns can’t run as a one-person – or even one-team – show. Today’s brands demand a blend of creativity, data science, audience insights, and real-time optimization. That’s where tech-enabled influencer agencies step in as innovation partners and enablers.

Agencies that build their technology in-house hold a unique advantage. Their tools are developed with deep industry knowledge, historic performance data, and a first-hand understanding of brand needs. That means smarter influencer matching, more accurate forecasting, cleaner reporting, and ultimately, campaigns that are both creative and accountable.

The future is tech-enabled

The influencer industry has moved far beyond likes and followers. We’re entering an era of verifiable impact, where data transparency, authenticity checks, and performance insights are the markers of success.

The brands that thrive in 2026 will be those that choose agency partners who can combine human creativity with cutting-edge technology. 

If you want to learn about Digital Voices’ proprietary tech suite and how it can elevate your work, reach out to us at hello@digitalvoices.com.