Do people really buy what influencers recommend?

Bitkom Research surveyed 1,005 people aged 16 and over in Germany by telephone in January 2022, including 599 who use social networks. The press release’s subheading gives 80% for 16- to 29-year-olds, the body text 81%; the table uses the figure from the text. The age groups are Bitkom’s own. The press release does not say if “over 50” includes the over-65s.

Buying is not the most common thing followers do. According to Bitkom, 40% have shared an influencer’s post, 37% have used a discount code, 29% have commented on a post and 27% have bought on a recommendation. The figures overlap: someone who used a code may also be counted among those who bought on a recommendation.

Bitkom gives no separate base for the 27%. The paragraph in the press release opens with followers of influencers, and going by the text, the figures that follow refer to the same group. So the 27% cannot be applied to all social media users.

In January 2022 Bitkom asked which areas the influencers people follow come from. The press release does not state the base explicitly; going by the question, it is respondents who follow influencers. The figures add up to more than 100% because people can follow several areas.

Fashion, home and cosmetics come first, all areas where products are often on screen. Bitkom does not report how often people buy on a recommendation in each area. For choosing your niche, the table shows where the attention is, not where most is sold.

The figures for all ages come from the study report “Digitaler Handel in Deutschland” (digital commerce in Germany), figure 15 on page 25. Bitkom Research surveyed 1,120 internet users aged 16 and over through an online panel in calendar weeks 40 and 41 of 2025. According to the press release, 328 of them had bought through social networks before; the figures refer to them. Respondents could choose several statements.

So in this group, only one person in ten trusts influencers more than traditional product testing, and 29% would like influencer posts to be labelled more clearly as advertising. The figures for 16- to 29-year-olds are not in the study report but in the press release, which gives no separate sample size for that age group. There, the share who trust influencers more is twice as high, and almost 43% want clearer labelling. Bitkom concludes that social networks are seen mainly as a channel for inspiration and advertising.

Both surveys come from Bitkom Research, but they measure different things in different groups. So 27% in 2022 and 10% in 2025 do not show a decline. One figure counts purchases on a recommendation among followers, the other a statement about trust among people who have already bought through social networks. Quote each figure with its year and its base.

Almost everyone knows that influencers earn money from advertising in general. That does not replace a label: the survey measures general awareness and says nothing about a single post being recognisable as advertising. Two thirds think advertising and sponsored products should be labelled as such.

In Germany, among other rules, § 5a(4) UWG (Act against Unfair Competition) makes it unfair not to disclose the commercial purpose of a commercial practice where that purpose is not immediately clear from the circumstances and the failure to disclose it is likely to lead people to a business decision they would not otherwise have taken. In their guidelines on labelling advertising (May 2025), the German media authorities state that affiliate links also have a commercial character that must be made transparent. They recommend an asterisk with an explanation right next to the link. According to the guidelines, each advertising post has to be labelled itself; a blanket note for the whole account is not enough.

What this could mean for your recommendations is our reading, not part of the survey:

• Label advertising at the start of the post, not only at the end of the caption. The media authorities recommend “Werbung” or “Anzeige” (advertisement) as the first word, visible without scrolling or expanding.
• Show how you use the product yourself, for example in your own photos. Only one in ten people who have bought through social networks trusts influencers more than product testing (Bitkom 2025), so anything people can check helps: size, shade, material, how long you have had it.
• Say what you don’t like, or who the product isn’t for. That way your community can decide for itself if it is right for them.
• Show where the product is available and what it costs, so nobody has to go looking. The media authorities count prices, places to buy and affiliate links among the signs of advertising intent, so a label belongs there too.

Once someone decides to buy on your recommendation, they still choose which shop to buy from. When choosing a shop, 65% of online shoppers in Germany say the lowest price is a decisive factor (Bitkom, published November 2022, 1,123 respondents). Paste a product link into your wyrld storefront and wyrld identifies the brand, name and variant, looks for the same item across more than 90,000 partner shops and creates an affiliate link for each offer it finds. You don’t have to join a network yourself for this. Your community sees the offers with prices side by side and buys wherever they like, directly from the shop and at no extra cost.

Depending on the shop, you earn per click, per sale or both, settled at the beginning of the following month by credit note; wyrld is free for creators. The creator terms don’t require exclusivity, so you can use wyrld alongside programmes you already belong to. If you work with an agency, it can maintain your storefront with you from its own dashboard and see the figures. wyrld deducts its commission share from your earnings, and each of you gets a separate credit note.

Your storefront holds products you use yourself and have chosen yourself. For each one you can upload up to five of your own images and hide the shop images, so your community sees your product and not just the catalogue photo. The creators on wyrld mostly cover fashion, beauty and interiors, areas near the top of the Bitkom table. If you recommend products with your wyrld links, you label your posts as advertising; as the creator, you are responsible for this.