How creator partnerships go beyond awareness and conversions to fuel advocacy

“Influence at scale is a movement, not a moment,” said Max Osborne, founder of ThisThat. 

As the industry continues to see results from influencer campaigns, brands and advertisers are increasing investments and expanding their strategies beyond only awareness and conversions to better capitalize on the power of influencers.

From awareness to conversions, brand advocates create a ripple effect

When brands view creator partnerships as a tool for advocacy rather than just for awareness and conversions, they unlock a ripple effect fueling an expansive flywheel of brand champions.

“People buy what others validate,” said Jim Meadows, director of DTC Ventures, YMU. “The real power of influencer marketing is cultural endorsement — it builds brand fluency and relevance in ways traditional advertising struggles to achieve.” 

Part of that challenge is the heavy focus on the funnel’s endpoints. 

“Awareness sits at the top, conversions at the bottom and then advocacy’s almost like a halo affecting every stage,” said Osborne. “The magic of these partnerships is in the mid-funnel — the kernel of influencer marketing’s power and the part of the funnel that’s misunderstood and overlooked.” 

While the mid-funnel has historically been too complicated, expensive and time-consuming to look into, innovations in brand measurement, such as brand lift, have made this part of the funnel easier to access and understand. Along with the rise of influencer marketing, Osborne believes marketing is moving from a personalization era to a community era with influence, not effectiveness, as the currency. So, mastering an understanding of how the mid-funnel unlocks the ripple effect is ever more critical.

“Relevance isn’t top-funnel or bottom-funnel, it’s mid-funnel,” Osborne said. “Favorability isn’t at the top or bottom either, it’s mid-funnel. And if you lift relevance and favorability to drive action, you drive both action and advocacy — fueling impact today, tomorrow and again and again.”

Advocacy builds brand value now and in the future

Many marketers still draw a hard line between short-term performance and long-term brand-building; however, Osborne argues this distinction no longer applies.  

“We’re now in the community era, where effectiveness alone isn’t enough,” he said. “Brands must become movements — and measurement has to evolve to keep pace. That’s how brand-building gains the investment it deserves.” 

He also believes brand equals community, adapting David Brier’s concept of brand to say, “The sum of people you can influence to act is your community, and that community is your brand.”

According to Osborne, consumers won’t rally around a brand unless it aligns with something they believe in — and creators offer an authentic way to forge those connections. Because creators share close bonds with their audiences, they often drive higher trust and engagement —  particularly as consumers gravitate toward influencers who reflect their values.

“Today’s consumers aren’t just buying products, they’re aligning with brands that reflect their values and aspirations,” said Becky Owen, Global Chief Marketing Officer and head of FiveTwoNine, Billion Dollar Boy. “Creators serve as cultural translators, helping brands earn their place in hard-to-reach online communities. They bring credibility, foster emotional connections, and, ultimately, turn audiences into brand advocates.” 

To help brands identify what makes a creator campaign stand out, ThisThat developed its 2025 benchmarks for influencer marketing. These metrics delve beyond simple awareness, consideration and intent, spotlighting the mid-funnel as a powerful driver of brand lift. Among the findings: favorability lift — how positively people feel about a brand after exposure — jumped by 1.49x from 2023 to 2024, while brand recommendations surged by 1.74x in the same period. 

Such results illustrate the importance of investing in influencer marketing, especially as brands embrace a community-first ethos in this new era of building value and loyalty.

Brand lift studies bring everything together

Brands must understand how communities become advocates and what actually drives consumer behavior. To do this, they need a measurement technique such as the one that leading brands and agencies like Meta, GetYourGuide, Influencer and Billion Dollar Boy turn to: brand lift.

Brand lift is a way to measure the true influence of campaigns across the full funnel. This method is based on survey responses from two groups: one exposed to the campaign and one not exposed. The lift is then calculated by comparing the two groups and isolating the campaign’s impact on KPIs such as awareness, relevance, perception shifts, believability, favorability, preference, consideration, action intent and advocacy.

“The beauty of brand lift is you can measure any KPI you need to prove the brilliance of your campaign,” Osborne said. 

To get the most out of a brand lift platform or service provider, brands and marketers should ensure they get the best possible data, insights and access (ease of use, speed and affordability). Ask prospective vendors how they define their exposed audiences to determine how credible their data is — is the test groups’ exposure natural or forced? 

“Measure whether an audience stays engaged with your brand beyond just a single campaign — tracking repeat interactions and purchases as conversion goes beyond immediate sales,” said Ben Jefferies, CEO at Influencer. “Prioritize those deeper metrics and you can see how creator partnerships can truly build trust, credibility and long-term relationships with your audience.” 

On top of this, Elfried Samba, CEO and co-founder at Butterfly 3ffect, highlighted the importance of identifying creators that continue to speak about a brand post-campaign. 

“Measuring influencer marketing goes beyond likes and views — it’s about cultural impact, behavior shifts and brand perception,” Samba said. “Look at community buy-in: Are people engaging naturally, remixing content or referencing the brand beyond the campaign? Track sentiment to see if the partnership feels authentic. Finally, creator equity is key. If influencers continue repping the brand post-campaign, you’ve built something real.” 

Despite brand lift existing for decades, it’s often overlooked in influencer marketing due to complexities, costs and speed. Modern plug-and-play solutions have made brand lift more accessible, enabling fast, easy and more affordable insights into how creator campaigns drive full-funnel success. With the right measurement setup, brands can prove how creators spark a full-funnel impact, driving action and cultivating advocacy. Brand lift serves as a common KPI for comparing influencer marketing against other channels — apples to apples — giving marketers the evidence to justify bigger budgets for smarter marketing investments.

Sponsored by ThisThat